Mustang engine go BOOM!

[Patrick Olsen]

Proving that bad automotive things happen in pairs (see http://i-club.com/forums/newreply.ph...threadid=87160 ) the engine on the Mustang let go this evening, and it let go in a BIG way. The engine's going to have to come out of the car to figure out what exactly happened, and what exactly is damaged, but I'm about 99% positive that my crankshaft snapped in half. I base this on the fact that the crank/blower pulley is about 1/4 missing because it shattered as it was jammed into the fan.

About 8pm I was heading to the mall (you know, to prowl for high school chicks). I had just gotten off I-95 and hung a right off the exit ramp. I can't remember if I was in 2nd or had shifted to 3rd, but either way I goosed it a bit - no more than 50% throttle at the absolute most. A second later I was greeted by a very bad sounding BAM, engine shut down, lots of ugly noises. Oooh, that didn't sound good. I coasted (without power steering or brakes, of course) off the right side of the road into the entrance to a Toys R Us shopping center, trailing smoke and lots of oil behind me. Parked the car (blocking the exit from Toys R Us onto the main drag) and popped the hood, but couldn't see a damn thing what with it being dark and all. There was clearly oil all over the place, and the blower belt had been kicked off. Hmmmm....

Called the insurance company to get a tow truck sortied, and commenced waiting. While I was waiting a town cop pulled up, and with his flashlight I did a bit more investigating. It was at that point that I discovered the blower pulley had been shattered, with about 1/4 of it missing. Why was it broken? Hmmm....Holy $#!&, it looks like the front end of the crank has been jammed forward about an inch or two! Ahhh, and the fact the crank seal has been yanked right out would explain why I dumped oil all over the place!

Soooo, it's now time for a rebuild/replacement of the engine. I was planning on having the engine rebuilt over the winter, but I hadn't really started thinking about exactly what I wanted to do. My dilemma now is whether I should try to build a track-able blower motor, or should I ditch the blower and just build a strong naturally-aspirated street/track motor - maybe a 331 or 347 stroker, or a 351. Whatever I do, it's going to take some $$$$, so I think Cobb will have to wait. Then again, I won't need to buy track wheels and tires for the Mustang anytime soon, so there's some money I won't be spending that I could spend on the Subaru instead. Hmmmm.....

Pat Olsen
I destroy cars!

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[North Ursalia]

Damn Pat... that really sucks bad; sorry man. PM me your address... I think I need to send you a six pack .

Brian
http://www.northursalia.com
http://www.imprezamods.com
http://www.scoobymods.com
...something that rhymes with bones

[Subedave]

Pat,

Wow!! man!!..... I don't know what to say other than that really sucks. Two in one week, The only good thing about the mustang is 302's are a plenty, and not that expensive. 351 would not be a bad option either .

MPE Racing up here in Tauton ma. might have a 302 sitting around the shop if you want me to give them a call, just let me know.

Dave

[paultg]

PAt, that totally sucks. Really sorry to hear about it. My advice on tis, keep the blower, and buy a finished Ford Crate motor. I don't think I would ever rebuild a motor these days with the Ford and GM crate motors available, all dyno proven, and warrantied.

Paul G.

[Thug]

Sorry to hear that Pat. But as stated above, atleast 302's & 351's are readily available. Id say stick with the blower, but then again, Ive never had a S/C'd car.

[Fitz]

Ford SVO offers factory shortblocks. When we were building the AC Cobra's we used one of their High Nickel Marine Shortblocks in a 351 windsor flavor. A couple of bumpy sticks, a set of trick flow heads, some high compression pistons and we were styling. The Cobra had a fiberglass boy mated to a tube frame chassis. It was a Jaguar rear end with custom A-arms with a rack and pinion. That car was soooo much fun to drive. It soudn't have weighed much more than 1800 pounds.

Fitz

[rkkwan]

Sorry to hear about your Mustang engine, Pat. Good luck in whatever you decide to do.

And what exactly happened to Mark's RS-T? Are we not supposed to know?

