Rob just called me. Engine let go this morning in Stockton, on the way to the autocross.



Sounds like a piston skirt broke off and trapped itself between the crank and case, and then blew its way out.

Now he's got to wait for a tow truck. Ooooooh man. Poor Rob.

I'm sure he'll have some pictures (with garbage cans) when he get's it back to his place.

Uh-oh

Hope it's not all bad.

I hate when that happens. Hope he can get it fixed brfore the WCR.

If the case is ventilated, it IS all bad. The Cap'n

Yes Cap'n, I agree. I just thought that would sound better than, "Wow, Rob's Fuched . . . "

Yikes sorry to hear about it.

I haven't "lost" an engine in 40 years (knock wood)......and the thought of that still hurts.
Onwards......

His sig says he has a "2270". Is that an engine with 96mm cylinders bored out from 94mm?

New AA (not AutoAtlanta) pistons & cylinders.

You really wont know untill its apart. I saw one exit onto the road before my very eyes, on a friends 914, Turned out there was a nut bouncing around in the combustion chamber that caused the piston to fracture.

Sad news Rob.

So thats a 96mm cylinder with 1mm thinner cylinder walls than the 94mm ones?

Lotsa causes. Rod bolt failure, valve breaking off, swallowing a nut, bolt, or carb part, dropped valve seat, rod breaking (pretty rare, I think, on a T4) All bad news, all terminal, for the most part. The Cap'n

There isn't anything terminal. They are all just parts... I have at least two other cases to build from. Stimulates the economy too.

No warning. Guages all looked fine. Temp about midway on the stock appearance group guage, CHT 200+. Long sweeping right hander then in the middle of it a loud band followed by white oil smoke and oil spray. Engine runs but as you might imagine with the ventilation it is loud.

Flat towed it 58 miles home by USAA. Yopu came and picked me up and we went to the autocross 8 blocks from where the engine blew.

I got home, moved it into position to jack it up and drop the motor. I will probably do the post-mortem at McMarks so I will drop the motor at my place and drive it down to his place. I was just disgusted enough that I did a brake job on the Carrera instead of starting to drop the motor.

No pics yet but I can tell you the case has a large hole at the #3 position and the serrated oil ring and scraper is outside the case sitting on top of the tin.

Short of putting one of the other motors in the car it will be the Carrera for the WCR if at all... Besides, that Boy Band kind of freaks me out

McMark was the first person I called after calling USAA Roadside Assistance. Yopu was second. She wants to know if I will be going to Mark's house to build the new engine because she enjoyed the trips down and the burgers at Red Rock Cafe...

Because I know you guys love carnage...

Purposely took a close-up to avoid garbage can abuse from the AHA!!!

Hicheemama, Rob! You can actually see the little wheel the gerbil runs on

really sorry for this . . . good luck with the build.

m.

Rod break? Rod bolt fall out?
What rods are those?
Rich

2316?


Sorry to hear about this Rob...if you need any help with anything, let me know!

Rob

I'm sorry to see that. Wish I could offer you advice. The only thing I can say is the sick feeling in your stomach doesn't last too long. I've got a case sitting in my garage all prepped for 98's and above, standard bearings, galley plugs drilled and tapped. I could send it your way. Old smokie is sitting in the woodshed and runs.

Dave

Wow Rob,

Sorry to hear about this. That engine was so nice.

Yikes! Sorry Rob, that hurts. But there is a good side.....Your wife loved the 3.6 ride and now would be an awesome excuse to install one. I'll even give you a hand....

There actually wasn't any sick feeling. When you take on something like this, that is - building a kit, you are the one responsible for success or failure. Jake has put hundreds of these together and they last years and look new inside when the come apart. This has got to be 'the builders fault.'

I have never had a problem taking personal responsibility. Having said that, I just want to say - I blame Mark

The next build will be bigger - badder and more fun to drive... Stay tuned!

Son of a bitch!

There goes our 5 year run without any catastrophic failures from the kit program (perforated cases).

I appreciate Rob being so easy to work with when the shit hit the fan... And this wasn't anyone's fault- the engine has too many miles on it with too many floggings under it's belt to have experienced any human error... Human error usually creates issues that happen very early on with these engines, usually less than 100 miles... When I have made mistakes in the past, or done wild shit that was risky things always failed well within the first 1K miles.

Looks like something just plain snapped or there was an oil starvation issue...

The failure doesn't look like a piston failure from that pic.. I think I spy a smoked #1 rod journal in the case and #3 looks to be intact... I could be wrong, the pic doesn't give much detail..

The good news is I have tons of good used parts from the era of this kit and we can probably get Rob back up and going for not much more than the cost of another case... Even if I don't have the parts used or from a test engine, the repair will still take more time than money.

