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Blown engine. No car for me at the Bash. updated w pics

4K views 36 replies 25 participants last post by  David Cole 
#1 ·
I'll be there. Just no dragster. Grenaded the engine tonight. It's bad.

Made 2 time trials. Everything normal. First round. I ran dead on with a 3. Won the round but the motor let go right at the stripe. I hadn't even lifted yet. Looking through me new "oil pan inspection ports" it looks like the crank broke right behind the #3 main. That, or it pulled the webbing out of the block. I can see the big ends of #3 and #7 rods still attached to chunks of crankshaft.

I think it locked the motor for a split second at 6800 rpm and 140 mph. That broke the bellhousing a full 360° around. Couple of chunks of it are gone.

I just hope that my heads and converter/trans internals are ok. It's clear that the block and rotating assembly are scrap.

Really no complaints though. It was a good engine. Some where in the area of 1200 passes on it. About 130-140 passes since freshened.

I'll post some external pics when I unload the car from the trailer. I won't have time to pull it and do a tear down before the Bash.
 
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#2 ·
David,

Sorry to hear of your misfortune. One other thing to consider is the torque converter. if it saw alot of vibration, could have hurt the converter as well. At least you walked away in one piece. The material things can be replaced. A guy at the track on friday had his throttle hang WFO and he went for a ride in his dragster. Rolled her over at the end of the track. Just a couple bruises and shook up, but over all he was A-OK. Car was broke in several places and all bent up.

Like you said, 1200 passes is good service from the engine.

Good Luck,

Mark
 
#3 ·
FORD FANATIC said:
David,

Sorry to hear of your misfortune. One other thing to consider is the torque converter. if it saw alot of vibration, could have hurt the converter as well. Mark
Thanks.

I will send the converter in for a checkup even if it looks ok.

One thing I AM Ticked off about is the starter at the track. He sent another pair of cars down the track while I was still on it! We race 1/8 mile on a 1/4 mile track. When it blew I slowed down and then got it over close to the wall and stopped about 4-500 ft past the 1/4 mile scoreboards. The oil down wasn't too bad. I was still sitting in the car about 2-3 seconds after stopping when I heard the next pair leave the line. Both cars where dragsters. I pulled the harness release and jumped out of the car and over the wall in about .10 sec. I was jumping up and down and waving my arms to get the other driver's attention. I was lucky the saw me and slowed down quickly after the passed the stripe. Both moved over towards the opposite side of the track.

The starter simply didn't look. It was right around dusk and I had my tailight on. A very BRIGHT LED Tailight.

I will talk to the track operator about this. He's a good guy and very hands on. He was just not there tonight. He runs IHRA Pro-Stock and is racing this weekend at a Nat. Event.
 
#5 ·
I think a lot of drag strips have that problem and they really need a guy who hangs out at the finish line to watch for cars that had some sort of problem or even some part fall off near the end of the track. Running over a starter, fan blade etc with a drag slick could make for a rough ride not to mention running into a car sitting in the track!
 
#9 ·
David , that's not a good thing. I blew one in the traps at Windy about 6 years ago. Had 2 rods to let go ,it stuck one piece in between the block and cam ,breaking the timing chain.Pistons and valves don't go together very good at 6700rpm. Needless to say it broke the cam into 5 smaller versions of a roller cam and bent all but 2 valves ,knocked the top of the block out and bent the dizzy. Saved both valve covers and used the intake again though. Hope yours is not that bad? See you at the bash!!
 
#10 ·
A few pics from the outside.

side



pan rail


Side of the oil pan



Bottom of the pan. Luckily this hole is the the shallow section between the front and rear sumps of the Fox body pan. That kept most of the oil in the pan sumps and off my slicks.



Broken bellhousing. At first look it appears the flexplate is all in one piece and none of the converter lugs are sheared off.



Chunk of bell gone from the right side. One is also missing from the left in the same place.

 
#13 ·
Always a bummer!

But dang 1,200 passes I'd say that was a good crankshaft! Got your moneys worth even though it sucks it had to take out other good parts.

As far as the sending cars down the track after a break down run, we have done that before. We would be paying attention to the starting line cleaning up oil & water spots and never look-up. Because the tree is on a auto start and the lady in the tower is pluging numbers in paying attention to the staging lanes. Majority of times the tower will throw the red lights before we had a chance to notice.
 
#14 ·
Yes, it was a Scat cast steel crank. When it was purchased there were no low cost 4340 forged cranks out there. Scat and Eagle cast and then it jumped up to a billet or Bryant forging.

I had it magnafluxed each time I freshened it. It checked good with no cracks. It was just it's time to go.

I think it lasted like it did because of the tuneup. Slightly rich on the fuel and conservative on the timing made sure there was no detonation.
 
#18 ·
Sorry to hear about incident. Glad to hear you are ok . 1200 passes is alot , I was wondering how much power the engine was making and are you using spray. Just curious because I have a cast eagle crank and should make 700hp but I may add alittle spray later on. thanks royce.
 
#20 ·
That's your normal "oil pan failure". Glad you're ok.
After breaking a cast eagle crank in a mopar SB build, I won't run a cast anything ever again, well unless I absolutely have to because of rules or crank availability. It's worth the extra couple hundred bucks for piece of mind and easier balancing. But if you insist on running cast, even within it's power levels, figure on replacing it every couple years of regular racing. Every year if you're running circle track. Cast crank can't handle a crack at all whereas a forged will run with a crack for miles and miles.
Cheaper in the long run to go forged.
 
#26 ·
Well, a bit of good news tonight. Pulled the heads with the engine still in the car. 2 broken rocker arms and 4 bent valves, but no chamber damage at all. I was pleasantly surprised. All pistons are still intact, at least from the top. #3 and 7# pistons are both at the bottom of the bore. #4 and #8 bent both valves in each. The ex valves in those two are hung open a little. Can't see any evidence of any of the other valves touching a piston.

The rocker arms are Trick flow. It broke both on them in the steel trunnion, not the aluminum body.

I'm happy that my heads are not toast!

If I can get them cleaned up in time I'll bring them with me and hand them off to Charlie for a freshen up/valve job/replace the bent ones.
 
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