zullo

Thought I'd share my story. Maybe some of you have suggestions, cuz I'm not sure what to do now...

I finished the track season last year smoking badly and with low compression on an 80000 mile motor. I decided to cut no corners and ordered a Pettit motor with an aggressive street port, new housings, hd 3mm seals, etc. and do the swap myself. I also put on a new clutch and flywheel, pulleys, sways, tires, and more.

I worked steadily on it over the winter, maintaining constant contact with Ray at Malloy, ordering every gasket, washer, sensor, and bolt that could possibly need replacement. Every part was thoroughly cleaned and moved to the new motor.

Over the past two weeks I was up most nights til the wee hours finishing up the project so I could take the car on a shakedown cruise from KC to Chicago for the Chicago Auto Show. I finished up the day before departure, and drove the car around quite a bit that day. Ran great.

I took off for Chicago the next day, never boosting, never over 4k rpm. Car purred along for 5+ hours with no problems (side note that amazed me: my intake temps were -10 degrees C with my ASP large IC!)

But then suddenly everything died. I didn't notice any lights or alarms, but I was ******* around with headphones and music at the time...

There is a wire e-clip that holds the oil line to the oil cooler hard pipe that popped off. Probably the most inexpensive part on the entire motor. But... catastrophic loss of oil pressure and apparently, engine disintegration. I repaired it without much trouble, filled it back up with oil, and got it restarted, but it feels like it has a brick in one chamber and made smoke so thick I thought I was going to cause a massive pileup on the highway... my baby sits now in a parking lot in the middle of Illinois, waiting to be trailered home.

If any of you have a guess at what might have happened internally when I lost oil pressure, I'd like to hear it. Do apex seals go??? Is there any chance this motor is not a total loss?

So there goes my track season for 2006, as I've long since burned through my car budget... Stay tuned to the for sale section, as there may soon be a deal on a beautiful track-ready FD that needs nothing but an engine (as far as I know at this point).

Thanks for listening!

audiobot7

Happened to me before after the motor swap, but i wasnt driving. I just let the car idle for a few hours in the garage and it just popped off byself. Luckily nothing happened to my motor and hopefully nothing happened to yours. Good luck.

zullo

Flatbed driver said he saw the oil explosion all over the road... *about 3 miles back*

that's a long ways to run with no oil and hope the engine survived.

dubulup

bearings spin with out oil...metal on metal.

the apex seals, rotors, and housings should be fine. You'll need a rebuild, press in new bearings, and an e-shaft...and probably everything under the front cover. Maybe the turbo(s) are okay...need to be inspected.

I'm sorry to read about your loss.

audiobot7

Mahjik

iTrader: (1)

Damn Kent,

Sorry to hear that as I know you were working hard getting it ready for this year. Bearings aren't too expensive and you can get an older e-shaft to save some money as well as it will already have the thermal pellet eliminated. Throw in some new o-rings and I think the motor will be fine.

Talk to Pettit and tell them what happened. I'm sure they'll help you out the best they can. If you need any help, give me a call.

zullo

Thanks Kyle - it just makes me sick to think about tearing down a brand new Pettit motor, since what I paid for was their experience, build quality and attention to detail... but I'll do what I have to do.

Say, you're not using that shiny motor of yours, are you?

DamonB

I know hindsight is 20/20 but why install a new motor and then the next day drive it 5 hours out of town without shaking it down first? A single afternoon isn't a good test IMO. We all get excited about finishing projects but there was no real reason to go, you just wanted to. Always keep your excitement in check.

I have a personal rule. I never do major work the day before a race event or before a long trip. It's inviting disaster.

axr6

Wow! That is an even sadder story than mine was, when I bought my low mileage car in perfect condition, paid top $$$ last November and blew the motor plus the turbos the very first day I drove it.

I ended up replacing everything myself in my garage which was a pretty good size job. But, was a learning experience. I know that much more about FDs now.

I take it that when the wireclip comes out, the lines separate? I did not know that. I though that the clip was simply a lock feature on a treaded coupling. When I removed my engine I left those couplings intact, taking off the hardpipe and simply bending them out of the way.

I sincerely hope that your damage is as minimal as possible. If you want to check before removing the engine, you may want to send some remaining oil samples to a testing lab and they can tell you if there is excessive amounts of bearing material or anything excessive in it. That should give you an idea of the inside damage.

Good Luck

IRPerformance

iTrader: (41)

You really need to tug on those oil lines to make sure they are properly clipped in. I personally don't like the design.

zullo

I hear ya, Damon, and that is a good rule to follow, but my thought was that the long easy highway cruise would be the perfect shakedown for a new motor, and had planned it that way for months. I had a full complement of tools with me for any "situations" that might arise, but hadn't planned on anything catastrophic.

