3 yrs ago: 2 years ago: TODAY!!: 1st round of elimins today, made the 1-2 shift about 300' out or so roughly and BOOM, felt like i drove over a landmine, car aint never been rocked like that with all the other crank snouts exploding off. Shut'er down as quickly as possible and got onto the guardrail as quickly as possible to save the track, had enough time to watch my damper and pulley chase me down the track in the rearview mirror...not a sight i'd say is neat to watch; but it kinda was LOL!! damper and pulley came to a stop just off my rear bumper, track manager came down with the quad and stopped along the way picking up my alternator belt and timing belt....so, here we go again. this time, i'm not touching the thing, i'm dropping it off dresh out of the car and letting the new shop i dynoed at tear it down, tell me what's wrong and see where i go from here. Luckily a freind of mine offered up his 406 which is almost a spitt'n imagine of my old 388 that won alot of races so i have that in the options folder, hoping it does'nt come to that though.

are all three the same brand of crank? if so, what brand? internal or external balance?

1st crank was factory cast steel and that lasted the longest.

2nd crank was Callias Dragonslayer i got 1 race
3rd/current crank was Callais Comp Star and i got all last season with the motor waaay down on power due to other issues 2nd builder screwed me on that we fixed this winter, and then i got 4 races this year on it with new found power.

It's not the cranks fault, i think it all stems back to the first two shops that screwed me on other aspects and this was just residual damages as a result of that, so now i'm not touching a thing and taking the complete motor to the new shop and letting them break it down and find out whatelse is'nt right internally.

All rotating assemblies were internally balanced.

i hate to see it happen again...you need to find a 4 leaf clover or something lol

Well, they make a SBC crank with the BBC crank snout...i think that parts is calling your name, LOL.

what balancer are you using (although in reality a properly internally balanced engine doesn't need a balancer per se, just a shell with timing marks to seal the timing cover)? seems like you might not have the correct interference fit between your balancer and crank snouts, allowing the balancer to chuck around at high rpms and eventually fatigue/break the crank.

You might just have to take zone89rs's suggestion and get a crank with a bb snout, although i can't believe that callies crank can't handle the power your making.

no way callies are supposed to last forver so it has to be something else

That is strange to break 3. I see the first 2 you had a timing chain, the third a timing belt. Also the only thing you have being run off the crank is the alternator. That should definitely not be enough strain to break off the end of a crank! In 10 years of points racing and test n tunes i dont believe ive ever seen an N/A car break the snout off the crank. Those cranks you've had should be able to handle the strain of a blower without breaking. Your balacer would have to be waaaaaay out of balance to do this. LOL either that or you have one beast of an alternator.

Only crank snouts i have personally seen break are the scat 9000 units and stockers.

Damb man! Three? That's weird stuff.

...that makes two of us looking for a crankshaft....... mines not broke, just a .250 short for the combo I have.

Callies cranks + valves = $$

you need to stop making carb jet adjustments by standing on the balancer.

I would really love to know why the crank snouts are breaking on you. I have a buddy running 9.90s on a 421 bowtie block with an eagle forged crank with dual stage nitrous and after 3 season at Rte 66 track in Joliet, he has never broken a crank at the snout. He has bent rods before, but not broken a crank yet. Knock on wood.

Ah damn

It's a little dangerous making long-distance diagnoses from photographs, but that's clearly rotating fatigue. The small dark circle offset to the right is the final fracture. The "beach marks" going from the edge toward the final fracture are the crack growth.

The coloring is interesting. It doesn't look like the crack initiated from the keyway (a common weak and stress riser point). Hard to tell from your photos exactly what the staining is, but I'd guess you've got corrosion in there, meaning the crack started quite awhile ago - may have even been there from the manufacture of the crack. Although the offset nature of the fracture hints at an imbalance (wobbling, from a loading standpoint) of the snout/damper.

Send them to me, I'll get them in the met lab and electron microscope and we'll get to the bottom of this. Shouldn't cost more than $1k-$2k. . .

Sounds like you and i have the same luck. I was having a SBC built that would knock after a short time after being built, well after 3 more rebuilds the crank broke in half I don't know if it was out of balance from the get go, or if it was craked before hand. It was a Scat BTW.