-Ray

[Patrick Olsen]

Yeah, one of the crate engines/shortblocks is definitely an option. I need to figure out what the status is with this engine, though, before I order a whole new shortblock. My guess would be the whole bottom end is trashed, but the only way to find out is to pull the engine and take things apart.

The reason I would consider getting rid of the blower is because it complicates the picture when it comes to open-tracking the car. I finally got my Autometer water temp gauge installed last Saturday and discovered on the way to Sunday's auto-x that the car cruises at about 208degF with a 180deg thermostat. I think the problem is that the horizontal mount intercooler scoop is forcing air up behind the radiator, which of course screws up the flow through the radiator. So not only is the blower adding lots of heat to the system, its plumbing is preventing the car from efficiently removing that heat. Maybe a vented hood (with vents behind the radiator, similar to what the WRC and GT series cars do) would help, but maybe it wouldn't, I don't know. And that's just while cruising - what's going to happen when I'm doing 30min sessions on the track with lots of WOT and high RPMs? There are guys that regularly open track blown Mustangs, it just takes quite a bit more effort to get it to work reliably. Of course, it appears I'll have all the fall and winter to work it out, so maybe that additional effort won't be a problem.

Pat

[mhj]

Come on, be a man and put an EJ20 in there. Think of all the extra room you'll have to put twin turbos and intercoolers in there. Mate it up to a strong RWD tranny and you'll be set. If you ever go to a Mustang meet, just tell everyone that it's the new Mustang B4 Blitzen....they won't have a clue.

[efoo]

Originally posted by Patrick Olsen
Yeah, one of the crate engines/shortblocks is definitely an option. I need to figure out what the status is with this engine, though, before I order a whole new shortblock. My guess would be the whole bottom end is trashed, but the only way to find out is to pull the engine and take things apart.

I would suspect that your your crankshaft must have been wiggling around in there for a little while before it finally snapped, so at the very least, you'd have to rebore that section of the block. I guess it comes down to what's cheaper - a rebuild, or a new crate engine. For peace of mind, maybe a new crate engine wouldn't be a bad idea? I don't know anything about american cars, but it sounds like the new engines are fairly affordable and easy to get, unlike trying to look for a new EJ20 or even EJ25 for a decent price. Just my 2c.

-Edwin

[paultg]

Pat, I would also think if the crankshat moved inside the block, there is some serious damage to the main jounals, as well as the connecting rods and the piston pins that connect the pistons too the rods, since all of these peices will have stange things going on after it broke while things still moved. I don't think you can actually rebore the section of the block that holds the crankshaft bearings, I don't really know what you would do. The crankshaft bearings in the block and main cap journals can be oversized, but not by much, and then you have to worry about damage to the block, and if the main cap bolts pulled out of the block or something like that. If the entire crank moved and broke in half like you described, all the connecting rods in the area could have hit the cylinder walls or got banged around by other moving things. I would think about a new engine. If the crankshaft just broke in half near the front (sometime the harmonic balancer will shear off the end of the crank), then you might be alright. I hope you plan on tearing it down so you don't spend money on the labor to find out it is junk. With the miles on it now, I would take the heads and intake, and just buy a shortblock. Much less downtime too.

Paul G. (I'd be looking at the SVT catalogs..)

[mhj]

I agree, if the crank really broke, that block is history. American engines are pretty cheap, just take your pick and be imaginative. Jus save what you can from the old one like the manifolds and stuff (or be blasphemous and put a Chevy LT1 in there ).

[Ru fan]

Pat, you have the worst luck with cars! Maybe you should drop a geo engine in there just to be safe. What are you going to do about transportation in the mean time? Can you still use the legacy? If it isn't too much trouble, why not go for the brand new short block? I think that you should keep the charger, but rig up some kind of front air dam. Have a solid wall below the radiator, and some kind of huge brake-duct tubing leading to the intercooler.

Later,
Seth E.

[bowenx]

Pat,

sorry to hear about the demise of the mustang, that was a pretty slick ride, now I really hope that picture that I got of you sliding it around one of the turns while fist in the air comes out!

You ever think of just walking? or taking a bus?

Best of luck,

Peter

[joe z]

i think it's because it a ford mmmmm yeah thats it

[Jonathan]

Hmmm... a Crate motor fully built has to be well over 2 grand...

