IHI

iTrader: (1)

I am very happy to FINALLY see this thing let go, unexpeted yes when it happened, but overall VERY suprised/happy it lived as long as it did.

Bought the short block from machine shop march of last year and since I spend budget on making firewall back bullet proof, the shortblock took the hit for being top notch. Found this 388 short block ready to go for $1K, stock block, stock crank, stock X rods, and KB pistons. Ran entire season last year with guesstimated 3K minimum street miles and won some good coin at the tracks. Did'nt touch a thing over the winter-changed oil/plugs and went back to racing. Again, this season I've got g.o.d knows how many passes and a few thousand more street mile on it, plus ALOT of coin thus far in my pocket. Shifted at 6K the past few years, would take to 7K for the fast ET pass of if I felt a hint of spin to get number back.

Anyways, was going out of town to big payout race, but gas prices made me change plans, so went ot home track street race for shot at $300 to stay in the saddle for our last weekends points race next weekend sinice points are soo darn tight winner will be decided on last race. Did my burnout, staged, took off as normal. Just before the 1000' mark felt like somebody threw a gernade under the car since entire car "jumped", soon smoke filled cabin, thick smoke behind me. Did'nt want to stab brakes for fear of oil leakage so eased into them and it felt fine so pulled off to the side of the track, looked under car-no oil, just alot of smoke coming from under hood so thought, maybe just blew a slick. Went to back of car to look under car and heard motorcycles coming stright at me fuggin starter (track manager) did'nt see me down there and sent two hyabusas runnnng 9's straight at me!!! I'm turning flashers on, waving my arms, trying to let them know I'm there....then the guy sees me and flips ME off???!!! WTF, lol!!

Popped the hood and with shadows of light poles, the motors seemed to sit crooked, thought cool, just a tranny shucked, but a better look made motor seem positioned okay, but something was not right. track tow rig finally got down there and I grabbed his flashlight and noticed balancer did'nt seem quite right....sure enough grabbed ahole of it and it snapped off somewhere behinf timing chain cover

Luckily it did'nt oil the track so they did'nt have any clean up, I'm not too upset since I knew this was coming and expected it last year, so I got alot of life outta this stock short block....but I know next block will be of alot better parts, high compression, etc...more race type motor instead of this street strip stuff. Now I can FINALLY rub elbows with all the other guys having a blown motor under my belt

Probably wont mess with it until later this weekend/next week, but for those of you that have done this, what kind of damage should I expect to see....I pray my heads are still good, since that's where my money's at!! seems crank snapped off behind lower timing gear since it will wobble, but will not slide out, hoping valves did'nt come smashing into pistons....heads...please be okay LOL!!! If not, going BBC that's all out and more than car can handle!! triple nickel anyone

raceb8

sorry to hear about that!! but at least your looking on the bright side..... blow up, rebuild , faster!

IHI

iTrader: (1)

Everybody at the track kept saying I was taking it well, I look at it like this, the car is still okay-did'nt get out of control, I'm safe, nobody else got hurt, far more positives than a broken motor which goes along with motorsports competition. I had a total of $3500 in this motor from carb to pan and it lasted a LOOONG time which more than paid for itself in winnings, plus I knw when I bolted this thing in last year it was just a matter of when, not if it was going to go bye bye. I shifted it at 6K all the time trying to do my part not stressing internals worse than they needed to, but it literally has thousands of passes on it and thousands of street miles running the numbers it did on a STOCK shortblock with nothing more than oil/p;ug changes and lash adjustiment....I'm impressed it lasted this long and really boosted my faith of cast steel parts lasting when they're assembled by a shop that know wtf they are doing...it was a great run, and sitting here watching some TV calming down from the night I'm looking forward to ripping it out and seeing how bad the damage really is.

I've already had multiple calls from other racers (on a holiday weekend no less-word spread that fast) with multiple engines and 2 rides to finish out the year, luckily I have the truck to fall back on, so all in all, the situation is not that bad. I've been around many guys that have had worse damage so I consider myself very fortunate, yes it sucks being out a motor, but in less than 2 hr of it happening I have back up plans A-F to run with....drag racers are very special people and this brotherhood of sorts is what makes this sport so great, no matter what, you do/will have options even when something bad happens.

