Catastrophic engine failure - share your stories

[OVERKILL]

Personally, I've never had an engine fail on me, but have had a few close examples.

- My sister nuked the 50HP Evinrude "big twin" on the "kids boat" at the cottage when I was in my teens. She blew a hole in one of the pistons and barely got home.
- My good friend and best man at my wedding had a former CASCAR longblock in his Camaro with an offset ground crank and a TH350 with a B&M ratchet shifter. Well, he went to ratchet down to 2nd and hit 1st, wound it off the deep end and it was knocking pretty hard after that. Previously, he window'd the block on another 350.
- My grandfather had an Alouette racing snowmobile that my uncle blew up. Had a new engine built for it and my uncle managed to seize that solid out in the middle of the lake.

And of course any of us who have attended racing venues have seen flywheels go through hoods, rods exit blocks...etc.

So, let's hear your personal examples. I'm sure @schwinney has a few he could share Same with @ARCOgraphite.

 

[Chris142]

1986 dodge d50( Mitsubishi truck)... Bought new off the lot. Needed a valve job @35k and the crankshaft broke @44k.

I still hate Mitsubishi to this day.

 

[OVERKILL]

I will post this history lesson since most of us haven't thought of it in awhile. PLEASE don't add political comments.

Not really what this thread is about, I'm hoping for personal examples, like what @Chris142 shared.

 

[JeffKeryk]

My '66 GTO. The torque monster 389 was rebuilt by my brother. Man did I beat on that thing; it ate transmissions. Blew the engine accelerating HARD on an Expressway. Cam was in multiple pieces.
Wish I had that car today. Midnight blue on blue interior. The 1st gen GTOs were some of the most beautiful cars ever made.

A friend put a new Chev Targetmaster 350 in his big Chev 3/4 ton work truck with all the boxes. Heavy with all the tools. Bought it in a crate; installation was done by one of his shade tree mechanic friends.
The new engine threw a rod through the pan within a short time. Chevrolet offered a great warranty on this $1200 engine. They towed his truck to the nearest dealership and replaced the engine. Zero charge. Amazing.

 

[jetman]

About 15 yrs ago I bought a rear engine dragster at an estate sale just to resale it to make a buck. It had a big block chevy in it with solid roller cam, thats all I know. I decided to take it to the track to see what it would do. Was having so much fun I decided to keep it. Still didn't know what cubic inch it was, what rods were in it, etc etc etc. To do some trouble shooting one weekend I removed the rev limiter chip. I was having too much fun in the burnout and sent a rod or 2 thru the side of the block. Sold it shortly thereafter. Didn't make any $, but it sure was fun.

 

[addyguy]

I wasn’t there, but years and years ago my folks had a 1975 Duster with the slant-6. It was older and high mileage, but I think well looked after; they definitely didn’t drive it hard.
Driving down the highway one day, it apparently just exploded all over the road - spread an oily, metal filled mess all over all lanes of the road.
The police that responded were not amused, in fact they were downright angry and basically threatened to arrest my folks for causing such a mess and disruption.

 

[bullwinkle]

Only my infamous $25 ‘72 Pinto, tried to get to school (U. of Cincinnati, main campus), ran that old 2.0 out of oil, chucked a rod through the block. Still the only engine I’ve ever killed-and, believe me, I’ve tried.

 

[oldcodger]

Bought new 1973 ford pickup 6 cyl. Motor picked up load of carbon in 50,000 miles. Cranked it one day and carbon on top of cylinder bent a valve and screwed up valve seat. Removed motor and replaced it with a junkyard V8..

 

[tnt_motorsports]

personally have never had a motor blow up on me but being a race car nut I have worked on and seen many. The most memorable was when we broke a connecting rod on a "street stock" back in the day when I was on a pit crew at Delaware Speedway. It looked like someone had blasted the oil pan with a 12gauge. It also put a decent hole in the block. The only part we were able to re-use was the intake manifold. When we hit the recall it was ~7,200RPM. It let go going into turn 3 on the back stretch. Worse part was it was on it's first run in practice on the test and tune day.

just my $0.02

 

[Rand]

I bet @schwinney could tell us some whopper stories about his first subaru.

I have never blown an engine. I think arco is on his 15th or so. 😉

 

[walterjay]

I had a air cooled VW that dropped a valve into a piston. No real noise, just wouldn't go. Rebuilt if for $500.00

 

[wwillson]

I was pulling a primary tillage disk with one of our John Deere 7520s (531ci) when I was about 16. It started to act low on power, then blew a cloud of white smoke out the breather tube. I shut it off and it wouldn't restart. When it was torn down at the dealer, a spun main bearing was the culprit. If you are familiar with John Deere's design of the front half of most tractors from that vintage, you know that the engine block was used as part of the frame in four wheel drive and smaller two wheel drives. Many engine blocks in the four wheel drive tractors would flex just enough that main bearing #6 would eventually spin, ours did at 4000 hours.

Then there was the 8430 (466ci) four wheel drive that had the exhaust valve rocker on #6 break while I was moving between fields. When you have combustion and the exhaust valve doesn't open at 2000 RPMs, it's a VERY loud BANG as the head gasket gets launched into next week.

 

[Pew]

I might know a thing or two about blowing a few motors.