I think my only real mistake was deciding put on those headphones after listening to every little sound the car made for 5 hours... it was at that instant things blew, and I must have missed the warning alarm thanks to Green Day... otherwise it might not have been a big deal.

zullo

Needless to say, I'm not crazy about it either.

GUITARJUNKIE28

normally you'll need to replace all the bearings and the e-shaft, but if the motor actually stopped by itself, the irons might have been damaged as well. rotor housings also chatter when the apex seals are not lubed.

do you have the tools to crack the motor apart?

dgeesaman

iTrader: (7)

Can you get it cranking enough to run a compression test? I don't think that in 3 miles your oil metering system would have run dry, so maybe you'll get lucky and only need new bearings.

Not that any of this is really lucky. Wow, in fact it's horribly shitty. Hang in there.

Dave

zullo

Hopeful question... if the car is simply in limp mode would it shake violently and cough out huge clouds of dense smoke? Limp mode + turbo bearings? Is there a limp mode when running a PFC?

It is interesting that when it quit, it was like a switch was flipped off. No coughing or sputtering or grinding, just... nothing. I thought it was electrical until I saw the engine bay covered in oil.

bajaman

Oh man....that SUCKS so bad! I am nearing the stage where I am finishing up reinstalling all the stuff on my own new engine and it seems the closer I get to dropping it in the car, the more I start second-guessing myself, so I end up re-going over everything again....just because I don't want to have something happen to my new engine.

I can only imagine (and I hope I only EVER have to imagine it!) what you must be feeling.
I too am so sorry to hear about this....it just sucks beyond belief.

silver93

For what it's worth, and going against what DamonB said - this happened to me 3 months after i installed my engine a few years back. Luckily it let go as I was pulling into the parking lot of a store (when I came back to the car, I saw all the oil under my car).

anyway -sorry to hear about that-

jpandes

Oh man, I am so sorry sorry to hear about your motor dieing. I can only imagine how frustraded and angry you must feel. After all the time, painstaking work and money that you've invested in your car only to have this happen. Man, all I can say is my condolences. I almost feel like a family member or a pet passed away... Good luck.

adam c

iTrader: (2)

Sorry to hear about this. I hate to hear stories of so much time and money invested only to have some sort of failure. I hope you are lucky enough to find that no major damage has occurred.

fd0

iTrader: (8)

Sorry about your loss. I know how it feels too...

I forgot to put the c-clips back into the oil cooler lines and when I fired her up for the first time, it started perfectly but then when I was driving out of the driveway, I could see a HUGE pool of oil coming out. I immediately shut the engine off and found out that the oil cooler lines were separated from the oil cooler.

About 1,000 miles later my car just died on the road and I couldn't get her running again. I think it ran out of oil as well and I'm currently trying to sell her too....so sad...so sad.

Virtual hug.

DamonB

None of us are perfect and we can't foresee every single problem that may come up but we can certainly stack the deck in our favor by maintaining proper perspective. The goal was Chicago, not the work itself. Wrong goal IMO. All the decisions immediately become based on making the trip, rather than remaining objective about the amount of work left and things needing done. Working into the wee hours most nights for two weeks and then driving hundreds of miles the very next day is begging for stuff to go wrong IMO.

I don't intend for this to be a knock on zullo. I feel really sorry for him because he's obviously not a flake. I've been guilty of the same mistake at times and that is why I made rules and will no longer rationalize myself into changing my mind. Often the best decision is really just to put down the tools if you must rush or are already frustrated and tired. Maintain your focus and priorities and don't let unrelated events change them.

Again, not a judgement of zullo but if one week before the auto show I still have an engine scattered around the garage and know I'll have to work late nights to finish it before driving hundreds of miles out of town I would have already told myself the car isn't going, even if I do finish. Once I already know I'm not going I don't have to rush. I'm focused on the car, not the trip.

KaiFD3S

iTrader: (37)

sorry to hear, hopefully the damage is'nt that bad...goodluck...

zullo

Damon, no arguments... you're absolutely correct, and I would obvoiusly do things differently if I could go back and do it again... I just learned my lesson the hard way.

I was meticulous in the assembly (I thought!) but rushed the period of close observation after surgery.

WaLieN

I could not even begin to fathom how miserable that situation must be.

I wish you the best of luck.

IRPerformance

iTrader: (41)

I dont believe the pfc has a limp mode.