I possibly spoke too soon, i talked with the shop that will be getting this cursed chunk of iron and aluminum to try and see what all is salvagable if anything and make this piece 100% right from here on out. But when the new builder seen the pictures and i told him what the crank was he said i can almost bet my life saving i know exactly what happened since they lost 2 of their customer engines with the exact same thing happening, and a shop down in kansas he is good buddies with lost 4 customer engines, all using this Callias Comp Star crank. He told me to look at the serial number on the end of the snout and if it's below 69308 then it's almost certain it was one of theri bad batches of cranks sent out, and after talking with Callias they found they had a few in stock that were bad ones. Mine is a 65007 so he's going to make some calls and check into it for me, hoping to get it jerked out this friday night or saturday and get it up there as soon as possible so i know what direction i'm going (rebuild or borrow) LOL!!

i guess what happened was they treated the cranks, and the heat treate was'nt very deep, so when they chucked them up to grind them down to fit balancer ID's they ground the hard metal off leaving nothing but soft metal behind...hence all the guys having this same issue. That's not saying that jackazzz that rebuild this for me a few yrs ago, and slowed me down with all the crap he did i found this winter, did'nt do something right...heck, as much as he hacked this together in the first place, he may have just taken the crank fresh out of the box and dropped it in, at this point, that would'nt suprise me, so the shop is going to go through and check EVERYTHING so we can get to the bottom of this.....$20K in 3 yrs, and add in whatever this will cost on top of that.....this is why my ultimate decsion is waiting until they tear it apart and find out how good/bad off i really am....if it's over a certain dollar amount, i'll be turning this posessed POS in for scrap, buying beer, worms, minnows and going fishing the rest of the year so we'll see. Beyond burnt out at this point, complete new engines every year for 3 years running due to carniage...the fun left the building years ago, i'm just to stubborn to let inanimate objects beat me, but i think i'm close to throwing in the towel for a bit. LOL!!

Heat treat depth doesn't sound right. Let me look through my books and see what I come up with.

Heat treat may be involved, but I doubt it's from grinding off the hard surface metal - that's typically case hardening, which provides a wear surface, not strength. Hard metal is more brittle, which means it's more prone to cracking, which is what fatigue is (gradual crack growth with cyclical loading).

All of that could be determined with lab work. But, it'd cost more than a new crank. No doubt Callias has done that by now in order to know what to fix. Getting them to tell you what it was - that's a different story.

You know how the corp world is, they will skate around the real answer to pacify a person hoping they will just go away, that's why i'm not to excited about them offering anything if for whatever reason the crank itself was to blame...how often do you really hear of companies standing behind their product weather it's $1 or $1M...it happens in rare cases, but not often enough we as consumers are truely offended when they tell us to f... off...but at this point, or at leat until tomorrow morning i dont want to speculate anything, way to easy to get worked up over unknowns and the situation is still what it is.

I've learned one thing though, the harder the part, the more violent the xplosion...almost makes me want to go back to a cast deal since that just simply bends and breaks with no drama....the sound this thing made sunday and the way it shook the car, it honestly stunned me for a split ssecond, i did'nt know WTF just happened it was so violent, and to be honest, the fact the timing pointer is still in place along with the water pump and everything else around it...just one of those weird deals since in the past those were all victims along with everything inside the engine...

It just happened to be pointed in the other direction when it let go this time. I'm thinking that is a brittle fracture, which would let go with less wobble than a ductile fracture.

josh
i got a nice mako center console boat and the salmon season is just picking up. My combo isn't doing a thing for me this year in terms of ET or mph. I think I may just park it and become a seasoned fisherman instead. Worst case is a bad sunburn and no fish. Let me know when to expect you out here.

Steve, first we'll get sunburned, while getting intoxicated, fish will grab the bait unexpectedly and steal our rods, then we'll run out of beer, on the way back to shore we'll hit a deadfall or rocks, sheer off the propellor, get set adrift out of control, hit another rock that will puncture the hull, take on water, battery will die for the bilge, boat will sink, DNR will save us, hand us tickets for being intoxicated, give you a ticket for polluting the water with the gas and oil out of your sunken boat plus the fee for a diver to hook back onto it and a barge/crane to lift it out of the water and haul it back to dock.

