BAD DAY!!! Catastrophic engine failure!! Updated pics of the carnage.

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Joined
May 15, 2011
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Location
PA
My Car
1971 Mach 1 Mustang
Well I drove the mach1 to work yesterday and noticed it had a miss. I jumped on the throttle a few times to check it out and once in a while it would take off other times it would sputter and miss. Well I just figured i got bad fuel again or something. Nothing major. I keep a very good eye on all my guages and everything was reading as it should. On the way home more of the same. I turned onto my road and ran 1st gear up to about 4800-5000 rpm shifted to 2nd and BANG!!! CLANK!! and every other bad sound you dont want to hear from your motor that has less than 7,000 miles on it!!! i pulled over to the side of the rode and had it towed home. I got to look at it this morning a little and did not like what i had found. Drained the oil, and found about a gallon off anti-freeze in it. Also some nice size chunks off metal coming out drain plug hole and others that were too big to come out. Pulled the plugs and found 2 smashed #1 & #6. Pulled the carb and inside the intake found what looks like pieces of valves and pistons. This sucks bad. I wont get a chance to pull the motor for another week or two to see what all the damage is but it is not good!! Hoping that the block is still good but doubt it with that much metal all through the motor. The motor never heated up never lost oil pressure or anything. had a little miss that day but that was it. Im guessing either a water jacket broke into the motor, head gasket went, or head cracked and dumped water into a cylinder and hydro-locked and busted rod/ piston/ crank.....whatever else!! This motor is only about 2 years old from a COMPLETE top to bottom rebuild. If the block or heads are junk i dont know if i should build another cleveland or something else??? I have all the goodies for a cleveland..... intake, roller rockers, headers, billet dizzy.....etc etc. If i do build another cleveland I was thinking about going with the 408 stroker kit and / or some twisted wedge aluminum heads. depending on the money. If i can do both the heads and stroker i will but if not i will go either stroker or heads.what would run better? stock crank 351 with aluminum heads or stroked 408 with stock heads?? Again this all depends on what i can salvage from my motor. Sorry for the long post guys!!! Just venting and highly upset!!! I need a beer:huh:

Heres a couple pics of the pieces and plugs.

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I agree it doesn't look good. Given the fact you have a lot of good cleveland specific parts I'd lean towards a Cleveland based engine, also I'm biased. Were the valves stock multi-groove? Let us know what you find out. Sorry about the failure. Chuck

 
Thanks Guys. To be honest with you i cant remember what valves i was running. I had the heads all redone and i believe we put new valves in them too. They were ported nicely, and all done up... hope they dont have any damage but if they do im looking at some aluminum ones.

 
Ohhhh man...Im sorry to hear about that....Think you mite be right on the head gasket or cracked block... mite of mixed water in there and was acting like bad gas..Big chance of that...I would build another cleveland if you have most of the parts...That will save you alot..Have new valve seats and everything put in the heads? And where they the screw in or pressed in seats? If you know....Sometimes they can loosen up and fall into your motor while driving if they are the pressed in kind...Its rare..But i heard of it happening before.

 
Look here, You just won't know until you tear it down so lets hope for the best. Pull your valve covers because I'm suspecting your missing you'll find your missing one. Your symptom desciptions indicate valve keeper let go. Lets keep a good attitude! Valves typically chew up pistons and the side walls get scratched. They can usually take a pretty good beating. Depending on if you've had it bored before it may not be as bad as you think. JMHO

 
I pulled the valve covers and everything looks good up there. Im gonna try to pull the heads and intake this weekend. i wont get a chance to pull the motor til later. check pics

 
That really stinks. From looking at the spark plugs and the water in the intake it doesn't look good. With pieces of valve and piston in the oil it sounds like a dropped valve, but from the looks of the valvetrain it looks like at least the springs are intact.

I'm hoping for the best!

 
Yeah i will build it better. I just went through my receipts tonight and i got the motor back in sept. 2010. So it made it 2 years. Crazy. Year before that i had a machine shop build this motor that i never used before. They messed it all up then after suppossedly redoing the heads and rebuilding the rest. After about 2 months it broke 2 rockers and ate up some bearings. They wouldnt stand by their work so i went to a guy that built all my old motors in the past and he did this build. So i have already rebuilt this motor twice in the last 3-4 years. probably have 7 grand wrapped up in this motor after 2 complete rebuilds. Im gonna get ahold of the guy that built it and see what he says. I dont think its anything that he did wrongbut would like his opinion. he has built atleast a half dozen motors in the past for me without any problems. we will see what happens. gearhead drama LOL!!!

 
Yeah i will build it better. I just went through my receipts tonight and i got the motor back in sept. 2010. So it made it 2 years. Crazy. Year before that i had a machine shop build this motor that i never used before. They messed it all up then after suppossedly redoing the heads and rebuilding the rest. After about 2 months it broke 2 rockers and ate up some bearings. They wouldnt stand by their work so i went to a guy that built all my old motors in the past and he did this build. So i have already rebuilt this motor twice in the last 3-4 years. probably have 7 grand wrapped up in this motor after 2 complete rebuilds. Im gonna get ahold of the guy that built it and see what he says. I dont think its anything that he did wrongbut would like his opinion. he has built atleast a half dozen motors in the past for me without any problems. we will see what happens. gearhead drama LOL!!!
Man i hear ya there...My cousin dumped a ton of money into his trans am motor...And the guy who rebuilt it was suposta be his freind and one of the best in town...Well...After it was rebuilt and stroked and poked 5,000 in on a old 400 pontiac....It started knocking barly 1000 miles...He took it back in...They said they went threw it..."after giving them 1000 more bucks" He thought it was his stock oil pan and it just sucked the old one dry...So he got a big deep oil pan..With all the deviders....Me and him took it out..and was being good on it...We never was hard on it..Cause it never broke in...Well same thing...It stared knocking again....He was so pissed and he told the engine builder his "freind"...And they went around and said my cousin was just being hard on the car and blowing the motors up!!...Well he sent his motor off too the top pontiac builders...Who live in canada....they went threw it...And sent him a list of all the crap they did too his motor...They even broke off a bit inside the oil passage of his crank!!..So oil wouldnt flow all the way threw...Then they put oil restrictors on it...Made it even worse..nightmare....But its now got 10,000$ into his motor...And finaly got a good runing power house pushing 504 hp....Bad thing is...Hard to take people to court over preformance motors...They will just say you was being hard on it....I hope you get it figured out...It can be a costly nightmare:(

Btw im not saying you was screwed by anyone.....Sometimes bad things happen

 
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no sense taking it apart in the car, might as well pull it out and make the job easier.

My engine was running great, 55 down the highway and no warning, it blew..tore it down and found a broken rod bolt.

 
+1 on suspecting a dropped valve. Based on chunks in the pan, I would agree with pulling the motor. No sense leaning over the fenders and heaving heads and other heavy items when the motor is going to have to come out anyway. Best of luck to you.

 
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