Onto plan B:

Currently 8 points outta first place for modified with only 4 rounds separting 1-5 place, so it's going to be decided next weekend who wins this thing. Taking the truck back out Fri to get back in the swing and adjust R/T's, then if this keeps with the zerox machine timeslips that we had last time out, fully expecting to win both days!!

AlkyIROC

Last race weekend there was a real cool Dodge sitting in the pits. Hemi with a big blower. I think it was running in Quick Comp but I never saw it run. When I finally went over to have a look at it I could see the crank pulley hanging by the blower belt.

My 2 spare/damaged 4340 4" cranks both failed a magnaflux. I don't know where the cracks are but I won't use them in a high HP engine so I bought a new 4340 4-1/4" crank. I'll probably get one of the other cranks machined down and put it into a more streetable engine eventually. Something that will stay below 5000 rpm.

The nice thing about points racing is that it doesn't matter what you drive. The car isn't making the points, you are. As long as you have another vehicle that runs in the same class, you can run whatever you want weekend to weekend. Our top points leader in Box class spun a main bearing during the Saturday night races. Another racer who wasn't in the points hunt lent him his car for the Sunday race. It was a full second slower but was still deadly consistant and he went a bunch more rounds with it. I don't know if he won the race or not.

IHI

iTrader: (1)

Stephen, any of your cranks snap just behind the timing gear? if so what kind of overall damage did you see? just hoping heads did'nt get it too bad, but if cam stopped with crank snout breaking off, thinking i might have some valve smashing piston isses and may fock up my heads.

I had to ask track manager tonight after this happened, begining of this year they stated points went to the car and car can have alternate driver: meaning you can get a hired gun to run your car and you collect the points. But after talking with him tonight, he told me personally points go with driver (as it should be) so I'm good to go.

Trevor86TA

Sorry to hear about the carnage but you seem to be taking it very well. On the bright side, you are going to be able to make a last ditch effort to win the championship and don't need to put something together mid season. Hopefully your heads are OK so you can go even faster with a small block.


Trevor

AlkyIROC

I've never broken a crank yet with all the damage I've done over the years but I'm sure if the crank snapped behind the timing gear then it would have bent valves. Even an instant stop still means the engine was turning over a few rpms for that fraction of a second. At 7000 rpm, the engine rotates 116 times in one second. Most cars travel from the 1000' to the 1320 in around 2 seconds. Any kind of damage like that means a complete tear down and inspection anyway.

I've seen a broken crank in a big Cummins diesel. It still ran but had a terrible vibration. Luckly I didn't have to do the tear down to fix it. Changing a crank with the engine in the truck is a big job. Pulling the engine is an even bigger job.

I know that feeling of postponing the teardown to see how much damage has been done. I've done it a few times. Even now after hurting my engine a few months ago, I still don't have the new engine together. Mostly waiting for parts or labour but the last race of the season is in one week and there's no way it will be done in time. Now there's no rush to finish it and I can spend 8 months making sure it's done right. I came so close to that 9 second time slip this year. Technically I can still get on track during the Friday night street legal races if I can get the engine back together before Oct 7. After that, the track is shut down for the season because the nights are starting to get too cold. As much as I'd like some track time with the new engine, I'm not going to rush it just to make that deadline. Even in the points hunt, I'm not in the top 5 in street class to worry about the last race weekend (2 races) although I may attend the Sunday race if the weather is nice.

AlkyIROC

When my old 383 stroker blew in 1999, I put 200 passes on it and it had many miles on it from being in 3 different cars. Factory 400 crank, rods, rod bolts and some flat top cast pistons got me into the high 11's at 117 mph before it finally let go. Just goes to show that you don't need high dollar parts to go fast but the high dollar parts will usually stay together longer.

urbanhunter44

iTrader: (3)

Wow IHI, that sucks, but at least you got more than your money's worth from that shortblock. Good luck, and post some pics when you get that thing torn down

five7kid

iTrader: (14)

Buddy I pit with won 1st round in yesterday's final summer series race, came back to the pits and it wasn't sounding right. I was walking toward him as he had the hood off and was reving it, trying to listen to it. I could hear a lifter clacking as I walked up, but he couldn't. Took the valve cover off, found a roller tip laying there. The pin had broken out, and the rocker then pushed down on the retainer, letting the keepers loose, which dropped the valve and bent it.