I bet even a short block has to be around 1200 bucks minimum.

Why not pick up some junk yard $ 300 special (one where they at least let you hear the engine run before you take it) ? Get yourself up & running ASAP, and then start thinking about what sort of motor you really want to build over the winter...

I agree with the others, your bottom end of your current mill is probably toast and likely isnt really worth spending much time on.

Just curious/nosey... how much boost was you running ? How many miles did you have on the mill ? I am not sure what you would/could do to blow out the bottom end like that...

[BoomerRS]

that sucks dude... its good that u have 2 cars so this kind of stuff doesnt affect getting to work etc. good luck with whatever you decide to do
will a focus engine drop in?

[joe z]

will a focus engine drop in?

[Jonathan]

ttt

[imprezadan]

Keep the blower and stuff a 351 windsor in there, it'll fit perfectly!

[Patrick Olsen]

Actually, there's a guy on the Road-race/auto-x Mustang emailing list I'm on who has two turbo Mustangs. One used the old SVO/Tbird Turbo Coupe 2.3L setup, and the other one is a 2.0L Zetec (Focus engine) with (I'm assuming) a custom turbo setup. Check out http://www.geocities.com/rmodos/frames/project1.htm for info - it goes on for a few pages, pretty extensive and lots of pictures.

As for my car, well, I still haven't decided what to do. I'm almost positive it will be a stroked 351, but how big I'm not sure yet. I'm not a big fan of doing the same work twice, so if I'm going to have the engine pulled then I'm going to do the "final project" the first time. Trust me, I've debated doing the junkyard engine swap just to tide me over (especially with the killer top-down weather we've got this week) but I just don't want to go that route. I may change my mind, though, just to have the convertible up and running. I'm not going to bother trying to set the blower up again, so the car would be a dog for a few months - that would be tough to take. *sigh* I dunno....

I was only running about 6# of boost, the shortblock is all stock, about 105,000 miles or so (can't remember exactly, so give or take 1500). My hypothesis based on what I've seen thus far is that the crank/blower pulley broke, which put a huge out of balance load on the engine, causing the crank to snap. About 1/4 of the pulley is missing, but there's no sign it hit anything, so I think it failed first. I have no idea what would have caused that pulley (which is a pretty stout piece) to fail alluva sudden, but that's my guess at this point.

Pat

[Patrick Olsen]

Just realized I never posted my cool aftermath picture:


That stripe down the middle of the turn lane is the contents of my oil pan. About 50-60yds long and 2-1/2ft wide. The picture was taken a few weeks after the night the engine blew - even now, 6 months later, you can still faintly see the stripe on the pavement.

Pat

[Chris N]

So, whats the Mustang status now? Ford "HO" engines are hard to come by via the junk yard, everybody wants them. I tried to get a 351 for mine 3 years ago and they said I'd have to go on a list and wait, then pay big bucks. So I traded it for a Legacy GT. Then I traded that for my truck, what a numb bastage that thing is(non-HO 5.0L).

[Patrick Olsen]

I picked up a complete '74 351W a few months ago for $300 (private sale) after a couple/few weeks of checking around. I was stupid, didn't even try to offer the guy less than that, I was just happy to find one of the older blocks. I've heard of guys getting complete engines for $100-150.

I should have the pistons this week, at which point the block and rotating assembly will go in for machine work. Hopefully in the next couple weeks the engine will be built. My TFS heads have been ported, a custom cam is on order, I have a new TFS 351R intake, new 80mm MAF sensor, used 75mm TB and EGR, AFM 4" Power Pipe for cold air induction, etc. Still a few miscellaneous parts to pick up, but for the most part things are ready to go.

Pat

[Fitz]

We built a 351 windsor motor a few years ago for a custom AC cobra. Marine crate motor from Ford SVo... stripped off intake, heads, and oil pan. Stripped down the motor. New pistons, ported and polished trick flow heads, studs, custom low clearance pan, Edelbrock cam and intake, Holley 600 carb.... sweet motors to work on. Good luck on your project.

Fitz