More pictures would help to tell the whole story.
Tim, I believe the poster was talking about rods with fractured caps. The kind where the rod is formed as a single peice, and the rod cap is broken off (fractured) leaving a jagged surface. But I dont see that in the pictures, I see a mauled and pounded surface indicating a loose rod bolt. The pistons crown edge appear to have broken at five points around their circumfrence above the top ring, which indicates some type of valve contact. We need more pictures. I would much like to see all the rod bearings and throws, main bearings and journals, cam journals and bearing surfaces, oil pump, cylinders, pistons and skirts, even the back surfaces of the bearing shells would be nice to see. I also bet that if you cut the filter open and spread out the pleats, you'll find another mess. In order to try and determine a cause we need to see everything, even the good spots.
I had a Hyundai V6 Sonata's low oil pressure light flicker at idle and switched to a thicker weight oil -- no more low oil pressure light. Also had an MR2 turbo's low oil pressure light come on while driving due to an oil leak(and worn rod bearings which, when worn too thin, can't maintain the oil system pressure due to oil escaping quickly past the bearing face riding on the crank journal) and stopped to dump in 20w-50, the heaviest oil I could find as a band-aid for low oil pressure. Got home to drop the oil pan and found copper flake floating in the oil. Maintaining factory oil pressure is critical and choosing an oil that's too thin and not modifying the oil pump can kill rod bearings.
The 360 doesnt use "cracked rods". To the best of my knowledge the Neon was the first and only for a long time. I really don't know why his rods would look like that, but remember Ferrari uses outside suppliers, and they are littlle bit less production and cost oriented than Chrysler. It would be prohibitive to do Titanium cracked rods. Just saying, that I see no explanation, and of course I don't know how a loose rod could last that long. It would be amazing if the rod bolt stretched enough to get debris in there. I would think the rod will go oval before that happens. Thats actually about right, but the piston also hit the periphery and the piston-to-deck is probably about .035 for this motor ( I can't find it but .035 is daringly close). I think there are several big clues here. both rods WASTED on the same journal. rod halves equally blued top and bottom (no detonation) rod bolt stretched, rod bolt loose, something weird allowed debris in between the rod cap and rod front journal of the motor is I think the first oiled, so thats weird too disclaimer if the 360 uses cracked Titanium rods I stand corrected jay
Agreed that the only sensible course is a complete teardown. Oil filter surgery would be likely yield ample debris.
I will try to get some pics, I am talking about mass produced neons, focus engines. Most foreign small cars are this way also. If this one was broken then it proves the point more that it was not oil problem it would be blunt force. Explodes was the wrong term to use. The bearing pieces left on the oil stainer were completely wiped out, it probably happened because something blocked the piston from moving up fully when the piston with a piece of something and no more room to move upwards and the crank kept moving. The rod bearing is soft material and was squeeszed out of the sides of the connecting rod. If a valve is left open at the wrong time it bends and sometimes comes up and breaks the valve guide the guide will crumble in to small pieces and fall into the cylinder and cause damage similar to this. So again my bad language. Possibly, the valve got bent maybe and then broke the guide and then the guide pieces could have fell into the cylinder. That woud cause the top ring land on the piston to break and be such a large piece getting slammed into the head that it wiped out the soft rod bearing. In the Head pic with the 5 valves the bent one has no guide/seat. again wrong words.. This was just an idea. It could be any foreign material that was sucked into the cylinder but that is a very small chance. Quick question have you ever seen a rod bearing failing cause this much damage to the cylinder head? and piston? 2na what is your theory? Do you think 0-40 mobil one caused this?
You sent the heads out? Do you think this is a rebuildable core? If you don't have the tools to properly line bore the block send it to Dave Helms Scuderia Ramparte in boulder Colo. He has the right tool. Personally, this engine is wasted imo.
Why is the engine on the ground? If this were my car I wouldn't be too happy Image Unavailable, Please Login
My only thought is: if 0W30 caused this, wouldn't we see A LOT more of this happening ? You are not the first guy in the world to run 0W30, I don't think.
This could be an important clue... This doesn't sound like a scenario that started with rod bearing failure. A sudden loss of power sounds like top end trouble. A rod bearing failure typically doesn't cause loss of power unless it is coincidental with all bearings failing and the engine beginning to seize, which didn't happen here. If anything you would hear the rod(s) knocking before things came apart. Can you describe more about what you heard/felt in that ensuing 30 seconds? Did the engine suddenly stop or did you shut it off? Have you mic'ed the rod journal on the crank? What does it look like? I would be very concerned about reusing that crankshaft after the journal has gotten hot and taken a beating. Not saying it won't be fine with new bearings, but I would not feel good about it. Sorry this happened.
Sorry about the bad luck Bill, I saw a very similar situation about 25 years ago on a jaguar e-type engine. A spark plug had shed it's electrode (the little bent metal bit) and it made a very similar pattern to that shown here on the top of the piston and cylinder head area. The resulting carnage was similar and the result was a hole in the side of the sump the size of my fist. The rod and piston tried to escape with some help from the crankshaft after the bearing grabbed and threw the cap off. I still have an old polaroid photo somewhere of the sorry mess. Bill, take a look at the plugs and see if one is missing it's electrode.