Thanks for understanding, Rob... We supported you before, during and after the kit was completed and I'll stand by you while you pick up the pieces.

Welcome to my world, it sucks but more is learned from failure than success.. Stay positive. Stay motivated. A little good comes from everything bad.

Three point two time.

That is the kind of service you get from Jake.

Looks like a loose rod cap to me.

Way to go Rob- pop your motor and brake Jakes string...

Just kidding- My heart goes out to you and your case. I have to agree with Jake on this one- I have full confidence that you did a fine job on the initial build- any build issues should have been apparent long ago. When you get the tear down done, I"m sure you'll share pics and the CSI of it all, to investigate and determine the failure mode, so we all can learn a little more.

PS, thanks for the COTM nomination- I've had fun building it, had no idea so many others were enjoying it also. Maybe next time, after I get my world back under control and get Jake the rest of my parts, I can finish the budget-uber turbo motor, and we can have a run at it again with some real HP and maybe a little more bling...

Every time one breaks we learn from it and every time the one thats broken goes back together more advanced and more powerful...

Sometimes things breaking open up doors for further performance.....

At least its not your colon thats perforated someone needed to through some comedy in there....no really man that sucks

that part of his anatomy is covered by a, um, HAT!



so have you started sorting the carnage yet? I stared at that pic you posted but it started making me feel a little sick so I had to look away.

Interesting place to break through the case...

roughly 90 degrees from the line of pressure...

build it bigger, build it stronger...

That referance might not be recognized outside of the PNW

Not an unusual vent hole. That's the nearest barrier to the exterior when a rod comes detatched from a piston, usually because the piston has been turned in to small chunks, in T4 motors typically by valve seat that's come unseated.

Nice bike in your sig, Herb. I just got back from an afternoon ride.

Thanks, daily driver, just turned 77K..

Sorry about your bad news.

The photo of the case reminds me of one of my earlier 914s. The case must have had a similar disaster prior to me buying the car (it was well worn by the time I bought it). They just welded the chunk back into place and rebuilt it!

I've seen that before too, a repaired case. Nothing else damaged that I could find, just a rod that had punched a hole in the top of the case, so they'd heliarced it and were back in business. I don't remember what repair we did, but what we fixed wasn't related to that hole and it went back out that way too. That was probably thirty years ago in California, but who knows, maybe it was the same engine.

yah them Enumclaw cowboys are some sick f*#@`s at least there one less ,,,,,,I will tell Dodger about it at WCR09

We found the culprit.

Jake saw the pictures and knew right away that the engine had failed due to the number one piston exploding. The build was flawless and the engine had a textbook break-in and was performing great for more than a couple thousand miles. Nothing should have gone wrong. Jake said as soon as he saw the pile of piston parts that detonation was the cause. Everything else in the motor can be salvaged except the pistons and rods. The cam is not something you use again unless you live in a false economy... But what caused the detonation? The tune seemed perfect. The gauge numbers were fine. Hold the phone I think we found the culprit...

Yesterday I was working in the yard. Some of you have been here to the Conedodger Farm and seen the couple of acres I do battle with. I have a bunch of lawn equipment I use to keep the wilderness beaten back. I used a hand pump to drain the tank of fuel after the engine let go. Put it all into a 5 gallon race can. I have been dumping it into the lawn equipment and put most of it into the 4Runner. Yopu is so gentle on the 4Runner she didn't notice anything at all. Thank God I wasn't driving it with that fuel load because I spank 5 liter Mustangs regularly with that Supercharger! My tractor will not even run on this gas. My chipper started and ran for 2 minutes ingesting and spitting out two 1" branches before doing exactly the same thing the 2270 did. Sudden puff of white smoke followed by louder running and oil smell. Blew a hole in the side of it's little block. Needless to say, I have drained the gas out of all the lawn equipment.

Verdict: Detonation secondary to California pump gas.

So you guys who love to tank on Jake can settle down. This was not his fault...

A new engine case has been sent to Jake (thanks Dan Thompson). Rods are tweaked enough so they will go to Jake's trophy case (he loves breaking shit). The crank can probably be salvaged as there is only cosmetic damage on visual inspection. A set of 70K mile cylinders were sent to Jake. The only visual damage to the heads was in the number 1 CC and Len can make that right I suspect.

We should be back on the track as soon as Jake can get away from that watercooled crap that pays the bills at Aircooled Heaven...

Gas!!!!!? Please tell me more. Something is missing.

Odd.
I've blown one motor in my life ....from lack of lubrication.....I was 19 years old and ignorant. I have worn out a couple. Never had bad gas in any car in my 45ish years of driving. Boy, am I lucky. I did it happen once in a 2 stroke chain saw tho. The mixed gas had been sitting around for 4-5 years.

