The other day my motor completely seized. I was driving home and it locked up. I pulled the motor and pulled everything off. Heads goods, pistons and cylinders good, but still can't turn the motor over. I pretty much start to split the case to get the motor to turn enough to get the final two wrist pins out.

Pulled the case half off and notice the rear main bearing is completely seized on the crank. Further examination shows the crank is cracked inbetween the rod journals for cylinders 1 and 3.

The motor has been together for about 7 years. It's a 2270 with a 78mm crank from aircooled.net (DPR?) ground with Type I journals. Rods are from CB and JE pistons. Motor ran great until the last 10 seconds!

Looking quickly, it looks like not many people are using Type I journals anymore. Any special reason? I'm bummed that when the bearing spun, it messed up the case. I had done a lot of work to the case and it looks like it's ruined.

Ouch

I was wondering why no one is making it as well, seems to be all 2.0 or buick (chevy) rod size. One would think that is weaker being a smaller journal.

I have a new, balanced , type one, 78mm set-up that I'll sell if your interested.

Oh my!!! Sorry for your luck.

Hmmm.....what all do you have?

Right now I'm most bummed about the case. It was clearanced, deburred, milled for ultralight lifters, bushed, boat tailed, line bored, oil galleries drilled out and plugged. I probably have 60 hours in that case and I think it's junk!

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=112701

I still use the T1 journals on 2 of my combos.. They are the strongest cranks of all IMHO. Dave Hunt broke one earlier this year when his car flew off the road after the WCR, other than that I've never had one break with T1 journals.

That crack started at the rod journal radius... This crank has a much sharper radius than our DPR cranks, Jose makes my cranks from our core bank and doesn't use the sharp radius.

This is an odd place for a break.. I question dynamic balance and combustion balance, both of which can help lead to this condition. Was this engine dynamically balanced? Did you blueprint it or just bolt it together?

Hey Jake - thanks for posting some comments. I think the same thing on the origins of the crack.

The crank was balanced by the manufacturer and I had it balanced with everything as well. It was spot on. Everything was blueprinted on this motor.

It was a great motor and made for a great track car. I could hang with any Porsche on the track up to a RSA. This motor went down lots of straightaways with many a 951.

I have one from my fractured engine with some cosmetic damage. It is one of Jake's of course. Contact me or McMark if interested. It is down at Original Customs.

I have Gord Ballitine's 78mm T1 rod crank here off of his track (only) car and it also has a crack (magnafluxed) but you cant see it.
It's not Jake's but pretty sure it's also a DPR.

Added my other crank to the link above for a shameless for sale plug, I only need one and will sell the other, don`t care which one I use.

HI Matt, How are things up north.. bummer about the crank, I know that you did have a potent combination...

Now you get to build it again, better, stronger, and worth $6 million dollars..

I've seen more cracked and broken cranks in the last 18 months than I did in the previous 20 years.. While most of them weren't ours, when Dave Hunt's snapped it was a wake up call and I've had one more snap as well and another with a small crack in it.

Len snapped one at the SARRC but it had 4 pounds lightened off of it and we were asking for trouble, but that entire motor was a grenade with the pin pulled and it was supposed to be for one race only..

Much like cylinder head castings, I feel that the TIV cranks may be approaching the end of their useful service life in extreme applications. We'll have to at least start changing the processes a bit to accomodate for the older age components at this level.

It seems that head castings were the same way.. All of a sudden issues appeared and they didn't go away.

The only thing that stays the same is that everything changes... I am not going to wait until we have more problems before tackling this.

Building these engines is getting a lot tougher, from sourcing components that are worth a damn to dealing with older parts. Let the fact be known that prices will reflect the added complexity.

Hey Herb - things are good up here (well, except the motor!) I don't mind the rebuilding, but I'm not really excited about the 6 million dolllar part!

Jake - remember this crank is 7 years old and saw it's share of hard running. I can be accused of many things, but babying that motor is not one of them.

There is an incredible amount of brand new high performance type one stuff out there. Some of it junk, some very high quality, but you can build a completely new motor for less. There is a lot more support as well. do some research. Shields Up!

........................First off , I,d say sorry this happened....But as a practical matter you probably got a lot of good/fun use out of this engine., and it lived a resonable life....Problem is all race engines will blow/die or fail eventually...The only way to avoid this is dissassembly and inspection periodically.(crack checking), etc....Most air cooled 4 cylinder engines have a harmonic problem and cracking of the crank at the web for journals 3/4. is NOT uncommon., a light flyweel, and a light front crank pulley seems to aggrivate/multiply the problem.The crankshaft having been welded on could have instigated a crack that otherwise may not have existed....All this is just part of building and maintaining modified engines, race engines.. It,s life in the fast lane.

broke the crank in my 58 Ghia, them 36 Hp snapped it in two, but the break happened in a main bearng, so the car kept running a bit noisey but got me home. engine out on the floor and the pulley would nove in and out, but the flywheel stayed motionless! sure enough a two piece crank awaited me inside the case!

