5abivt

Hydrolock at 8000 rpm. Motor has siezed.

Warning to all : if you see slight amounts of smoke coming from your exhaust, please take the time to verify if it is coolant or oil.

Long story short. Motor was not broken in correctly. Without a wideband the car was running well rich when first built. probably washed out the rings/walls whatever because we saw complete glazing of the walls when we were fixing pan leaks.

So, motor did burn slight amounts of oil, and would smoke when revved unless it was fully at warm temp. My guess is the forged pistons would seal up better when expanded.

Our mistake was confusing the slight smoke over the last few weeks for oil. it was ever so slight, some days non existant.

Over the last few weeks I;ve been chasing a wideband wacky reading where it would steady out and then jump all over the place. no doubt now I know it was due to one cyinder burning slight amounts of coolant.

Few nights ago I was out datalogging on a beautiful night with a friend in a 2002 r1. yes I did kill him in every roll on race On the way home I stomped on it one last time in first gear.... Puff of smoke, slight jerk.. service engine light on and low coolant light on... hit the clutch in and rolled to the side of the highway.

Motor siezed. No fluid leaks, underhood clean. Blowing white smoke out the left exhaust confirmed my guess of a head gasket (not 100% confirmed I guess). had her towed home. Mechanically she ran perfect until it happened. 8100 rpms all night long and not a whimper.

Last but not least by the time i got a flatbed 6 hrs later on the side of the road it was daylight and I can see small metal bits in the exhaust


on the bright side, A new block is being prepped already. new LS1 firing order custom camshaft with more lift (going from 578/588 to over .600... not sure how much over .600yet ) I'm just hoping my titanium valves and rods are not destroyed. I'm also glad this didn't happen in 4th gear at 8000 rpm.

make me feel better guys.

cv67

Damn, tough break! What size cam are you running to wring 8k out of yoour stroker?

bogus

wow. sorry the engine let go, but it sure sounds like a serious motor... damn.

where was the coolant coming from? a crack or the head gasket?

Slalom4me

You might want to invest $25 in a Lisle #75550
Combustion Leak Detector kit When you get the
engine back together. It is a quick and easy
method of testing for gasket leaks and cracks.
5000 FPM? That engine must have some kind of
exotic rotating package down below.

.

pushrod-v8

bogus

no kidding. that thing is had to have a near NASCAR level bottom end. They are the only ones that can twist up a small block like that and not grenade them.

88BlackZ-51

Mike. Maybe next time go with some more cubes, so you dont have to rev it like an S2000 to make the power.

Vette Threat

Why would you want to rev a street engine to 8000RPM? If you are then it should be geared to the moon to take full advantage of it.

GT40_GearHead

8000 RPM...!

dude that must be one hell of a screamer \m/

5abivt

Lol i don't need to rev it to make power. I wanted it to. I asked the builder to build me somethng that is smooth idleing, daily driveable but will spin to 8k. He built me exactly what I asked for. to hear my car go through the bay st. tunnel at 7500 rpm in 1st gear was worth it alone. I just wish I made more sound clips

To be honest the motor isn't that serious at all. It makes good power and I was happy with it, nothing insane. I'm not into the 1/4 mile so I atually reduced the rear gears to 3.73s from 4.09s I had in it before the build. The cam is a solid roller of course, <.600 lift 230 + duration with a 115 LSA. Most of the $$ went into the heads, and using the lightest possible components for the rotating assembly/valvetrain.

I think, from my best guess is perhaps the cylinder wall has collapsed into the water jackets. That's what might have led to the hydrolock condition. We did bore the block .060 over so that may have thinned the walls a bit ? My guess is that the leak was gradual and only got worse from the cold air that was making more cylinder pressure etc and it finally allowed some coolant in. When compressed there's only 3 places for it to go.. out the head, through the piston of through the walls. I'm not familiar with hydrolocking conditions etc so I'm just guessing. When we pull it apart we'll know the extent of the damage.

With regards to the shoppe I know this is a touchy situation so I'm just hoping all goes well and we can work this out and both parties come out happy. I'm also hoping to have it back together asap or I'll be buying a brand new R1 and the car can sit for the year

jonecap

That's turnin' hard.

pablocruise

Hydraulic rollers like the LT4 will float the valves at 6300K or so RPM.
Was it a solid roller?

Corvette Kid

I'd think that at 8K RPM, there ain't much warranty involved here.
He already stated that it was.

pablocruise

oops, we were typing at the same time.

5abivt

well the motor was designed and built to rev that high. It was the only reason that almost every part in the motor was specifically chosen. There has been numerous small issues related to sloppy jobs done on the car that we have been correcting over the last year. Even the wiring to the electric water pump wasn't the greatest job that I had to repair after a few times the temperature would get real hot (perhaps the real cause of a head gasket starting to leak?).

I can only imagine the damage that could have been done had this happened in 4th gear at high rpm. the force of the car at that speed would probably have detroyed most of the motor when it tried to lock up. this happened in 1st gear at a slow speed spinning its tires somewhat and she shut off instantly and I had the clutch in asap. Time will tell.

staugur

I can only imagine the damage that could have been done had this happened in 4th gear at high rpm. the force of the car at that speed would probably have detroyed most of the motor when it tried to lock up.

and quite possibly the car and you included!!!

bogus

I know what you mean. My last car was a Honda Prelude VTEC. It ran to 7700 RPM. When the VTEC lobes of the cam came online, damn. It was much like the secondaries kicking in on a old school 4bbl, and in a tunnel, the exhaust sounded near F1. Just not as insanely loud.

I know the two engines can't be compared (your 400+hp to my 190, and much less than half the engine size), but the overall effect was still rather dramatic.

96 lt-4

race engines have no warranty.ask me how i know
i would hope anyone who would bore an engine .060 would sonic check it for cylinder wall thickness.especially one that would turn that kind of rpm.
i would also hope it had main and head studs.yours may have,it was just a thought as i was reading.

Slalom4me

Perhaps it did, but the resulting piston speed at 7700 was
well under what Pryderei's 388 sees at 8K
Reciprocating inertia forces increase at the square of the
increase of the shaft speed.

For reference purposes, the new generation LS7 has a stroke of
101.6mm (4.00") and a redline of 7,000 - this results in piston speeds
of 4,666 FPM. The LT4 in the 1996 GS has a stroke of 3.48" and a
redline of 6,300 - good for 3,654 FPM.

At 8000-8100 RPM, Pryderei is in rare air. Another post has a list
of 28 engines and their piston speeds. The S2000 tops the list at
4965, still a bit under what Pryderei's 388 has been spun to.

.

mackeyred96

8000 ??