Spoolfool's Christmas time contest.

[SPOOLFOOL2]

It's that time again. Going to keep this one simple. Just a fun contest that the winner will be picked New years eve.
Best response wins one of my Drip-Lip, oil catch thingies. I call it my stupid idea that works. Also, wanted to thank everyone for all the support for all the crazy stuff I've come up with. I'm happy to say that I'm currently working on some new stuff. Please check out my new-ish website for products and product videos. www.spoolfoolproductions.com


Contest is: Best story of carnage to an engine. It can be minor or catastrophic. More emphasis will be put on entertainment value. Bonus points for pictures.

Big thanks to Shane and all those who have supported this great site over decades. I truly believe that these cars would not be half the legends they are without this place.

Merry Christmas from the boys at Spoolfool Productions.

This should be good.
Mike Barnard

So Western Moderator

 

[Turbo6inKY]

Carnage! I have a carnage story.

Not a buick, though you didn't specify. It was a turbo V6 though.

1994 Ford Probe. I ran this car from 2019 until I sold it in 2024. The engine had almost 300,000 miles on it, so naturally I threw an Ebay kit at it and doubled its output. At the 2021 Pine Mountain Hillclimb, I accidentally did not re-enable the rev limiter. I crossed the finish line at over 8200 RPM. Cracked the ring lands and bent three rods.

But that's not the carnage. The carnage is two weeks later. I didn't have time to rebuild the original engine, so I got a junkyard one. It was advertised as having come out of a Probe, but foreshadowing.

At the 2021 Time Trials nationals, I'm cresting the hill known as Tabletop between turns 14 and 15 on my first practice session on Thursday and I hear stuff bouncing off the floor, then the smoke, then the fire starts. I crest the hill at 16 and get the car over to the side and bail out. It's very on fire. Big fire. Looking around, I do not see the safety people coming and the corner workers are not leaving their stations. So I go BACK into the car, get the fire bottle, and proceed to put the fire out myself.

Back in the pits after helping the safety crew pick up the fragments of engine block and letting it cool of we get looking, and the car has multiple holes in the block. You can see straight through it between the first and second set of cylinders.

The block was split top to bottom. It was held together by the heads and the oil pan.
When I tore it down, the damage was epic.

Three rods broke. Three pistons also broken. One of the pistons was rotated 90 degrees in the the bore. The EXHAUST valves on #3 were bent from piston contact.

The root cause? The engine wasn't a Probe engine, which would have had a forged crankshaft. It was from a 1999 Mazda 626 or Millenia, and had a cast crank. The crank bent under load (I found witness marks on the main caps). The Mazda V6 block is extremely rigid, so when that crank got out of shape the block shattered at 7200 rpm. Everything cascaded from there. The oil poured onto the exhaust and ignited. A friend that was behind me when it happened said the fireball that came out from under the car was movie-quality. Putting the fire out myself saved the car. We trailered it home, grabbed the Buick and went back down and still ran the rest of the event.

I ended up rebuilding the original engine with all forged guts and rand it without major issues for three more years.

And I don't need to win, I already have a drip lip! But good opportunity to tell a fun story.