He grenaded his previous engine in July. On his 4th tranny for the season.

He didn't leave a happy camper.

92MaroRS

Damn, that sucks. be sure to take pictures when you tear it down.

Motor City Mike

I've read elsewhere that if you're using a timing chain set that uses a multi-indexing crankshaft sprocket (the one with numerous keyway cuts in it), that it has caused many crankshafts to break the snouts off (SBC's in particular). It seems that those type of sprockets produce stress risers on the front face of the crank where it seats, which leads to cracks, and finally the snout breaking off.

There's no doubt that the some of the pistons hit valves that were left open. As long as none of the valve heads broke off, any damage to the heads should be repairable.

IHI

iTrader: (1)

Mike, this set-up did have the 9 way keyed lower gear, it was'nt until just recently I started hearing all the bad things about them and what they can do. I debated dry belt, but was out of budget at the time so did what I had to before points started.

Looking forward to taking what I've learned, dreaming up a new combination and implementing it to see how I do....just in a spot right now wondering what to do with the car since motor I want is obviously going to be waaay more than this junker can handle in current form, so do I tub, mini tub, just build a nice street motor and enjoy the car and buy a rail/altered for racing only, etc....descions descions LOL!!

AlkyIROC

If measurments all go well, my new engine will have noisy gears for timing. I couldn't put them in the last engine because it was line honed too many times and the crank sat too high up in the block.

Personally I don't know why anyone would want one of those 9 keyway sprockets. The average person is going to install the cam straight up. Even a good Cloyes set will have 3 keyways for 4* advanced or retarted which is more than enough if you want to play with cam timing. Anyone who's serious enough to really fine tune the cam timing will get a system like the hex adjust.

IHI

iTrader: (1)

When i bought the 9 key set-up last year it was the new buzz so figured I'd keep up with the Jones and get it myself, was'nt until this year I started hearing stories about them being bad...it wont happen again.

Anyways, got the motor torn down-wife left out of state for birthday party and took the camera so it'll be a few days before i can take pictures. Not really too much to look at, not nearly the damage I was hoping/expecting. Crank did indeed break directly behind the lower timing chain gear, big cam gear teeth were kinda messed up like you took a grinder to it while it wwas spinning. It sheared off my external timing pointer, all the plugs looked perfect when I pulled them out, took intake off and needed a deep breath LOL. EVERY pushrod was either bent severly or broken and peices of roller lifters were scattered in lifter valley-actually found part of one pushrod behind timing chain cover

Once motor was out, pulled the heads-absolutely NO chamber damage and the pistons still looked great-a few minor scratches that took off some carbon dust, but that was it. Think I have a few slightly bent valves since a few of them were just a touch above the seat, but other than that nothing Pulled off all the mains, and the bearings were still new looking Clevite 77's and 99% of surface area still had the white top film on them the worst one naturally was #1 main where crank snapped it showed a little copper and rods were a few thousanths looser than the rest. Same went for all the other rods bearings, looked like an unrun motor.....I'm now 150% sold on sysnthetic oil. Dropped all slugs out and not one cylinder scuff, walls still looked new and no ridges anywhere, rings were all intact, and rods at face valvue all appear unhurt.

Very pleased with minimal damage, regardless still going to have block checked and either sell block if okay or just throw everything in the trash heap and start from scratch-usually what I've done to this point anyways, use up a motor and just get entire new shortblock from off the floor, might get this new shortblock custom built this time so I can safely throw the juice to it, but time will tell, all I want now is high 9's through the pipes, but will open my criteria for race gazz.

caribbean 85

Sorry to hear your engine blew up - good that heads are ok

I actually use your car as a case in point of good performance from stock parts - and I plan to stick with mine until it retires or I can gracefully put her to rest

Just my thought on good expensive parts vs. stock parts -

when good parts go - which they do - damage tends to be more catastrophic all around - especially on pocket

maybe there are so strong, they just tear apart - I have heard more survivor stories with stock parts

any thoughts, guys?

good luck on your new build - I kind of like ohio crank offerings for my long term future plans

92MaroRS

i think you hear less horror stories from using stock parts because when you spend money on high dollar parts you tend to push the limits more and run harder. and we all know when you do that things only last so long.

