Lost a Motor last night.

Last night my son and I ran our coupe at the high school drags at Pacific Raceway.
On his first lap the bog I mentioned in earlier posts was gone the kid cut a .041 light
and every thing seemed ok, his ET slowed to a 12.08 though? I thought he did somthing different or
something was a little off. I did a quick check and found nothing.

On his second run the car launched nice, his reaction time was consistant, then about 1/2 track
the motor self destructed. Holes in the pan and all. Not good.
This motor has a grand total of 5-1/2 passes on it.

When I got it home, I had pulled the valve covers and found 6 of eight
exhaust valves stuck open and I imagine bent. I also found water in the heads. At this point we will pull
it tomorrow and cross my fingers that the crank is salvagable. I'm sure the C9 block is done.
Luckily I have another early block stashed.

I will update here as we get it out and apart.

Sorry to hear you lost the engine. Never good figuring out what went wrong. I know the pain, lost ours on national tv..... Murphys Law is alive and well.

Best of luck

Jeff

I was a little concerned when you said in a previous post that you replaced a bent valve but didn't seem to know what caused it?..I'm wondering if your valvesprings are not up to the task or there is something screwed up in your valvetrain..Did you check piston to valve clearance?

Thanks Jeff.

The guy that built our motor has a very good reputation in this area and I have known him for about 34 years. He has built about eight of my motors over those years. None of those eight engines were as high performance as the one that just failed though.

How should I approch him on this? I know it's a race motor and there is no
guaranty on an engine like this, but I still feel like something was over looked in the valve clearence,spring pressure or cam timing area. I paid him to set up all of the mentioned valve train.

I don't expect him to buy us a motor. But something was wrong outside of what we did. He told me we would be able to bracket race this set up for 3-4 years before it would need to be freshened up.

What do I think would be fair? He could do the machine work on his dime and I buy the parts. Or am I way off on this? I do like the guy and that is the reason I have not mentioned his name here, I do not want to hurt his reputation.



Thanks,
Gregg and Brooke (father and son)

I paid the guy that built the engine to set up valve to piston clearence on this engine. We are not set up to do this type
of work.

Fordnut brings up a good point..... Is the valve seat pressure and open pressures correct for the rpm your running. Are you all experiencing any popping or missing at high rpm..big end, just before you shift.. is the car nosing over just before you shift??????. Just curious.

What is your valve to piston clearance?

Jeff

Originally Posted by MCCUTCHEON4

Thanks Jeff.

The guy that built our motor has a very good reputation in this area and I have known him for about 34 years. He has built about eight of my motors over those years. None of those eight engines were as high performance as the one that just failed though.

How should I approch him on this? I know it's a race motor and there is no
guaranty on an engine like this, but I still feel like something was over looked in the valve clearence,spring pressure or cam timing area. I paid him to set up all of the mentioned valve train.

I don't expect him to buy us a motor. But something was wrong outside of what we did. He told me we would be able to bracket race this set up for 3-4 years before it would need to be freshened up.

What do I think would be fair? He could do the machine work on his dime and I buy the parts. Or am I way off on this? I do like the guy and that is the reason I have not mentioned his name here, I do not want to hurt his reputation.



Thanks,
Gregg and Brooke (father and son)

Some shops will do labor for free because if a componet fails then thats on th emanufacture. Bent valves on the other hand is a valve timing issue or a spring hanging open. 100 thousands is the closest valve to piston clearance you ever want, anything closer and you really take the risk of touch a piston at high rpm.

Curious what is the lift of your cam and spring pressures your using. If your breaking down the motor then clay a piston with one of your good heads to get the Valve to piston clearance just to check..

Jeff

It slowed because the engine went "Tight". Its usually a tell tale sign that its gunna go boom! But at least now your driver has felt what a engine that goes tight feels like and the next time he will remember it and shut er down before the boom ! Sorry it happened that sucks only 5 passes. But I am willing to bed the valve guides were tightening up with heat.
We had this happen a few times when Ferrera had some faulty guides, I would take the heads apart and look for gauling on the stems, and inside the guides.

You know that is the forth engine I've hear of in a week that has had a valve problems running Ferrera valves. Just had a friend drop a valve last week in his 557 BBF running a Ferrera. Hum.

This is a link to the cam specs
http://crayonmedia.com/wayne/Windsor_Forum/new_cam2.pdf