EZ SPEED
09-10-2006, 07:02 AM
Part 2
Part 1 was a lot of cleaning and detailing,
Now lets go back in time . . . . 4 weeks ago.
Cleaning and detailing were finished, But now it was time to fire it up and drive around a little to make sure there were no leaks or problems.
It cranked the first try and ran very well, better than I expected since I moved the MAF sensor, and changed every piece of the cold side piping.
I drove it down the road a few miles to the car wash to rinse off all the dust from the past 6 weeks, then headed back home.
On my way back home I went to my little “test and tune” road and was going to see how well it ran at full throttle and see how close the tune was.
I rolled into the throttle and started watching the air/fuel gauge to make sure that moving the cold side pipes didn’t alter the A/F ratio too much from the safe tune I had before.
The next few actions passed by in a split second.
As the rpm’s started rising I felt a strange shudder through the gas pedal but the A/F looked okay, so I immediately looked at the boost gauge next and saw the horror . . . the needle swung past 25 psi and I saw 27 psi before I could lift my foot . . . at this exact moment is when I heard a “Pop” and then the cab of the truck was silent. I looked up into the rear view mirror to see a cloud of white smoke and my heart suddenly felt heavy in my chest.
Luckily I had enough momentum to coast into a parking lot and just sat there for a moment hoping that it was a head gasket, but I knew better. I got out of the truck and looked underneath and found oil and coolant everywhere along with a couple of holes in the oil pan . . .yep, I blew the engine.
What went wrong . . . .
In 6 weeks of my attention to detail with cleaning, painting, powder coating, polishing, rebuilding wiring harnesses, etc. I ‘thought’ I hooked up the vacuum lines to the wastegate correctly (probably the only lines / wires that I didn’t label) but I obviously didn’t, hence the wastegate didn’t open and the turbo kept making boost until something let loose.
I knew this was possible . . . but never thought in a million years that I would be so careless.
Lets pause for a moment of silence and to wipe the tears away . . . . .
R.I.P.
211,000 mile stock 351
Normally a STUPID thing like I just did would be a secret for eternity . . . a secret to take to my grave what an IDIOT I was.
But . . . .
With so many of us swapping to turbo, I think it is VERY important for us all to learn from my HUGE mistake.
So here I am . . . I really put myself in a bad spot. It was now a little less than 6 weeks till Lightning Fest and I just blew up my engine in the Lightning that I planned on driving for the 1600 mile roundtrip.
From the holes in the oil pan I pretty much knew from my experience blowing up the engine in my 03L 3 years ago that there would be nothing left to salvage of the old engine. Lets not forget that everything on the engine had 211,000 miles on it (waterpump, heads, balancer, flywheel, etc.) was the fact that I knew if would be a stretch to find another engine block to send to the machine shop and get it back in time to assemble, along with all the other stuff I wanted to do.
I normally build all my own engines, but with nothing salvageable to build, and no time to look for parts.
I decided that the only chance I had of getting the Lightning back on the road in time for LFest would be to order a complete longblock. So I cleaned out my 401k plan at work (what the Hell . . . its ONLY money) and got on the phone (more on the new Engine in Part 4)
Amazingly enough . . . the GT40 iron heads survived without even a scratch to the valves. I guess when the rods broke they took out the camshaft and the lifters fell down and the pushrods also, so that the valves never opened for a piston to hit them.
If you will notice in the pics that the camshaft is in 10 pieces . . . yes 10
Quite a few wristpins were pulled out of the pistons leaving the piston tops in the bores (very strange)
I know you are wanting to see the damage pics (hope you don’t have a weak stomach . . . ha ha )
So here are the pics:
http://www.nloc.net/photopost/data/1887/medium/93engine_116.jpg
http://www.nloc.net/photopost/data/1887/medium/93engine_118.jpg
http://www.nloc.net/photopost/data/1887/medium/93engine_121.jpg
http://www.nloc.net/photopost/data/1887/medium/93engine_126.jpg
http://www.nloc.net/photopost/data/1887/medium/93engine_127.jpg
http://www.nloc.net/photopost/data/1887/medium/93engine_128.jpg
http://www.nloc.net/photopost/data/1887/medium/93engine_132.jpg
http://www.nloc.net/photopost/data/1887/medium/93engine_134.jpg
http://www.nloc.net/photopost/data/1887/medium/93engine_141.jpg
http://www.nloc.net/photopost/data/1887/medium/93engine_145.jpg
Part 1 was a lot of cleaning and detailing,
Now lets go back in time . . . . 4 weeks ago.
