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Massive Stage II engine carnage. What do you think caused it? Painful pics inside. :)

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No plugs. Hmmm. Evidenced removed from the scene for the buyers sake. Oh well. I would probably guess that a least one ground electrode was melted back.
 
DonWG said:
No plugs. Hmmm. Evidenced removed from the scene for the buyers sake. Oh well. I would probably guess that a least one ground electrode was melted back.
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This is all i'm going to say on this. I removed the plugs to look at them. It was long before James was talking to me about buying the car. I did not remove them for his "sake".

Scott
 
Quick Turbo V6 said:
This is all i'm going to say on this. I removed the plugs to look at them. It was long before James was talking to me about buying the car. I did not remove them for his "sake".

Scott
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So how did they look? What was the part number?
 
Just asking a reasonable question. What was the make and part number of the plugs that were used? I won't post a comment on the choice if it worries anyone.
I will say that the plugs are a very important part of tuning with alcohol, if not the most important part. And, the most important clue of an engine failure.
 
i can't say what caused it, but that thing needs to be cleaned up, encased in glass, and used as a coffee table..
 
I would have to say that the wrist pin was too tight. Looking at the pin bore of the piston you can see black death on one side. Setting pin clearance too tight on a power adder engine is a VERY common problem with many engine builders. The wrist pin on my Stage 2 number 1 cylinder was so tight that it rotated the bushing in the rod and if I would have made a pass down the track my engine would have looked just like yours. Luck was on my side and when I tore the engine apart to fix the many other problems I found the tight pin. If the big or small end of a rod sticks for even a second the crank will tear it to shreads. A rod is no match for the rotating mass of a crank. I have pushed "cheap import" H-beam rods (which I wont name) to 1300+ hp and never bent or broken one but I always run the clearances loose. Just my 2 cents. ;)
 
novaderrik said:
i can't say what caused it, but that thing needs to be cleaned up, encased in glass, and used as a coffee table..
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Hmmm... i like that idea... :)

nucnova said:
I would have to say that the wrist pin was too tight. Looking at the pin bore of the piston you can see black death on one side. Setting pin clearance too tight on a power adder engine is a VERY common problem with many engine builders. The wrist pin on my Stage 2 number 1 cylinder was so tight that it rotated the bushing in the rod and if I would have made a pass down the track my engine would have looked just like yours. Luck was on my side and when I tore the engine apart to fix the many other problems I found the tight pin. If the big or small end of a rod sticks for even a second the crank will tear it to shreads. A rod is no match for the rotating mass of a crank. I have pushed "cheap import" H-beam rods (which I wont name) to 1300+ hp and never bent or broken one but I always run the clearances loose. Just my 2 cents. ;)
Click to expand...

Good info and observation on the pin bore, thanks for sharing.
 
nucnova said:
I would have to say that the wrist pin was too tight. Looking at the pin bore of the piston you can see black death on one side. Setting pin clearance too tight on a power adder engine is a VERY common problem with many engine builders. The wrist pin on my Stage 2 number 1 cylinder was so tight that it rotated the bushing in the rod and if I would have made a pass down the track my engine would have looked just like yours. Luck was on my side and when I tore the engine apart to fix the many other problems I found the tight pin. If the big or small end of a rod sticks for even a second the crank will tear it to shreads. A rod is no match for the rotating mass of a crank. I have pushed "cheap import" H-beam rods (which I wont name) to 1300+ hp and never bent or broken one but I always run the clearances loose. Just my 2 cents. ;)
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He was burning alcohol.
 
I'm no expert in this kind of stuff, but..... In looking through all the photobucket images, a couple of interesting clues jump out at me.

The first thing I noticed was that there were several piston tops with valve damage. At least a couple had been hit with the intake valve, and one or two more had been hit by the exhaust valve, then I noticed that the timing set was completely exploded, both gears!!! So, the timing set let go, and a bunch of valves started smacking the piston tops.

Could the rod letting go started all that? Or, could the timing set letting go started it all??? Hmmm.
 
