My 2L six race engine let go after nearly 3 years, or 22 race and dyno sessions Options

[john rogers]

After getting tired of hot rodded fours that would make a lot (200+ HP) only wanting to last a couple of race weekends we put a 2L six in my race car. This was done in Oct 2003, a while ago. Since then I added up the race weekends and counting 2 dyno sessions of about an hour or so each that came to 22 racing sessions. The hardest were by far the ones in Mexico as I drove harder on rougher circuits that the ones here, but alas at the CA Speedway several weeks a go it got a very bad vibration at about 7200 RPM so I parked it. When the engine was opened, we found a rod had broken, probably after the bearing failed and actually swelled the case over the rod area but did not cause a case rupture! The case looked like it had been repaired a long time ago as it was not the original casting in that area, but I bought the running engine out of a race car when it was newly rebuilt so I put all the time on it.
As for cost, I paid $6500 for the complete engine with Weber 40IDS like new, 906 cams(reground) , 2.7L ported heads, flywheel, clutch, alt, sheetmeatsl, etc. So the estimated cost of the long block was about $3000 which turns out to be a pretty good deal over the lift of the engine. Now trying to figure if I should stay at 2L or go to 2.5L or 2.7L, since more power is always nice!?
We did pretty good preventative maintenance such as opening the oil filter after every weekend and after the last sesion before this no bearing material found in the filter or in the pump screen so I guess it was just time?