Any chance that the crank in question was cryo treated?

I pretty much do cryo for a living, and these quick startup cryo shops that tell you they can do things like a crank overnight scare me.

Curious.

Stu

I'm confused - the only type I thing was the rods, rod bearings, and the rod journal diameters. Parts alone there is probalby $6k+ in this motor and lots of machine work. There is probably 100 hours just in getting everything together right and all the machine work. That is not going to get cheaper now.

Not treated by me and I don't believe it was before I bought it.

I'm pretty sure it was crack that started at the journal fillet and spread from there.

Stu,
I've been cryoing components since 1998, working with a couple different people with about 40 different profiles used.. The quickest we've ever done a cryo cycle is 3 solid days..

No one else in the industry does cryo to my knowledge, DPR doesn't and neither does the source he bought this crank from.

I am glad that it took 7 years to break the crank, but it shouldn't have broken even with 3X more hard service than that. As I stated, I've seen more broken cranks recently and thankfully most haven't been ours.

But remember that it could be worse, we see broken M96 Porsche cranks that came from hundred thousand dollar cars that snap in less than 50K miles..

New performance parts are generally made in China, which isn't necessarily bad other than the fact that the quality control is horrible. I've been testing some of the Chinese cranks for 4-5 years now and have one in my Wife's car that I beat the shit out of.. It has great UOA on every sample I send in as I am using that engine for roller cam/ lifter development as well as our oil development, so I keep a close eye on it.

You have to watch what you buy and where it is bought. Every component is guilty until proven innocent. More junk is available than anything else, just educate yourself and make well thought decisions, thats all you can do.

If one was to walk down this road ( CRYO) who's on the recommended list of vendors?

Thanks

I choose www.cryoguys.com
I started working with them first and still prefer their individual type processes and the owner will process your parts.. Tell him that you know me :-)

They started the processes and profiles that most of the NASCAR teams use today, they have a shop in Mooresville NC and one here in my town of Cleveland GA as well.

I'm talking about building a type one engine made out of all new type one parts with one of the upright cooling systems. Jakes or 911 style. Anyone done one or priced one out?

Oh, you were talking about a "Bic"... A true Chinese masterpiece. Build it. Blow it. Throw it away. At least its cheap, just don't have great expectations and you won't be too disappointed.

Earlier this year we had a Type 1 engine we built with 300 miles on it come back with a crankshaft broken in half in the center main.. That was a "new" Type 1 crank. That reminded me that we had no place wasting our time building with T1 parts, I shit canned the program and threw it all away (again).

Jake,

Thanks for the suggestion!.. Have a great holiday..

Are you talking about a type one for a 914?
I know it could be done, but building a type one to a quality level to last in a 914 would only be slightly cheaper than a well built type 4. Just to get to the HP of a stock 2.0 you are almost doubling the output of the T1. Tripling the HP and a heavy 914 (as compared to a 1700lb bug) would be a bad combo.

In the early 90s close friend bought a 914, not long after the sale it dropped an exhaust valve doing extensive damage even deep inside the bottom end. He remmedied the situation by installing the fresh built 2.3 ltr ARPM aluminum cased type one engine from his sand car. A type one 36 doghouse fan setup, remote oil cooler, cam change and drop in compression and some clutch/flywl mods? were the only changes made prior to installing it in his daily driven 914. at that time he was working at a job that required about a 120 mile per day commute from his San Diego home aside from normal maintenance the engine performed perfectly. though never dynoed in it's final form, as a sand car it netted just a tic over 200 hp at the flywheel. he owned the car until the late 90s then sold it to another friend, the sale included a freshing up of the engine as part of the deal after which the new owner drove the car for another 4-5 years before trading it for some kind of motorcycle, in all that time the only way you could tell what power source was used was to pop the lid and take a look. It can be done.

Yes, it can be done.
If you can do it in a 911 then it can be done in a 914.

If it had an ARPM case it wasn't a "Type 1".

It was a "Type NONE" meaning nothing about it is OE VW.

I'd would accept the term "Type NONE SUCCESS" wouldn't you?

Matt, you had a great run with that motor.
Sorry to hear it broke..I have a matching 2 piece 78mm crank here also.

Think about a 71mm stroke....it spins up faster and with the right camshaft, cylinders, and heads....it puts out.

Can you weld up the case and re-mill it or are you just gonna start with another case?

BTW, are you using a local machine shop?

Rich

71mm stroke sounds like it could be interesting.....

I looked at the case some more and I think I can fix it. It's really only the dowel pin hole for the main.

I did all the machine work to the case except for the line bore. I had Boston Bob do that, but I saw he just passed away. A bummer - he was a great guy.

If the case has been align bored once already, it would be more difficult to repair the dowel pin hole.. Caerfully inspect that saddle and you will probably find it has irregularities from the dowel pin hole distortion.. These will cause big issues during reassembly.

I'd stick to a stroker, nothing builds the big torque of the stroker crank.