DNR will wait behind the bushes for you to get in your truck to back it into the ramp, arrest you for driving intoxicated, i'll run away since life will officially suck at that point because i'll be far from home, lost, losing a buzz, getting a headache, and did i mention my wallet will be locked in your truck so i cant even get a ride to the jail to get your keys. So i'll be wandering the streets trying to hitch a ride home, realize nobody will pick up a bald farmer tanned idiot from Iowa, will have to resort to living under a bridge, panhandling until i can save enough money to get a ride back home.

You dont want my luck coming anywhere near anything mechanical of yours, i'm tell'n ya


call me- Nostradamus

LMAO. this is a brand new boat i hope that doesn't happen! Not to mention it's staying "stock" well as stock as the max hp engine that the hull is rated for can be.


So i'm on engine #9, trans #4, and rear #5. Had 4 different fuel systems and now have random electrical gremlins popping up as well. Still have the same trans you sold me until I pull it out shortly since a buddy wants to buy it with the 4200 stall that's in it. The 9" has held up but those poor four 10 bolts didn't last but a few passes each years ago. So I'm all for lighting up hundred dollar bills to see who can make a bigger smoke show.

You guys got me crying over here. LOL! - Boats suck donkey balls(I worked at a marina for 5 years). My '05 24' Caravelle had all of 12 hours on it when I had to pull the motor because a water cooled "fuel pump control module" got plugged up and wasn't allowing much water to the motor. I find this, of course, after dissmantling the entire front accessory drive and pulling both sides exhaust and finally realizing that I can just barely see the edge of a hose clamp, thus there is obviously another cooler under there somewhere....... Now here's the kicker; it is blatently obvious that the motor was in the boat before the top cap was set on during assembly. With the accessory drive on and the exhaust on, there's is 1" between the motor and the floor all the way around. I put it all back together, hit the key and the starter smokes, thus I have to pull the exhaust back-off the right side and contort into and un-godly position to get the starter of from around a stringer. - When I saw the smoke from the starter, I closed the cover and didn't touch it for about 3 months....

I only had a 18' fish/ski set up, but the second happiest boating day i had was when some dude from Florida was up visting relatives and wanted to buy a boat to use the week he was back....see ya, down the road she went, life got better I look at boats the same way i look at having swimming pools, personally your better off having freinds with them, then you are getting one yourself

a victim of the infamous "cool fuel module"?? i just recently moved on from working at a mercury dealer for almost 8 years. although I specialize in outboards, I've heard a many a horror story about that thing. I am a firm believer that car engines belong in cars, not in boats...and most people that work on outboards will agree. what was the module plugged up with? sand? IHI- your last statement couldn't be more correct.

Definition of a boat: A hole in the surface of the water into which you pour money.

Same can be said about a woman

one of my favorites: Boat= Break Out Another Thousand

Sorry about your luck IHI. It will come back to you.
And stop picking on people with boats they are my friends remember the word boats stands for B Break O Out A Another T Thousand. They are my bread and butter.

My bad LOL!!! Buy a boat peep's they're AWESOME!!!!!
(i do actually miss going upto the river and skiing/partying) but i would still rather have another race car than another boat

Looked through my books today, there was mention of inadequate heat treat into the radius of an axle leading to fatigue failure, although it didn't look much like your crank (cupped surface, final fracture in the center). But, on the opposite page was a fracture that looked a whole lot like yours - called it uneven load rotating fatigue failure.

So, perhaps your crank was a combination of the two.

Now that we've almost totally swayed this thread.....

boat(n) - hole in the water in which one pours massive amounts of money.
Happiest days of a boat owners life, the day he buys it and the day he sells it.

The shitty part for me was the Merc has a 90 warranty starting from the day you buy it. Nothing else. So, even being low hours it was my problem. - As for the culprit, mudd-dobbers + a little bit of the raw water impeller.

