I Killed It!!!

[blazin_blazer]

ok, i blew my motor today....threw a rod out the side of the oilpan. i just came in from stripping everything off the shortblock....i had lifters blowed in 1/2 and the cam is broke also...jerked the rod out of the bottom of #5 piston and it went BOOM and poured smoke...i jumped out w/ my fire extingusher and no fire, guess it was 5 qts of oil on the header..and luck..ha yea luck!

i have vortec heads and carb intake that i ordered from gmpp and it pulled 1 of the rocker studs out some...so to reuse them i have to either take them to a machine shop and have them machined for screw in studs or buy the tool that lets you do it yourself, has any1 used this method? would i be better off letting a machine shop do it or is the tool fairly easy to use? or i could drive it back down and pin it, what do you guys reccomend?

looks like piston hit the head on a few cylinders, not sure if i bent any valves(or cracked a head), what is the best way to tell if i bent any valves? they look ok, ...but...???

should i just take them in and have them checked and tapped? not many miles on the engine(so shouldn't need valve job) i just over reved it going from drive to reverse to drive,i hit neutral, will have a rev limiter from now on!!!!

i pulled all my accesorries, heads and intake, didn't bother with the rest, i figure it is scrap, u can put finger down lifter bore up front and feel cam turn the cam doesnt move in rear, it puffed out my timing chain cover a little but timing chain looked good and was still tight, think it is still usable?

should i pull the rest of the engine down, think anything would be salvageable?

 

[southernspeed]

Wow that's a serious blow up! What happened? To be honest, I look at the price of short blocks over there, even built motors and wonder why anyone bothers rebuilding a 'stock' engine. Surely it's cheaper/easier to buy rwady to go one with a warrenty?

 

[lectric80]

If you are going to rebuild it, and based on your description of what happened, the block should still be fine for a rebuild. The royal pain will be getting the cam half out, but it can be done.

Take the heads to a machine shop and have every valve verified straight and have them do the machine work for the studs. I have never dealt with the tool, but with this kind of catastrophic failure, you are better off having it checked through completely. IIRC the heads are aluminum so have it magnafluxed as well.

Timing chain should be reusable on the rebuilt engine.

 

[Chevy305]

 

[GM4wheeling]

Sucks dude... my truck threw a couple main bearings then the crank ceased up when mine went. Worst part was it just happened to be the first time i ever let anyone else drive it. My buddy was following me down the highway in it and after about 15 min he called my cell and told me it wouldn't shift out of first... I was like, how the fu<k are you keeping up... hmm...... and look what happened.

 

[merace19]

X2 billion.


Plus I would not reuse the block or crank. The forces involed to push a rod out the pan could of cracked the block. 350 blocks are a dime a dozen. And if the piston hit the valve then I am sure its bent. Even the smallest hit to a valve while it is hot will casue it to not seat. I have hit the valves many times on many different enginesa and every one had bent valves.

 

[adamforsythe]

I agree

 

[BUDDY]

If you are going to rebuild it, and based on your description of what happened, the block should still be fine for a rebuild. The royal pain will be getting the cam half out, but it can be done.

Take the heads to a machine shop and have every valve verified straight and have them do the machine work for the studs. I have never dealt with the tool, but with this kind of catastrophic failure, you are better off having it checked through completely. IIRC the heads are aluminum so have it magnafluxed as well.

Timing chain should be reusable on the rebuilt engine.

I agree with this guy!! Except that vortec heads are iron, not aluminum. the rest of his advice is very good.

Make sure that the machine shop you take it to knows what they are doing. I'd even ask around to find out who to go to. You start talking to the local gearheads & they'll let you know who to take it to.

Good luck,
Buddy

 

[dyeager535]

You could have the stud pinned or replaced with oversize I assume, quite a bit cheaper than screw in studs, although that isn't really a huge expense.

Definitely agree about having the heads checked over though. As thin as Vortecs are, they probably tend to warp pretty quickly and checking them for true shouldn't cost you much.

 

[vortec]

Plus I would not reuse the block or crank. The forces involed to push a rod out the pan could of cracked the block. 350 blocks are a dime a dozen. And if the piston hit the valve then I am sure its bent. Even the smallest hit to a valve while it is hot will casue it to not seat. I have hit the valves many times on many different enginesa and every one had bent valves.

you don't know how much force went where in all the chaos. even if you had it magnafluxed and it looked fine, there might be stressed metal just waiting to fail a few thousand miles after your rebuild. i was going to do a full rebuild myself on my original k5 350, but when it snapped a rod and jammed between the crank and block, i wasn't comfortable with the maybes. i just got a long-block from a good shop.

 

[4X4HIGH]

Definately take the heads to a shop to have them looked over. I'll guarantee that there are bent valves. Also, what rocker arms are you using? The vortec heads require self guided rocker arms to keep the rocker arms centered over the valve tip. If you used the early non guided rockers with the vortec heads this is likely why your engine blew up.

 

[Randy92782]

That sucks man. I blwe mine the same way. rod through the block. I just yanked it and put the 305 back. I haven't tore it down yet but i'm kinda afraid too though.

 

[JPMSK5]

I got a Gen I SB I would love to get out of my garage.

 

[blazin_blazer]

thanks for your input guys...i have left my house for a couple weeks for christmas(2 hrs. away) and can't get any pics right now...i knew i was leaving,that is why i stayed up so late pulling the engine apart to see what kinda damage i had(see time of post, i stayed up all night)

my heads are iron..but,they make the vortec in aluminum also...i have a set of comp cams magnum rollers(1.5)..self aligning..(2 of these got messeed up also, bent the little "washer" on either side of the roller so roller doesn't roll,thankfully i can buy these 1 at a time, set is @ $300)

i highly doubt block is ok...it had to hit the walls w/rod b4 it threw it out the bottom and it is already bored .040..

the combustion chamber has like a little nipple in it(triangular piece) that sticks out into chamber, and this is where i can see where piston came in contact w/head ...not sure what purpose it serves but it looks like it mayhave keep the piston from hitting the valves????

what makes me mad is, when i had the local napa machine shop recon my rods and press pistons(trw 11:1) to rods, they put #5 on backwards and i noticed it when i was assembling the engine, they had to press it off and turn it around and put it back on...i've been told that when you press a piston on and off it is usually no good anymore, but i didn't know this at the time, and this is the piston that i pulled the pin out of the bottom of the piston..grrrrr...won't ever go back there, big end of rod broke but small end is still intact and has wrist pin still in it.

i have a dozen sbc's so i'm not hurt'n for engines or blocks, i think i am going to build the sb 400 i have, i will have to drill steam holes..iirc

if i have to replace the valves, ya'll think i should go ahead and have the 2.02/1.6 valves installed? the heads have 2.0/1.55(sodium exh.)...i read some where that these vortecs flow better than phase 2 bowties right out of the box and some of it was due to the smaller valve size increaseing air velocity and putting 2.02/1.6 valves is sorta like shootin self in the foot....any1 know the skinny on this?

i have found my new machine shop, i think...its pro block in memphis tn. ...not sure if super shop in memphis has a machine shop.

i'm also toying with the idea of a new 6.0 from a you-pull-it and getting carb intake and msd ignition control box w/ a rev limiter!

thanks again guys i will get a pic of rod and oil pan when i get back home to show ya..it will prolly snow now that i am down and haven't seen snow in 4-5 yrs! guess i'l have to use my '02 450 foreman w/ 29'' tsl vampires, if it snows!

have a merry christmas and remember it isn't over untill the fat man brings :-)