Altbough I am assuming responsibilitiy for this failure...I alao am well acquainted with the old saying "speed costs - how fast do yyou iu want to go?"

Humpty-Dumpty will be back together very, very soon - I will pull the engine this week and asses what I am left with. I now see it as an opportunity to optimize and have a couple ideas on what to change!

Tony

Ah crap, so sorry to see that, Tony...
I'll overstate the obvious question: What was the root cause of the failure, do you think?
You'd mentioned a bouncy oil pressure gauge. Issues with the pump or something else in the oiling system?

Silver lining and the most important thing is that this happened in such a way that you didn't get hurt.

Keep up the great attitude and let us know what you learn.

Um,. . Atlanta,. . . we've had a problem . . . .

Ack, the motor is going to have to come apart for inspection. Usually failed bearing material is very thin from being hammered by the crank, this seems to be thicker.

Relating to a previous post: A general side note on running a previously hydro locked motor, don't run it hard immediately after clearing the cylinders. Liquid trapped between the top and 2nd ring will expand and break a ring land.

Chris: Here is what I know now as I piece together what transpired...I have the entire video from last Sundays fateful session. On the outlap, I know see my pressure gauge fluctuating - only into and through corners though. I am not reading gauges at this point and had positive (albeit slightly lower peak pressures) on the straights. The damage must have occurred on one of the Saturday afternoon sessions but I was not running my on-board video then.

The suspected cause: I am at fault any way you slice it: I use Joe Gibbs Racing oil and it has a minimal life expectancy. I believe I pushed that limit too far, coupled with a slightly low oil capacity ~ about 1 inch low on my dry sump tank. I cook this oil and believe the root cause was being too greedy and certainly should have swapped the oil before this weekends event. I do not repeat critical mistakes and will make sure protocols are in place so this doesn't happen again. Obviously.

I have always toyed with the idea of a high-er revving LS7 - a de-stroked over square build that can handle about 1000 more rpms. You have to run a dry-sump system (check); You have to be a little crazy (check); and it really has to be professionally built (check). No guarantees but I'll be seriously looking at this as an option upon the rebuild. It will (maybe of course) have Jesel rockers, approximately 375 ci and H-beam
Oliver rods. I already had this engine priced out a couple years ago...

I'm pulling the engine by weeks end and have it in pieces next weekend. Thanks for the well-wishes and kind words of encouragement guys! Hey Chris...can I borrow 20 grand?

Kent: The engine has seen two-years of track use and just a small amount of street-driving. Given all systems working well and as expected a major refresh would have been scheduled every 7-years (rings, bearings, etc). I plan on replacing valve springs every 12 weekends which equates to about 2.5-3 years worth of DE's with my schedule.

Tony

Today I told my son---Tony will be the " while we are in there " epitome guy and come out with even more HP and why not !
Suspect the quietness of this catastrophic failure without parts and oil spewing about is the real surprise. Soldier on !

I'd be sending an oil sample to a lab to see if it really degraded. If the oil is still "good" the source of failure lies elsewhere.

You are kidding....right,like walking a horse to water after it has died from lack of.
The sample will be so confusing with so many contaminates like copper ,tin and most likely ferrous metals.
Total waste of money,by the way in my last job I oil sampled oil every 3000hrs on a large marine engine .

Bummer to have such damage, but kudos for seeing an opportunity in the situation. I enjoy a good outside the box engine project. Keep us updated.

The assumption put forth by the cars owner is that "worn out" oil caused the engine failure.

You have listed metals that are generally associated with engine wear.

In order to prove or disprove "worn out" oil caused the failure, I'd be looking at properties related to oil quality not engine wear. Elements like Potassium, Boron, Sodium, Calcium, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Zinc and Barium are engine oil additives.