TurboDave said:
I'm no expert in this kind of stuff, but..... In looking through all the photobucket images, a couple of interesting clues jump out at me.

The first thing I noticed was that there were several piston tops with valve damage. At least a couple had been hit with the intake valve, and one or two more had been hit by the exhaust valve, then I noticed that the timing set was completely exploded, both gears!!! So, the timing set let go, and a bunch of valves started smacking the piston tops.

Could the rod letting go started all that? Or, could the timing set letting go started it all??? Hmmm.
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The spark plugs would have been a key clue in figuring out the answer to just that question.
 
In one of his pictures above, the front of the camshaft is laying on the block. The cam is broken right above the broken rod. When the rod/ pin/ piston broke, the remaing part of the rod hit everything in it's way. The timing chain gear probably broke because the cam was broken in two and only one cam bearing was supporting the cam.

If the timing chain had let go first, the motor would immediately lose all power (no valves opening, no air and fuel to burn) and it would be very unlikely to break a rod with no cylinders producing power.
 
DonWG said:
He was burning alcohol.
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He was burning E85. All i'm saying is that I have ran E85 both on the extreme side of rich and lean and the only parts ever hurt was in a BBC with a F2 Procharger blowthrough setup on 30lbs of boost. It would go lean and take out a piston and maybe torch the head but NEVER did it bend a "cheap import" rod less alone a Carrillo rod.
 
What does it matter? It's just about all junk now. No data logs of prior runs. The rod failed. It could have been bent for many passes before this. It may not have been bent at all. You're not going to know for sure.
 
novaderrik said:
i can't say what caused it, but that thing needs to be cleaned up, encased in glass, and used as a coffee table..
Click to expand...

And send the Photobucket addy to CAR CRAFT for the blown up part of the month segment. Maybe at least you can get a T-shirt out of it.
 
bison said:
What does it matter? It's just about all junk now. No data logs of prior runs. The rod failed. It could have been bent for many passes before this. It may not have been bent at all. You're not going to know for sure.
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Doesn't matter, I am not reusing any of the stuff anyhow. Just curious if anyone noticed anything as I may have missed that "A-Ha!" detail. The main reason I posted this up, is:

Everyone likes to look at carnage! ;)

Rivical said:
And send the Photobucket addy to CAR CRAFT for the blown up part of the month segment. Maybe at least you can get a T-shirt out of it.
Click to expand...

Good call, I may have to do that!
 
nucnova said:
He was burning E85. All i'm saying is that I have ran E85 both on the extreme side of rich and lean and the only parts ever hurt was in a BBC with a F2 Procharger blowthrough setup on 30lbs of boost. It would go lean and take out a piston and maybe torch the head but NEVER did it bend a "cheap import" rod less alone a Carrillo rod.
Click to expand...
Ethanol is another alcohol. Not as good in a high performance application as methanol, but it's attraction is price. E85 has pump gas mixed in with it making detonation a possibility if mixtures aren't right. I'm not even going to get into the varying percentages of pump gas that you have to keep on top of with the stuff. Detonation being preferred over preignition if you're unfortunate to have either. Alcohols will typically skip the detonation mode and go straight to preignition. Preignition is not good on parts. If alcohol goes into preignition, the damage can be very quick. My second engine that I blew due to a mis-match of a/f mixture strength, static CR, boost, and the wrong spark plug happened to bend a mighty Carrillo right as the car left the line. The front end was rising, then bang! No pinging. No warning. Just a big bang, then clattering as I rolled the car to a stop. The tell tale sign was a melted ground electrode from one of the rear cylinders. The conditions got the ground electrode hot enough to preignite the mixture. The rod came out looking exactly like James'. Bearings and crank journal were fine. In fact, I'm running the same crank in the present build.
Every blown engine has a lesson to teach. Ignore the lesson and you risk having the lesson repeated to you. I have been one of the luckier alky burners. It only took two blown engines for me to learn respect for the fuel. Some will go through a storage unit of blocks before they get it figured out.
 
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