The damage...

[dysan]

Got the engine out of the car today, took off the front cover, chains, etc and pulled the heads. Turns out the exhaust valve head broke off and caused the damage. My best guess is because they were stainless valves, the exhaust valve couldn't handle the heat from the supercharger and it gave way.

My current plan is to purchase a stock shortblock from Art Q on here which only has 32k miles on it...hopefully the cylinders are able to just be honed and kept stock bore. Going to speak with Michael from L&M engines tomorrow to get a rough estimate on building a shortblock using my crank, some new rods and some good coated diamond pistons from them. Get a set of FRPP cnc heads and shoot for 10:1 compression since I'm running on E85.

I also need to speak with Edelbrock to find out how much it will cost me to get the rotors and seals replaced in my supercharger since some small metal made it past my intercooler and I here/feel some interference when turning the blower by hand.

Here's some pictures of the carnage and amazingly enough, if it wasn't .020 overbored already I could probably have just had the cylinders bored and be good to go with new pistons.

EDIT:something seems to be up with photobucket since the pictures are sometimes working and sometimes not.

Plug that told me which cylinder was the culprit..

The seriously busted piston...

The chamber of the affected cylinder on the head..

The amazingly good looking bearing and journal from the hammered cylinder

 

[Mustang30212]

Ouch...

RH

 

[stephen1371]

Wow, sorry about that, at least yuo are building it stronger now

 

[JeremyH]

Yikes, How long did it run like that?

 

[stkjock]

James

Rods are shot?

 

[bigray327]

Wow. Sorry for your troubles. Good luck.

 

[retfr8flyr]

Sorry about the troubles. The rods should still be good and exhaust valves should be Inconel and are the best you can get. Are you unhappy with the current pistons, how bad do the others look? You may get away with just buying a single piston and boring the new block .020 over.


Earl

 

[dysan]

James

Rods are shot?

I think the rods are still good, but for some reason I feel better doing rods and pistons together

Sorry about the troubles. The rods should still be good and exhaust valves should be Inconel and are the best you can get. Are you unhappy with the current pistons, how bad do the others look? You may get away with just buying a single piston and boring the new block .020 over.

Earl

I'm sure I could do that, but I would rather do a stock bore stroker in case something like this happens again, then I have the ability to bore it out to clean it up. I would also like new good coated pistons since I race the crap out of my car. I never knew I would race so much when I originally had the engine built but now I know so I feel better doing everything right.

At times I race the car 4 times in one week so this engine must have had thousands of passes on it so I can't complain on how it held up. Just time to do it a little better this time.

Yikes, How long did it run like that?

Not long...oddly enough other than suddenly sounding deep like an exhaust pipe came loose it didn't make a sound. It happened after a pass right before turning onto the return lane. It kept running and I just babied it back to where I was parked and trailered it home on my friend's trailer.

 

[ChiDiddy]

if you really ran the car hard that many times, i would say you had your moneys worth in that engine. what kind of supercharger did you have on there? Good luck with the new build.

 

[wbt]

That could have been a whole lot worse. GL on the new build!

 

[psfracer]

When did this happen? Weren't you racing just last week? When did the exhaust valve let go during the run?

 

[dysan]

if you really ran the car hard that many times, i would say you had your moneys worth in that engine. what kind of supercharger did you have on there? Good luck with the new build.

Been running the Edelbrock e-force and going between 10-15psi of boost depending on the race I'm running. Had just run some mid 10 second runs 2 days before the breakdown so I'm sure those runs helped to weaken the exhaust valve.

Everything depends on what the re-build is going to cost. I'd love to get started on all of this but I can't go crazy either. If I can do what I would like, I'm pretty sure the car will run 10.5's all day and possibly quicker. I also don't want to break other stuff with the extra power so I may just be able to turn the boost down and keep it where it has been and have lower IAT temps.

When did this happen? Weren't you racing just last week? When did the exhaust valve let go during the run?

It happened on my first time shot Tuesday night after I had crossed the stripe. It was very odd...no crazy noises...just all of a sudden sounded real deep and low on power when I started to give it gas to head back the return lane.

 

[3vstang]

Damn man thats rough. Good luck with the new build.

 

[Wicked One]

That sucks to see. I.dropped an exhaust valve on my motor, but only had maybe 60 easy miles on it and about 6 dyno runs.

At least you were able to have fun. Build it bigger.

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

[toorbeenee]

That sucks man, Good luck with new build,,btw its always better to stay with oem valves

 

[HitandRunDriver]

Fuuuuuu...made me cringe

 

[VTXFrank]

It always amazes me when I see carnage like that to a piston, but then the majority of the rest of the engine looks fine.

Have you drained the oil through cheese cloth yet to see what pieces come out?

 

[dysan]

No cloth used but there was only minimal metal in the oil from what I could see(very very fine particles). Most of the metal was rather big pieces that either went out the exhaust, got pulled up on top of the intercooler of the supercharger or dropped right down into the pan. I have the canton diamond baffled race pan and it looks like the chunks are just sitting in the baffle outside of the pickup tube area which is good. The head of the broken valve is sitting there.

When I get home from work today I will be pulling the oil pump off to inspect it for any issues. I have the Melling billet 10227 pump so I'm hoping it is still good. I'm also going to pull the other rods and pistons out to check the bearings and journals.

 

[VTXFrank]

No cloth used but there was only minimal metal in the oil from what I could see(very very fine particles). Most of the metal was rather big pieces that either went out the exhaust, got pulled up on top of the intercooler of the supercharger or dropped right down into the pan. I have the canton diamond baffled race pan and it looks like the chunks are just sitting in the baffle outside of the pickup tube area which is good. The head of the broken valve is sitting there.

When I get home from work today I will be pulling the oil pump off to inspect it for any issues. I have the Melling billet 10227 pump so I'm hoping it is still good. I'm also going to pull the other rods and pistons out to check the bearings and journals.

Damn brother, sorry that happened to ya. Good thing you know what you're about when it comes to working on these things! Hope you get back up and running quick!

 

[dysan]

Heh...I have never done work like this before so it's a learning experience for me. I'm just lucky to have friends that know about this stuff! It also helps having a local friend with a shop and any possible tool I could need at my disposal and he is a diehard ford guy to boot!