IHI

iTrader: (1)

Over the years all the carniage I've seen first hand and heard about, actual race parts ie good forged peices, tend to cause more damage when things let go simply because they are so hard and there is no give, once they give they "explode" and take alot of other stuff with them.

Stock type parts are more forgiving since there is flex, the steel will give somewhat before being stressed to the limit and snapping. But whichever way you go, you need to be smart about using parts per application otherwise motor will be short lived. I was very lucky this thing lasted this long, I truely expected this thing to gernade a few months after I installed and after it starteed running good and made the power it did. But I also think this goes to show a motor assembled by professionals that know what they're doing and care about their work, you can get great performacne with less than perfect parts, this is why I will never build a motor/tranny personally since the cash outlay is to high to take any chances of missing an item that causes motor to go bye bye only to have to redo it again at twice the cost. I've seen too many guys try and save a buck at the track building their own stuff and have continual problems, for 2 years with twice the abuse any track only car ever sees I changed oil and plugs...to me that supports my descions to let the guys that do this kind of work everyday to assemble my stuff since I hate working on this junker anymore than I have to!

phoenix305

Yeah but were is the fun in letting other people build it? how do you think they got so good?

Rogue86

I'll gladly spend the extra money to have a short block assembled by professionals. ESPECIALLY in a race car. With the racing that I do (along with i'm sure several others on the board) A person cannot afford to be iffy on assembly.

Granted, one day I'd like to be good enough to assemble my own short blocks the right way and be confident in it, but until I have the money to screw up and fix it again (relatively quickly i might add) I'll be letting the race shops do short block assembly.

IHI

iTrader: (1)

Could'nt have been better said!!

Anything can happen at anytime to anything, that is just life. But like I've asked before in general, would you just buy $60,00 worth of matrerial and try to build your own home? Some do, and run into all sorts of problems along the way that costs more money/time so smart money for a onw time shot is to hire a contractor like myself to do it right the first time, I've been doing this game so long I know what I'll get into before even getting out my hammer, 99% of homies have no clue, but think they do and get themselves into trouble.

Same principal goes with engine/tranney building. I'll let the guys that have been in the trenches for years use what they've learned to build me a solid platform so I can be smiling while still going rounds and your on the trailer going home to pull your fresh home built motor. It's hard enought o break even in racing and constatnly fixing fock ups cuz your trying to save money or have this "pride" of doing it yourself runs alot of people out of money and out of the sport., cuz it cost double to fix scrw ups.

Motor City Mike

I talked to one of the crankshaft gurus at Callies earlier today to clarify a few things regarding the 9-way crank sprockets. It seems that what is actually causing the snout breakage problem is the backside of these gears are not relief cut enough to clear the radius on the crank (between #1 main journal and snout), and when the damper is bolted on, the gear is being forced onto the crank's radius before contacting the front face. This cuts into the radius and starts the stress risers to form.

I asked about big block engines being affected (since I'm running the Rolldisaster timing set also), and he said that he's only seen/heard of it happening on the SBC's. While my engine is still apart, I'm going to pull the gear off my crank to inspect it anyway.

IHI

iTrader: (1)

So it is something that is very common and what your guy said makes perfect sense, when I get some time later in the week I'm going to check mine out to confirm what you've just said.

next motor will be a dry belt so hopefully wont have to deal with this issue anymore, or the tried and true 3 keyed gear like we've been using for years.

I suspect that's where the problem started since this crank snout snapping is becoming very very popular this year and most busted ones were using the 9 way gear, and some with alot better cranks than a stock one

Anybody have buddy's of first hand info on parts coming from Ohio Crankshaft? I'm eyeballing some of their many short blocks and the 555 looks like a pretty darn good deal for only $4300, should be easy to make 8-900 hp with the right combination of parts. http://www.ohiocrank.com/short.html

SnkSknrZ28

iTrader: (2)

sorry to hear that dude, its good to have a positive outlook on things though, build a newer faster bullet Like you said it lasted you a while for what it was, paid its dues i'm sure. Alot of people get really bent when there stuff breaks but you cant, its a high performance machine, things are gonna go wrong, alot of power alot of pounding going on.

mdricken

I wonder if a BBC would be the way to go? I've had guys trying to talk me into going BB instead of a small block for a race car due to more bang for buck, consistency and durability.