Cleaning and detailing were finished, But now it was time to fire it up and drive around a little to make sure there were no leaks or problems.
It cranked the first try and ran very well, better than I expected since I moved the MAF sensor, and changed every piece of the cold side piping.
I drove it down the road a few miles to the car wash to rinse off all the dust from the past 6 weeks, then headed back home.
On my way back home I went to my little “test and tune” road and was going to see how well it ran at full throttle and see how close the tune was.
I rolled into the throttle and started watching the air/fuel gauge to make sure that moving the cold side pipes didn’t alter the A/F ratio too much from the safe tune I had before.
The next few actions passed by in a split second.
As the rpm’s started rising I felt a strange shudder through the gas pedal but the A/F looked okay, so I immediately looked at the boost gauge next and saw the horror . . . the needle swung past 25 psi and I saw 27 psi before I could lift my foot . . . at this exact moment is when I heard a “Pop” and then the cab of the truck was silent. I looked up into the rear view mirror to see a cloud of white smoke and my heart suddenly felt heavy in my chest.
Luckily I had enough momentum to coast into a parking lot and just sat there for a moment hoping that it was a head gasket, but I knew better. I got out of the truck and looked underneath and found oil and coolant everywhere along with a couple of holes in the oil pan . . .yep, I blew the engine.
What went wrong . . . .
In 6 weeks of my attention to detail with cleaning, painting, powder coating, polishing, rebuilding wiring harnesses, etc. I ‘thought’ I hooked up the vacuum lines to the wastegate correctly (probably the only lines / wires that I didn’t label) but I obviously didn’t, hence the wastegate didn’t open and the turbo kept making boost until something let loose.
I knew this was possible . . . but never thought in a million years that I would be so careless.
Lets pause for a moment of silence and to wipe the tears away . . . . .
R.I.P.
211,000 mile stock 351
Normally a STUPID thing like I just did would be a secret for eternity . . . a secret to take to my grave what an IDIOT I was.
But . . . .
With so many of us swapping to turbo, I think it is VERY important for us all to learn from my HUGE mistake.
So here I am . . . I really put myself in a bad spot. It was now a little less than 6 weeks till Lightning Fest and I just blew up my engine in the Lightning that I planned on driving for the 1600 mile roundtrip.
From the holes in the oil pan I pretty much knew from my experience blowing up the engine in my 03L 3 years ago that there would be nothing left to salvage of the old engine. Lets not forget that everything on the engine had 211,000 miles on it (waterpump, heads, balancer, flywheel, etc.) was the fact that I knew if would be a stretch to find another engine block to send to the machine shop and get it back in time to assemble, along with all the other stuff I wanted to do.
I normally build all my own engines, but with nothing salvageable to build, and no time to look for parts.
I decided that the only chance I had of getting the Lightning back on the road in time for LFest would be to order a complete longblock. So I cleaned out my 401k plan at work (what the Hell . . . its ONLY money) and got on the phone (more on the new Engine in Part 4)
Amazingly enough . . . the GT40 iron heads survived without even a scratch to the valves. I guess when the rods broke they took out the camshaft and the lifters fell down and the pushrods also, so that the valves never opened for a piston to hit them.
If you will notice in the pics that the camshaft is in 10 pieces . . . yes 10
Quite a few wristpins were pulled out of the pistons leaving the piston tops in the bores (very strange)
I know you are wanting to see the damage pics (hope you don’t have a weak stomach . . . ha ha )
So here are the pics:
http://www.nloc.net/photopost/data/1887/medium/93engine_116.jpg
http://www.nloc.net/photopost/data/1887/medium/93engine_118.jpg
http://www.nloc.net/photopost/data/1887/medium/93engine_121.jpg
http://www.nloc.net/photopost/data/1887/medium/93engine_126.jpg
http://www.nloc.net/photopost/data/1887/medium/93engine_127.jpg
http://www.nloc.net/photopost/data/1887/medium/93engine_128.jpg
http://www.nloc.net/photopost/data/1887/medium/93engine_132.jpg
http://www.nloc.net/photopost/data/1887/medium/93engine_134.jpg
http://www.nloc.net/photopost/data/1887/medium/93engine_141.jpg
http://www.nloc.net/photopost/data/1887/medium/93engine_145.jpg