I'm none to happy with some of the newer BS I/O they produce, but I will never have twin outboards again, don't care what they are or if they were given to me. That hum that twins have is simply them snickering, "we're already eating fuel, we're gonna eat something else before you get back...powerhead or lower unit...oh the possibilities". F* that. - I must say, this has been a good boat other than that. The only real issue is the designer sacrificed maintenance access in the name of another couple inches of cockpit room. Fuel alone leaves any outboards in its wake; 305efi/bravo 3 package, we went 50 miles out last trip, my boat along with a buddy's twin 2006 200hp yamahas. Cruised around 35mph, dropped of plane a couple times to sabiki for bait, plus we stop for any floating debris to try to stir up some mahi. Went on to hit 3 different holes that were around 5-10 miles apart. Cma back and filled back up side by side. Mine took under 40 gallons, his took over 100 .




Don't worry Josh(?), we'll let you have your thread back when you get an update. lol

Yeah yamahas aren't the most fuel efficient outboards...even their 4 strokes aren't that great, and their hpdi is a far cry from being as efficient as an Optimax. shag, my father had the same idea about outboards, until i finally talked him into putting an optimax on one of our boats. "i don't want that thing, its gonna smoke its a$$ off and use so much gas...i like my i/o's, etc etc." Now he is a firm believer in new outboard technology. most people discount Optimax's because they're 2 cycle, but they fail to realize that in numerous side by side tests they use less fuel than basically every 4 stroke outboard.

as far as your buddy's boat using so much more gas, are they hpdi's or 4 strokes? even their 4 strokes aren't that impressive as far as fuel usage goes, mainly because they make absolutely no power below 4k rpm's (can't stay on plane, etc)...more rpm's x 2 motors= more gas used. Optimax's on the other hand have excellent fuel economy, the Verado's are ok as long as you keep them out of boost. My dads boat has an older 305 with an alpha drive on it and I will admit that it is pretty efficient, even for being carbureted.

In the end I guess it's all in what you prefer; i prefer outboards because I work on them...it's just terrible that the word outboard has a bad connotation associated with it due to their past reliability issues, but at least from Mercury's side of things they've got most of those issues sorted out and are pretty reliable and efficient.

my mercury 150 optimax's are good for over 3mpg in my mako center console, so those figures are rediculous. A round trip 18 mile each way salmon trip with 6 hours of trolling in between only ran me 13 gallons last time I was out. This includes cruising around 33mph out to the spot and back. The fuel savings on these motors compared to anything else on the market is rediculous. This thing gets better fuel economy than my old 70hp merc with a 16' boat.

my case in point. Opti's are the sh*t

Dropped the F350 off tonight, so i swung by the house and grabbed the damper so i could press the snout out of it for a better look. Here's the pulley set up and the bolts that hold the self centering pulley to the damper. I should also mention the damper bolt went into the snout approximately 1 1/2" based on pattern on threads of the bolt.


Took pic for crank serial number


Tried to get a cleaner shot of the snapped off part of the snout prior to pushing it out with the press, did'nt know if different light would show anything else or not so excuse the duplicity from the first page and that pic taken in the trailer


Here it is after i pressed it out of the damper and lower timing belt drive gear


Other side


I measured the snout with a set of calipers laying around over there
Snout was 2.430 OD
Inside hub of damper "averaged" 2.470

I did'nt bother trying to measure the lower timing belt gear ID since the back belt retension thingey was all mucked up. As for the lower gear not being where it needed to be, when i pressed it on i lined it up so the belt itself was straight and not riding beyond the face or the rear of the cam gear, had it so the belt was riding dead center on the cam gear is what i'm getting at...i just assumed that's how it was supposed to be, otherwise the belt woulda been rubbing the backing plate that is bolted into the block.

Nice wear pattern on the broken off snout. That explains the uneven load failure 5-7 mentioned... Looks like its been doing that for a while.

yep, as i originally mentioned, i would say that was your problem. not to bring this topic up again, but some of the mercury 2.5L 200 EFI's had that problem for a while; they have a tapered, splined crankshaft and the taper on the flywheels weren't machined correctly, causing it to eventually wear and start to chuck around (i guess the scientific term is "uneven load failure") and eventually snap the snout of the crank off.

a lot of those ati dampers have to be honed on the inside of the hub to fit; i think they make them slightly undersized to accomodate for the machining tolerances of all the different aftermarket crank manufacturers. i know mine i had to take some emery paper and run it around it a little bit (i know, real precise). I should probably measure it against the crank to make sure the proper interference fit is there so this doesn't happen to me...