First motor in the evo blew as I was coasting to a stoplight by my old job. Pretty sure that Colbalt SS owner that was parked next to me 2 minutes prior had a chuckle. Second motor blew up about 6 months after being installed. Both were on bad tunes but I neglected to get the tune fixed in time. I guess this is what happens when you hit 33psi one to many times.

 

[aquariuscsm]

Not really what this thread is about, I'm hoping for personal examples, like what @Chris142 shared.

Anyone doing that to a Supra, sorry, the verbiage I was about to use can't be said here. Same with that beautiful Mustang. The utter crap they make today can't hold a candle to those cars. Anyone purposely destroying those cars definitely has psychological problems.

 

[Taildragger]

In the 90's I had two Chevy diesels break crankshafts in steady state cruising. One a V8, the other a V6. Also had another one drop a valve. Broken numerous Detroit Diesels, from blower shaft drives to full on ventilation mode.

 

[Chris142]

My '66 GTO. The torque monster 389 was rebuilt by my brother. Man did I beat on that thing; it ate transmissions. Blew the engine accelerating HARD on an Expressway. Cam was in multiple pieces.
Wish I had that car today. Midnight blue on blue interior. The 1st gen GTOs were some of the most beautiful cars ever made.

A friend put a new Chev Targetmaster 350 in his big Chev 3/4 ton work truck with all the boxes. Heavy with all the tools. Bought it in a crate; installation was done by one of his shade tree mechanic friends.
The new engine threw a rod through the pan within a short time. Chevrolet offered a great warranty on this $1200 engine. They towed his truck to the nearest dealership and replaced the engine. Zero charge. Amazing.

Those target masters were junk. They had 4 bolt mains because the block was too soft to support the crank with only 2 bolts. The pistons had dishes in them to lower the compression. The ratio was 7-7:1. The heads didn't flow and cracked at normal operating temps. The cams went flat and had very low lift. Less than a 929 cam. Things put out 240 hp at the flywheel.

 

[c502cid]

In the 90's I owned a wrecking yard. If we bought something with a dead motor we always tried to get it running to see what, if anything, of the drivetrain worked so we could sell it. I bought an old square body chevy K30 with a 6.2 diesel that the owner said was dead. Having some experience with 6.2 issues we finally got the glow plugs to light up and fired the truck up. It actually ran pretty well. We used it as a shop truck as it was a 4x4 dually with a flat bed on it.
One day I was driving it and the motor made a loud thump on acceleration. It was still running but had a blue/white smoke cloud coming out of it that could fog an acre on both sides of the road. I drove it back to the shop smoking like a volcano and shut it down when I got there. The motor was HOT. When it cooled down it wouldn't start and we couldn't even turn it over with the longest cheater bar on the crank bolt. We pulled the motor and dropped the pan, it was filled with oil and coolant. Not sure what happened to it really, we replaced it with a tired 454 from another truck and the truck is still running today plowing snow up in the mountains, a friend owns it.

 

[Graham Piccinini]

My brother, with his oil burning >220k 2JZ-GE engine decided that oil is oil and started topping off with Idemitsu 0W-20 that he found in the garage. Before you know it - most of the oil in the crankcase was 0W20 after a few thousand miles of top-offs. He is also a regular hooligan at car meets and did great donuts and burnouts, despite my warnings. Then he decided to change the oil and added Motor Medic engine flush... Spun bearing on cyl #6 was the result, ate the crankshaft beyond repair. He ended up rebuilding that engine and sold the IS300 soon after.
Fun stats: Replacing the first transmission he blew in the Lexus took him a week start to finish. Second and Third took less than an hour each. All tranny replacements done in the backyard on the grass. Engine rebuild took him a year of trials and errors in parent's garage.

 

[ripcord]

Back when the dinosaurs roamed, my brother threw a rod through the side of the 300 six in his 72 F250, so we scrounged up a good running 302 and installed it. In the process, we managed to snap off the dipstick tube. I told him not to drive it until we got a new one, but a couple of days later I got a got a call telling me he threw a rod in the 302. He thought he could make it for a day with just some shop towel jammed in the hole. He got a third engine (351w) which lasted decade after that. We were getting pretty fast at R&R'ing engines by the time we were done.

 

[AutoMechanic]

Hmm well no personal ones either lol but I can tell you about a technician I know forgetting to tighten the drain plug in our HR ladies daughters car. She was going down the interstate and the low oil light came on then next thing you know before she had the chance to pull over the car is making a horrible noise she said. So it was towed back no drain plug, a hole in the engine, and no oil lol. The speed limit on that stretch of interstate is 70mph. That’s not even what got the guy fired lol 😂 he ran a Dodge Ram into a lift and popped a tire and damaged the front end. Lol. The car he blew up was a Kia so he did it a favor really it’s day hadn’t came yet but it would of blown eventually lol 😂.

Now I have to admit I have left drain plugs loose by mistake. One did come out but the customer was smart and didn’t drive the vehicle and had it towed back. There is something funny though well kinda funny. My other coworker the one who I’ve mentioned on here a few times nicknamed Batman he left the drain plug loose on the exact same year, make, model and color vehicle about a week later ( 2019 red Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross) and the customer kept driving it and the engine blew. It was also considered catastrophic as it blew at high speed. Don’t know if a rod came thru as we don’t share a shop with the Mitsubishi mechanics but I know they weren’t happy about it. Sorry if these stories weren’t exactly what you were looking for but they are engine failures lol.