Neither I nor anyone I have known personally has blown a motor from bad gas. I didn't know it was possible till I came to the 914 crowd bout 10-12 years back..... and the blowed motors are all T-4s. Golly, it's amazing what one can learn from these little cars.

California Gas = Detonation???????

Well aside from being just one more reason to leave this place. What kind of Gas and what state of Tune was the motor in?

I thought, and please correct me, that Detonation was due to timing or over compression with out the correct octane.

Sorry for your loss, but you seem to be on top of it. I could send you some JB Weld if it helps.

And the assholes that continually make smart assed comments concerning them. Want to learn about the Human Race?? Own a Business and do your best, be intense and take your work seriously... The assholes will always be there, trying to spit in your face and most of them are purely jealous and have never accomplished a damn thing themselves.

FWIW I have had several engines die from bad gas.. I once bought a tank full of gas for the dyno out of the same pump that I ALWAYS buy all the dyno gas from.. Got it back to the shop, filled the dyno tank and the EGT was uncontrollable immediately, which was odd because I had just been running the engine and ran out of gas.

Brent and I chased the issue for an hour, the EGT got so hot that it scorched a carbon fiber valve cover while we were trying to troubleshoot the issue.. Changed the fuel, problem solved.. Come to find out that some genius put the 87 octane in the 93 tank and vice versa, so I was trying to run a 10.5:1, 200 HP engine on 87 octane and didn't know it... Till we took a whiff of it (yes we are that damn good) and knew it wasn't right. That engine didn't see any damage because it was under telemetry and we saw every move it made..

It has happened to me with race engines and bad race gas as well... Bad gas can and will take out any aircooled engine if its not caught..

Why the hell do you think that airplanes have fuel samples pulled daily??? I have seen 60,000 gallons of JP-5 Jet Fuel test bad and it put our entire squadron on the deck of a carrier.. Those tests are done with a Mason jar and some sunlight..
I try my best to buy gas at the same station and same pump when possible... EVERY time you get a tank of fuel you are taking a chance that it's crappy.

Well the silly question is How do you know, or what can you do about the gas avalible?

If it is bad gas, why would just a single piston take all the damage?
This is not a bad comment, but a real question.

Could the differences in metallurgy affect one piston faster than another...or maybe some casting/forging issue with that piston versus the others?

I can hear detonation right away...but if it only happened in one piston, would it be possible to hear that?

Just seems odd to me that only one piston took all the damage...

Rich

Bad gas won't have the correct octane. You can burn up a low compression engine running it. One cylinder could have failed first due to minor carb differences. If your slightly leaner on one cylinder it'll fail first. If it could still run the others would have failed shortly after.

That particular piston is in the cylinder that ALWAYS runs a higher EGT with the Tangerine header that was used.. That one cylinder might have had all the planets aligned for the failure, or that one piston was a tad weaker..

Some detonation is inaudible and there are instances where shit happens without any noise associated...

Mechanical things and failures don't have to make sense.. When I break shit the goal is to have it so destroyed that the pieces are too small to even identify...

Anyone who hasn't built an engine and have it explode simply hasn't built enough engines... Its part of our lives..

One of my Customers who is a Pediatric Cardio Thoracic Surgeon sent me the following when he broke his engine at a DE after it made 40HP more than we expected it to..

"It really is hell being at the mercy of OEM parts - in your case its PCNA, but I gotta tell you, I deal with OEM parts from a source that many/most people believe to be unimpeachable. Even God gets it wrong 2% of the time."

How much more real can it get?

Which cylinder was that...I did not go back to read every post...
And,
how much hotter does it typically run?

Rich

#1

Bad gas, we just had a round of it here due to a baltimore harbor storage tank leaking water in from heavy rain.

A lot of folks using oceanic gas popped motors.

I also had a bad fill of E85 one day when running E85 daily in my GTi. The care ran like garbage and missed a ton at startup. I kept it out of boost and at light enough throttle loads to when it warmed up it was limpable.

Knock sensors are awesome. Hopefully some new EFI solutions have them

The CYLINDER doesn't run hotter, the EGT does! EVERY HEADER has one cylinder that runs a tad higher EGT than the others with the same tune up.. With every engine I have tested with the Tangerine unit that cylinder is #1, no matter the engine, size, tune or etc..

You'll never see the difference in the CHT, but when you throw one size larger main in #1 the engine makes more power and the EGT has less differential...

Most every engine that leaves my dyno has 2, 3 or even 4 different size main jets.. One size doesn't fit all.. Why do I know this and you haven't heard it before?? because I haven't shared it because of smart assed remarks that would come from people like JP... Spend 10 years of your life data logging and you'd understand..

(this is why advanced EFI systems have individual cylinder trims per injector, to overcome the differentials created by intake and exhaust subsystems)