Me. I'm taking up GOLF...

^ I'd be the guy who gets pissed and throws $$$ clubs in the water.....A driving range and alcoholcan be fun though...

If the balancer was over honed and shoke it definitely could have cause the problem.

and back on topic - boats:
The yami's were 2 strokes. He's since picked up some 4-strokes and they seem to be a better motor. - I have run twin outboards several times/several types/several power levels. Mostly on my 26' freeland; twin johnrude 2thirsty5's, twin merc 2.4's, twin 175 faststrike johnrudes(last year of the carbs)twin yami 200's, and twin 225 ocean runners(trades/swaps came plenty when I worked at the marina). Baring the early era efi stuff, most any of them were good motors. Most of the reliability issues people have is more due to lack of maintenance. Many of my issues were probably due in part to beating storms back from 60+ miles out. You get to rolling 50+mph in 5+ foot season with the the throttles pinned or almost pinned down and **** starts coming apart. - As I said, I have experience with all types, I will not have twin outs again. Singles are fine, but singles aren't for going out 50+ miles.

According to your measurements .040" slop slinging around @ 7K will do a ton of damage.

Been almost a month, any updates?

I assume you decided against sending the snout.

I had it packaged up and ready to go when i dropped other items off at UPS and then the day before i took the engine upto the shop i called and he wanted al the crank so he could show his Callias rep....which determined it was a soft crank, and no "help" offered at all.

The shop called the other day after pulling it completely apart and checking everything:
Verdict- block is good.....pretty much everything else got "touched" and needs fixed.
The pistons got smacked, but are salvagable, i've only got 4 rods that did'nt smack the cam so they need replaced.
Damper-junk obviously
Crank- junk obviously
All pushrods either bent/broken, none reusable
4 of the Crower severe duty lifters were stuck in the bores, some of the wheels had some damage when things stopped/got crushed.
Heads- ALL intake valves bent, 6 exhaust valves bent, 2 guides need replaced, 4 seats got beat up. Jessels are still intact, it did'nt push the adjusters out but the roller bearings felt loose he said and it'd be wise to send them back to freshen up to be safe.

All in all, nothing salvagable other than the block, so i cant just sell stuff off to start from scratch....kind of what's kept me in this cursed engine since this is common when the cranks snap off.....They quoted me "approximately" $6K to fix everything that's put back together with as good or better parts than i had, dyno tuned and ready to install.....so i cant just start from scratch to build another 650hp+ engine for that much, which kind of corners me AGAIN into fixing what i gots....at least this time i'm working with a great shop and i know everything will be as perfect as possible!!! I'm still betting there was other misc problems along the way since day one from the hack shops, that these guys will find, fix and eliminate.

Problem- lost 2 large jobs in the past week, things are slowing down sales wise, scarey slow actually, so as of now i'm sitting at the track typing this running a buddies car which we've had success with in the past and i'll just do that whenever, and i'll get back on my engine this winter during the plowing season since that's when i earn my fluff money for the year.

are you gonna fix those heads or start with some fresh castings? man sorry to hear about your luck and i feel you on the business side of things too. gonna throw another motor in it for the rest of the season or just borrow another car?

Just build a damn big block like me so you dont have that problem

JK, sorry for the damn near total loss. Pretty much what happened when i had a piston let go in a 383, but hell, atleast i only had 1000$ in the POS.

Well, ya got your answer last night

I may just throw a small little 550hp deal since the car worked really really well at the 11.00 mark, ever since we built the bigger engine the reaction times have been sparatic as heck. After spending time in that car i raced thsi weekend, esspecially today once i got what i needed figured out to cut some better than the night before lights, it's not me having the problem on the tree...it's my car.

