I decided today that I would drive my car to work, beautiful day and all... so I'm on the highway cruising along just fine, turn off onto the off ramp, then all of a sudden I notice my car is losing power, it felt like say you were stuck in 3rd gear trying to start off... I checked to see if it was the tranny but that was fine... then I noticed my Oil Pressure dropped off to 0 psi and the engine temp was quickly rising.... if I blipped the gas pedal a little I could maintain about 12-18 psi of oil pressure but as soon as it was idling she would drop to 0.

So I pulled over and had a listen, it sounded like something sporadically clinking around or clicking loudly and I could also hear a low knocking sound when I gave it some gas.

So without taking any chances of shutting her off and not starting again I drove home (about 10 mins drive), I turned the engine fan full on, heater on full, and the engine temp quickly dropped to normal... So I figured that since I was keeping some oil pressure and the engine temp was down I would limp my way home slowly... made it home and parked her in my garage.

Not sure what it could be, I'm thinking maybe my oil pump gave out, maybe I spun a bearing, who knows....there is no black/blue/white smoke coming out the tailpipes and she does start, no oil/or other fluids dripping... but there is definitely a low knocking sound when she gets up in RPMs

Only thing I have done in the last while was change the O2 sensor (which wasn't working) and I had my L98 heads ported

Anybody have any suggestions on where to start to try and figure out what happened or what has gone wrong???

 

im thinkin you lost a bearing...

 

 

yea sounds like u lost a bearing. I did that the second day I had my car, It sucks.
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Yea sounds like u lost a bearing. I did that the second day I had my car, it sucks.

 

I just pulled the dipstick.... well there goes a nice fresh oil change of semi-synthetic oil...

Dipstick is full of black/gray stuff.... which I'm assuming is what's left of a bearing or something internal

Oh well... this is going to be the reason for me to pull the engine out and pull the bottom end apart..

Might as well.... the bottom end is the only thing left on my car that I have never touched... maybe a good time to do a cam upgrade, pistons, etc etc...

I hope it never hurt the block or heads ... guess I won't know until I pull the base pan and have a look at the damage....

 

Well... pretty sure I spun a bearing... got my mechanic buddy to drop in and have a listen... were're pretty sure I have the rod bearing on #2 torn up... As the engine warmed up you could start hearing the low knock slowly get louder... he said it sounded like it was up front on the engine.... so he started unplugging the injectors up front one by one... when he unplugged #2 injector the knock stopped....so he is pretty sure I got that bearing is toast...could be a lot more damage, time will tell...

I also pulled the top pans while I had her running... not a drop of oil was coming up and the oil galleries were pretty dry..... at that point I quickly shut her down and that's the last time I will be starting for awile...

So I think I got a dead oil pump as well...

So I have decided to pull the engine and do a rebuild..... I have a spare crankshaft and 8 spare pistons/rods... so unless I have something completely messed up I should be OK.. sucks though cuz I just rebuilt the top end

 

I doubt theirs anything wrong witht he oil pump (other than bein full of metallic debris from the bearing)

If its puking out all the oil through a crank bearing it doesnt push enough pressure or volume to get it up through the pushrods.


But basically the motor is junk, you wouldnt be too smart to use an old pump on a new motor!

 

I've hurt lots of bearing to know it's not an easy fix. A crank bearing usually means a main cap has been warped from the heat. A new main cap and a line hone of the block will be needed. A rod bearing shouldn't hurt the block but if you're losing power from a bad main or rod bearing, there's a good chance the crank is now scrap. A bad rod bearing will have also damaged the rod(s) from the excess heat.

Yank the engine and rip it apart to inspect the damage then decide if it's better to rebuild or buy new. For a street engine or a mild performance engine, it can be a lot cheaper to just buy new. Even if it's just a short block.

On the other hand, I just broke a con rod and destroyed a crankshaft in my race engine. When just a bare block is worth about $3000, spending the money to fix this one is a lot cheaper.

 

We are thinking it's a rod bearing on number #2 piston but that is only an educated guess. When we shut down #2 cylinder by unplugging the injector the knocking stops ... but yer right, only way to fully know what is going on is to pull the engine and tear it apart.

I have a spare crank and I got 8 spare pistons/rods so I should be fine as long as nothing is warped/cracked...

I would love to go hog wild on my bottom end with forged internals and all the heavy duty stuff but I'm on a budget and I am not going to try to make my car go faster than mid 13's anyway... and there is definitely no NOS in my car's future.

Only thing I might do since the engine will be out is maybe a cam upgrade...