Also important are viscosity, fuel contimanation, antifreeze, water, insolubles ( formed by oxidation of oil )

If all of the above is within acceptable limits, "worn out" oil didn't cause the failure. If the root cause of the failure isn't addressed, the motor will come apart again. Even worse, if the root cause of failure is unknowingly eliminated by accident or by using a different set of parts, the owner will happily go on changing oil thinking the problem was solved when it hasn't.

I believe this oil to be too contaminated to provide a conclusive result as well. The engine will be receiving a complete professional rebuild so IF there was something else that contributed to its failure (inside the motor) - it will be rectified. I will probably simply build a duplicate of what I had - even if I did build a higher-strung de-stroked version it would not have more horsepower - just a different temperament. A mean one...and more revs to work with. Those improvements come at a tremendous financial cost and I most likely will not take that on - this will be painful enough.
I am pulling the engine tomorrow afternoon...

Tony

So you won't need the $20k? Cool, I have a few more goodies yet to purchase so I'm taking this as your approval to proceed!

Looking forward to seeing your beast back on track soon.

It's possible to rebuild the bottom end in the car.
Click to view attachment

This one spun a rod bearing and we caught it just before heading to the chassis dyno.
IIRC, the suspected cause was a nicked o-ring in the oil pump.

You are running an oil accumulator? Can't remember. Maybe an additional pressure sensing valve set lower than the accumulator valve to kill the engine prior to starvation next time?

Chris: I know that may be possible and I could possibly just swap parts but I am sending the engine in for a full rebuild (as in B&B)...

Bulitt: The engine has a full external dry sump system...a few changes and additions are being implemented as I move forward in attempt to reduce the chance of this occurring again. Thanks.

Tony

I just wanted to put up my picture.
Besides, you were moving right along when the failure occurred. I would expect a higher level of damage. And the discolored counterweights bear that out.

Not sure how much your engines/rebuilds cost, but if they are $$$ and you don't already run one you might want to consider going to a motorsports-grade engine controller (Life/Syvecs/MoTeC/AEM Infinity/...) with hardware protections based on oil pressure, fuel pressure, etc. Many of these have features like engine oil pressure protections which will dial the motor back or kill it if oil pressure is out of expected range and you are below some lateral acceleration threshold so you don't upset the car in the middle of a corner. I only mention it because I recall one of your pictures from long ago had what looked like a GM ECU mounted where the battery would normally be, and OEM controls don't normally have purpose-built safeties like this.

That thang sounded pretty good before you went and ruined it. Have you posted any other track time videos.

As for the in car crank change, too much metal goes through the oiling system when a bearing burns down to make this a sake bet. ( Even if engine is out of car but not fully disassembled to clean oiling passages. ) I have changed many cranks in road cars but that was due to long term wear rather than a metal dump.

If a bearing actually spun, the bore will be damaged. Bore roundness is critical as that is what makes the bearing round not the bearing insert.

Also, bearing tabs are there to laterally locate the bearing not to keep it from spinning, radial tension does that. When oil clearance gets too large, the crank journal hammers the bearing thin and the resulting loss of radial tension is what allows the bearing to spin and damage the bore.

Jim - I will detail plans to avert the possibility of this occurring again in this manner in the near future as things come together. I am more than content with the OEM equipment despite the limitations that come with it - Motec ain't everything as I have seen many sidelined due to electrical woes - GM invested a whole lot of time and money to ensure their equipment would be reliable. Thanks thought - good ideas for sure! Stay tuned...

D2K - The engine will be completely disassembled, flushed and balanced and blueprinted at one of the nations leading LS shops.
It will be very right...

Kent - You're all heart brother...

Tony

Seriously, are there others? Preferably longer than 2 min's.

Yea, I figured that. Much of what I post ( in any thread ) is also for the benefit of others reading a thread.

I'm on another car list and the amount if really bad info is astounding at times.

Kewl! You're certainly right; while the controllers are generally super reliable there is a lot of waste in the form of people buying expensive hardware and handicapping it with poor harnessing and system design. The OEM harnessing certainly has that going for it.

Interested to see where you go...and glad I'm not footing the bill!