Hi Bill. I've really appreciated your posts in the past, particularly the clutch tread. Anyway, I feel really sorry about your motor, but reading most of the replies on here I feel even more sorry for you -- suddenly half the comunity are frikkin experts on engine failiure modes, root cause analysis and what you should do blah blah and all of this over the internet no less. So, please don't let these posts put you off and keep us informed of progress, especially keep the flow of pics going. Good luck buddy (& feeling your pain). Bob. & btw, my *internet guess* is that it all started with a broken piston ring
I've been a bit leery of Mo-1 since their recall on 0W30 about seven or eight years back. They keep fiddling with the formula, so the Mo-1 you knew yesterday isn't the Mo-1 you buy today. But the 0W30 has been the factory mandated oil in the EVO for four years, without a problem. Anytime a mill eats itself, you really need to do a full check of all the possible issues before just patching it back together. Otherwise, you might wind up with another nasty surprise down the road. But putting a new aftermarket clutch into the car would potentially put additional stress on the engine, so the oil wasn't the only variable.
Whether it was piston, ring, or some other "top-end" part that failed first, this looks like where the damage began. I've seen a few Jag V12's drop a valve seat and do this kind of damage. I think that the choice of oil was just a coincidence. I wouldn't be too quick to spend a lot of money on the heads before you completely assess how much of the engine can be re-used. It might make economic sense to put a new "bullet" in the gun.
360 Modena Runs Nice [Video & Images Available] [$5000 Core Charge] 10,022 A GA164 $15000 Weber Bros Auto USA-PA(Lebanon) E-mail 1-800-222-2528 Above is a used engine with 10k miles for 15k. This would probably be cheaper and you could still enjoy summer a little. With the economy in the dump you might can get the motor for less. One prob with that is if the engine did not have the Variator campaign done yet.
Bill, While you are investigating and have the headers off the car, take a look at the condition of the pre-cats within the headers. There have been a few cases of pre-cats breaking up and debris getting sucked into the heads. Might as well remove that future threat while you are at it. Lou
I couldn't find if you wrote it or not, but what were the conditions under which it went? Was it at temp, etc..
When you access the clutch on a 360 you open up the main feed line (casting) between the oil sump in the gearbox and the engine block. There is also a large p/u sreen in the gearbox side. It is likely something got into that feed line and caused the concern. I have also seen the o-ring between the gearbox and block leak while the engine in running and the suction on the o-ring as it is on the pick up side of the pump causes air ingestion into the oil. The oil ingestion causes the bearings at the farthest point from the pump to contact the crank, air in the oil causes the fluid cushion to break down much like air in a brake line. Bearings contact the crank and fail. We have seen this before. Just a thought. Good luck.
Hi Bill, Firstly, I'm sorry to see your engine end up the way it has. It's not a good feeling I know. However, I'd be even more sorry if the incorrect diagnoses was made....please make sure you get the rest of the block checked out. I believe your failure was caused by oil starvation to that bearing. I don't think it has anything to do with the oil pump, because that's the bearing closest to the pump. I suspect some foreign matter made it's way to the oil gallery for that journal and blocked the supply. From then on, the extreme axial load now on the piston skirt (Caused by the rod trying to weld itself to the crank) has broken the ring lands at their weakest point. The debris now bouncing around in the combustion chamber finshed off the other lands not in the same plane (ie parallel to the rods) by wedging itself between the piston crown and the valve. I saw a 355 engine once that had an oil pump failure and the ring lands were broken off the top of the piston just like yours. I can assure you the choice of oil has nothing to do with it. There are plenty of high performance engines running around with 0W-40 and 0W-30 that have many hard miles on them. Even the good old Ferrari F1 engines seem to turn over quite nicely at 18,000 rpm with a 20W oil. (That's what they use in F1) BTW, I also notice you are missing a stud that holds in the windage tray....that can be accounted for can it? Let us know how you get on. Regards, Carl.
Don't know if it has been mentioned yet but I would think it would be much easier just to by this 360 motor for 11k. Take and sell what you can from the blown motor. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Ferrari-360-Engine-360-modena-engine_W0QQitemZ270254899773QQihZ017QQcategoryZ33615QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
So sorry to hear this. My condolences go out to you. Here is my theory based on the description of how it failed and what I see. Firstly for whatever reason there is oil starvation at 1 & 8 crank journal. Bearing starts to wear and eventualy starts to seize up and disenegrate. Piston over travel dings a valve and explains power loss. The bearing quickly blows out and causes enough over travel to catch the first ring on the edge of the liner blowing out the ring land. Or the cap bolts streched first and caused overtravel. What does the edge of the compression ring look like? What about the other journals on the crank? When the crank comes out blow out the galleys over a white towel and see if anything comes out. Do the same with the galley in the block feeding the cranck. Cut open the oil filter and inspect for any kind of failure where something could have moved down stream. I think it's salvagable but I don't know if most mechanics are up to installing new liners. It is my understanding that Ferrari heats up the block to something like 400F and cools the liners in liquid nitrogen and then a robot moves quickly to drive them home before heat transfer sets the interference fit. Sure would like to get Brian Cralls take on this. Best of luck, and try not to let it get you too down.
