400 engine reconditioning

Suppose you let your engine overhauling your 400 by a garage with great reputation. After several years of major engine damage occurs. Garage gives no warranty of any kind and send you away with a turd story, how would you react?
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My vote would be that that depends on what caused the engine damage.
The damage shown to the piston can be caused by a number of reasons, being bad metallurgy in the parts and overstress as prime reasons.
Was there any similar damage to the other 11 pistons and wristpins? Were they renewed in the overhaul and if yes, by original parts or not, and who made those choices?
In my view, poor material quality is most likely. Wrist pins don't break that easily and is probably what went first.
How did the failure occur, and how many miles between overhaul and this?

If these parts were not renewed, could the lurking damage have been found during assembly? Are there other factors that could have contributed, such as wrong assembly, poor machining, lack of tolerance checking, a forgotten wrist pin circlip? Then there is the question of abuse of the engine after the overhaul, such as a misshift?
Did the loose connecting rod cause further damage to the block?

Of course the garage should not send you away with a BS story but instead conduct a good investigation on the underlying cause. If you don't trust them to do a proper search for clues and admit wrong if they are to blame, I would opt to send the parts to an independent expert to assess the underlying cause.

BTW, pictures of the sides of the piston, the wrist pin pieces' ends (especially of the faces of the break) and the bore in the block where this piston was might help.

 

Only 1 wristpin broke, this rest is stil OK. All pistons are replaced by forged ones because these are supposed to be stronger (?). Because the problem occured during starting when the engine was cold at my garage at home, nothing else was damaged. This failure could have caused a total destroyed engine.

 

What was the "turd story"?

Looks like that cylinder was "hydrolocked" (cylinder full of liquid). When you tried to start it, something had to give.

 

Far, far too little information to determine cause or asses blame.

I suppose at this point all I can say is even the Ferrari new car warranty in effect at the time when that car was built in concert with Ferrari's famous customer support would have left you similarly high and dry.

Their response would have been limited to handing you an estimate for repair.

 

"After several years.." No wonder their was no love but I suspect the translation might not be good.

 

Don't think I have ever seen a wrist pin snap like that. It would be very interesting to know the cause of this. Hydro locking is a definite possibility, but that usually causes a bent rod also.

 

Hello guys,

The garage who disassembled the engine said to me they've newer seen a broken wristpin. It just broke and damaged the piston. Conclusion of them, bad material. The engine was running fine before this happened.
I'm very lucky it didn't happen a high speed, because then the engine would have been competely destroyed.

 

Hi ferrari400. After several years a piston pin fractures. It is a failure that few if any have ever seen before. The problem occured during starting when the engine was cold at the garage at home. We do not know if the rebuilder furnished the broken part or re-used the OEM part. Regardless of the source of the broken part I give the rebuilder a pass on this failure. File it under "stuff happens." If you want a 300,000 mile engine, you're shopping in the wrong store.

BTW, regarding forged pistons, they are indeed stronger than cast aluminum, whether hypereutectic or not. My understanding of the primary advantage of forged pistons is that they will melt in response to pre-ignition, rather than to shatter like hypereutectics will do. I would be surprised that forged pistons are not original equipment in Ferraris. They don't cost a lot more, and they were standard in all those millions of "5.0" pushrod V8s that Ford popped out in the 80s and 90s. Standard in nearly all the hi-po, high compression Fords and Chevys of the 60s too. Probably Mopars as well, although I don't know for a fact.

 

Forged pistons are only very rarely used in production motors for many good reasons. They are needed in a few types of race motors but street motors are better served with cast pistons.




Job 1 on any engine failure is to find out why. We have yet to be educated about that piece of trivia. Are we appealing to the internet to get popular support to pressure a shop into a warranty repair?

 

Almost certainly.That's how it works here, right?

 

This tactic usually backfires anyway.
I've seen the aftermath of a few well "blowed up" motors and not seen a wrist pin do this before. Wrist pins have been the only parts to remain whole in some of these events. If it were a hydro-lock wouldn't the piston have broken differently? Failure on start up does support the hydro-lock theory though.

 

You should fill out your profile so we know where you are located.
Forget any action involving the shop. 4 years is too much time to make any claim towards the shop that did the motor.

 

I've talked to several people with great understanding of engines and they all say the same, pistons should not fail, pins should not break. A engine wears during use, that's normal.
In a Formule 1 engine it can happen parts break, in a normal road car with normal road use it shouldn't.
It was the idea of the garage to apply these pistons and not original, he is therefore totally responsible for the parts he applies.

I'm located in Europe, Netherlands

 

First, you don't know the cause for this. Hydro-lock has been speculated and makes sense given the scenario you've told us. The particular failure mode confuses me for this but others more knowledgeable will certainly offer an opinion.
"normal road use" could mean lots of things. I've seen way worse catastrophic failures of road car engines, usually from neglect or abuse. None here know the conditions this engine was operated under.
Last, at four years on you are asking for a longer guarantee than Maranello offered the car's original owner.
I'm sorry your engine is broken. Fix it and move on you'll garner little support against your engine builder here.

 

Agree entirely.

On FCHAT for 5 years, and the OP's total participation so far has been this issue......

M

 

This, end of thread. Parts break all the time from over-revving and the presence of a rev limiter still doesn't prevent damage caused by a bad downshift, for example.

Four years of use is more than long enough to absolve the engine builder of any liability in a case like this. There are many, many more opportunities for owner caused problems with the engine to cause that damage over a four year period than there is the likelihood that a parts defect or an assembly defect causing that damage. A problem with those two latter issues would have surfaced long ago.

You haven't addressed the hydro lock possibility, which, if I understand it correctly, might be caused by a leak into the combustion chamber from the cooling system through a head gasket or other sealing problem.

Time to move on.

 

Another source is the Bosch continuous injection system. If the fuel pump stays on with the engine not running it will cause hydrolock. Or so I've read.

 

No, not unless there is a fault.