Should be able to build a small motor like that for under $3K pretty easily, if not less after i get my heads fixed, buddy has a brand new 383 shortblock for sale, 12:1 so i could mimic my old 388 pretty easily...so we'll see. Just kinda watching the pennies right now, banks aint lend'n like they used to, homes dont have the equity like they used to, so the projects we do for people aint happen'n like they used to which had my belt cinched up tight...but heck, now that i figure out i have to take 2 bumps into the beams with my buddies car to get some .030 lights, i'm good, i'll just run his car and split the money with him....i get to have fun, he makes a llil money doin nothing so we're both happy.

it was nice seein ya at the track again man, isn't it a blast getting into a car you don't normally drive and only getting one TT pass before elims? i remember you talking about how much more FUN you had with the 388 going "slow". and after all, isn't that what its all about? can't wait to see what you come out with....you could always optimize the car for the spray and run 11.00 on the motor and go into the bottom 10's on some squeeze for fun.

It was unique, that's for sure. Like we talked about, the car is a multi time track champ so everything was all on me, not the car esspecially since he just put fresh stickies on it and new shocks/springs. the combo was off since it was his slow engine but still had his nitrous convertor and 3.90 gear in it...hence the slow lights last night, but the car ran the number so i could'nt complain.....6.92 dial and picking up a losing time slip 5th round and it ran 6.9201 LOL!!! yeah, I sucked. I got all out of sorts staring at that bright and shiney yellow light i forgot to let go of the button. Today with seat time from Saturday i added another 1psi to the rear slicks, stages and then went 2 bumps deeper into the beams and had .034 first time run, .032 second time run, .030 first round, and backed it with a .030 2nd round on a double break out pass the other guy had a .026 light and took the strip by...get this- .0007 LMFAO!!!! (so i was extremely stoked since i was vindicated that i did'nt lose my ace in the hole on the tree and it really was my combo screwing me up)We both picked up a ton, and looking back that was about when the wind took a shift from a head wind to a tail/cross wind and it was just enough, i just broke out more is all....oh well, still had fun. And your right, i have'nt had fun in years from all this engine drama and fighting inconsistency's with my junk, been frustrating since it's been a fight for every round due to having to bag since i never knew what to expect from my car...soo nice to put a # on the car and know it will run that all day/all night.

So we'll get something figured out, i enjoy driving other guys (and a gal's) race cars, but it's tough getting used to/switching to different routines since all our cars have specific to them, stripe driving is tough to relearn since everybody's brakes are different, front wheels are closer/further away from car to car. I enjoy the mental challenge of learning the cars, I really really like the experience since i get to try out a lil something different to see if i like it or not so i can implement it into my car which i believe i have set up for ANYBODY to jump in and just drive it simplicity wise, and all of that was learned from having great buddies that let me run their stuff, i just wish i could win them more money when i wheel them, but like i said, it's tough with everything you have to learn and then play the game against some tough tough guys, especially in your 1/8mi track down there....lotta tough ombray's to contend with!!!

Yeah, PRO is a pretty tough class over here, even sportsman is fun most of the time, i've always wanted to get into pro and give it a shot but my junk has been too slow, hopefully next year I'll be out with a brake and a 2 step to try it out. anyway, i might make my way over to cedar falls one of these weekends to give the long track a go.

You've done very well in sportsman thus far, you know how the game is played so soon as you make the step up a class you'll do just fine...i might have made the jump about a year sooner than i shoulda, but i believe your only as good as your competition, and since i finished our sportsman class in the top 3 for 3 years and only had a small group of gus to race at that time i figured i had to make the jump. i got beat up a lil bit the first year since it was an all new combo i was working with but still finished top 5 and have never finished worse than that ever since...cept this year due to breakage in both the mechanical area and wallet area LOL!!! but the nice thing, tracks will always be open somewhere, so we'll just regroup and come back stronger/better than ever later.

I wish our track went out 4 spots on the time slips like Eddyville, always fun seeing how techincal runs actually get when they go 4 spots out LO!!!!! Lemme know when you wanna make the trek up, a few guys i met from down there came on up and had a blast, their cars actually faired very well on the longer track even though they were geared for short track, they did'nt see the rpm increase they were fearing, and this weekend i talked with a few other guys that said they've never been down the full 1320 so hopefully they too will come on up and have some fun. CFR has teeth just like Eddyville, so traction is always the last thing ya got's to worry about up here.