BTW I was out there Friday... somebody blew their tranny and we were down to one lane for a while -- only wish I couldve seen the carnage on Saturday too

IHI

iTrader: (1)

BBC are too boring imo since to make them fast you need to stick some coin in them, mainly the heads. For a consistancy standpoint in bracket racing-ESPECIALLY with a small tire car, BBC like to grunt down low and not be spun to high with just standard parts so with the added wieght in the nose if I person stuck with an iron assembly and the grunt they produce at low rpms your risking 60 repeatablity until the chasis is sorted out.

I've heard before BBC are as prone to move on numbers if you miss a shift by a few hundred rpm, but for what it'd take to build a killer BBC I'll have a sbc running right next to it with less investment, 2 years racing and 2 years on the street it's far fetched to say this junk did'nt last awhile by any standards-I've seen track only stuff not last as long with high dollar parts. Just trying to look at it this way, I know it does'nt take a whole lot to make a sbc scream, and be reliable for minimal investment, but to make a BBC scream your going to have to turn the wallet loose, cuz stock iron heads aint gonna get you nowhere even worked waay over-especially if you farm that work out to a shop that knows what they're doing...buddies 781 castings were $1500 when he picked them up and only flowed300cfm. I've got $1350 in my heads flowing 282 out of the box and are going to be massaged well into the 300+cfm range for less than those iron BBC heads got invested.

Been pricing BBC heads and I'm upwards of $3K for what I want just in heads so the motor will run like IMO a BBC should, so easily $7K investment for BBC long block, while I had $3500 total in my sbc trying to make BBC numbers

Thinking last night of just building a nice 355, throwing on my heads for a ncie street motor than can be used as back up car if needed and just buying a used rail turn key for racing....or just let it all sit until this gazz price crap gets sorted out and enjoy spending time with my daughter instead of traveling all the time to the tracks racing with my buddies.

SnkSknrZ28

iTrader: (2)

BBC vs SBC is a hard decision haha. If you have money to spend a bbc will out-do a sbc all day long, however if your on a budget most likely the sbc will prevail. A buddy of mine just did the switch to a bbc and loves it, he did a budget build on it (still spent some coin) and it put out great power. it ended up being a 489ci, canfield heads, vic jr intake, holley carb, solid flat tappet cam and put down 650hp on pump gas. My solid roller 383 only put down 550hp.. Now the weight toss up, going with a bbc u can add 200lbs to your combo, to me i feel that right there evens the playing field, he has more power but i have less weight.

SBCs rotating assembly are 125lbs lighter which means they can wind up alot faster, i like making her scream Theres nothign like a sbc screaming at 7500rpm just beggin for more. If i didn it again i think i'd go bigger cube small block, BB power with SB weight :tup: something along the lines of a 454ci up to a 471ci small block and of course top it off with a fogger

IHI

iTrader: (1)

LOL, I've been looking at some big inch motors recently, have my eye on a 632 Donovan block, the shortblock itself is'nt a bad price, I'm just adding all the things up for the top end to make it run "like it should" and that's really scaring me right now Maybe with my year off next year I'll have saved enough pennies to start putting together a top notch top end for a pig block since short block BBC are'nt too bad depending on guts inside....same thing I did with this motor, stock piled parts all fall/winter and threw it together in the spring...too much out of pocket for me all at once. But having seen factory headed BBC run, I can say without a doubt, I will NEVER have a BBC between any fenders of my cars with factory heads uptop....they just dont flow the numbers for "serious" power.

For a street car it'd be fine that way, but dont know if I can go back to being slower...the disease has grabbed hold I guess.

mw66nova

iTrader: (13)

i have a set of OHIO CRANKSHAFT forged rods in my motor. i don't spin my motor near as hard as you do, but it's got nearly 40K street miles on it and a couple hundred passes on it.