well guys, after disassembly and further inspection, I've come to the conclusion that the Engine of Doom cannot be revived.

as best as I can tell, these are the contributing factors...

1. this one may be controversial, but I think that the tune was run too rich both on the street every day, and even more so with the extra fuel added by the nitrous system at the track and on the dyno. I am not blaming anyone for this because I drove the truck for some time on an old tune. also even after having air/fuel adjusted locally, subsequent dyno runs showed that the air/fuel ratio was reading quite a bit richer than it should have been. that is one of the reasons that I drove all the way to NY to see Sal, I was tired of playing around dynoing here and there and making changes here and there and still not being satisfied with the results. while many will say (and I thought) that running rich is just running "safe", the excess fuel can wash the cylinder walls down with gas and create issues with ring seal. once you start having ring seal problems, it's hard for the rings to recover and seat. ESPECIALLY if the cause is not corrected. I'd suspect that since the truck was run rich basically from the beginning, that the rings may never have had a chance to fully seat and thus the cylinder walls were being slowly "polished" from day 1. I think that this was definately a contributing factor, but not the immediate cause of the failure.

2. the final straw appears to be: as Sal and a few others speculated, the top ring ends did indeed butt together. meaning that the upper ring gap was set too small for the nitrous and boost combination. when the rings expanded due to the intense combustion chamber temps during nitrous use, the ring ends butted together, the expanding rings had nowhere else to go, so they pressed outwards against the cylinder wall ruining the ring surface and cylinder wall finish. there is evidence of this on several top rings where you can see "heat spots" at the ends of each ring where they appear to have contacted at some point.

so now with ring seal completely destroyed, not only is oil being left on the cylinder walls to burn in the combustion process, but fuel and carbon and combustion byproducts are being blown past the non sealing rings and into the crankcase. the oil becomes contaminated with gas and carbon, the oil also becomes thinned with fuel. this problem is two fold because not only does the fuel thinned oil more easily for lack of a better word remain "suspended" in the crankcase gasses and thus be drawn into the PCV (positive crankcase ventilation) system to be reintroduced into the cylinder and combustion process, but the fuel thinned oil in the pan also now has a decreased ability to lubricate and protect moving engine components from the harmful combustion blowby contaminants.

it's a vicious cycle at this point, because every firing of each cylinder burns more oil (reducing the engine's supply) and blows more debris into the remaining oil supply. the condition of the engine's oil supply gets worse and worse, and the amount of oil available to lubricate the engine gets smaller and smaller.

so, not only did the rings fail which in itself might have been repairable if I had shut the truck off as soon as I saw signs of a problem. but because I was nearly 400 miles from home in the middle of the night, I decided that my only option was to continue to drive. at that point I didn't know it, but any chance of saving the engine was pretty much thrown out the window. the contaminated oil continued to circulate throughout the engine damaging the crankshaft, cams, cylinder head cam caps, bearings, etc.

basically the only part of the engine that wasn't damaged was the connecting rods.

the heads are garbage because the cam caps are scored.
the cams are garbage because their journals are scored.
the block was already bored .020 over and the cylinders are now slick as glass, so it is pretty much garbage.
when the top ring failed, the second ring had to TRY to contain the combustion pressure, which it appears to have done because the 2nd rings themselves do not appear to be damaged, but the ring land below the 2nd ring was not designed to take that kind of abuse, so on several pistons, the lower ring land deformed and pushed down on the oil scraper rings causing them to collapse and for all intents and purposes be locked onto the piston, and providing little or no tension against the cylinder wall, thus allowing even more oil to enter the combustion chamber. so because of the land deformation, the pistons are garbage.
the crank journals have been scored, and while it could probably be machined and used with oversized bearings, as far as I'm concerned, the crank is garbage.

anyway, I'm no expert, but based on the information that I have gathered so far, and the evidence I'm seeing inside my motor, the above is roughly what happened.

feel free to add to my explanation, or shoot holes in it, or ask questions if you like. I'm still sortof thinking out loud on this one, so I may not have the whole story nailed down...

I must say that I'm very disappointed, not only because I spent an absurd amount of time and money on this motor and this truck, but because I built it myself and I feel responsible for the failure. it's more than a financial loss or a mechanical failure... it's a personal defeat.

I'd would like to thank everybody out there who took their time to post to offer help, moral support, kind words, and encouragement throughout the process of the buildup, the testing, and the ultimate demise of this project.

at this point I don't know what I'm going to do.

I don't have the time, desire, sanity, and more importantly financial resources to start from scratch again with another engine.

I'm talking to someone who MAY be able to help me get the truck up and running again in it's former glory.(edit: one of the major tuners has offered to help me by discounting a built motor to get the truck up and running again)

but frankly I'm so disgusted with the whole project at this point that I'm still seriously considering scraping together the cash to buy somebody's used motor (I REALLY wish I hadn't sold mine) or a reman from ford just to get the truck running in stock form again so I can sell or trade it in.

anyway, sorry for the long post. I just wanted to share the latest information from the teardown.

here are a few pictures:


as you can see: 5, 6, and 7 appear to have had the most oil consumption.


alot of burnt oil caked inside the combustion chamber and valves


glazed and scored cylinder walls

 

the carnage that was my ring package:

on almost all of the rings, the "moly" surface of the top ring is damaged, broken, or missing entirely. you can see in this picture that the top ring no longer has any outward flex or tension. the gap as installed was MUCH larger than what you see here, the rings are just cooked. also, on several of the pistons, the land below the 2nd ring has been forced downward slightly. enough to trap the oil rings and not allow them to move freely.


the rod bearings did not spin, but are scored, as is the crankshaft



not so pretty anymore...

that's all folks.

later,
chris

 

I hope you don't sell it, and some how you are able to get it back together. It would be a great loss to us on this board if you weren't posting on here.

Good Luck with what ever you do, and if anyone starts a "Rebuild the engine of doom fund" I'll be the first to donate.

Mike

 

Sorry to hear the outcome of your teardown. If someone starts a Superfords engine fund, I'll paypal some money towards your repair. I've always thought of you as one of the top five contributors (in information, not post whoring). Take care bud.

-Mark

 

You beat me to that suggestion by 2 minutes

-Mark

 

i dunno what to say. i think im as sad as u are.

 

Chris,

Let me know what I can do to help. I have many friends in salvage yards. We can get it back together easily.

What parts do you have good?

 

Sorry to hear the bad news Chris. I was hoping the damage wasn't so catstrophic.

 

Dam Chris, really sorry dude....... Its in you blood, so just fix it..

PEacE...................
Jim

 

I setup a Paypal account for anyone that would like to donate anything....

 

Hi We use to race in PEI in the 70's and we had a few guys then as good as you..Never a weekend came and went that one of the top guys did not get hit with something like this...

We figure it is not to be taken as you said you failed...You did not !!! Its just part of the game...When playing with such power it takes guts to get out and test it for real...You never failed to do that from what I read here..So believe me your no failure... but a real winner...You have help and friends...your a rich man...Take a big breath and see what tomorrow brings you kid...

best of luck...

 

Chris, sorry to hear of your loss!

We here at "Chief Lightning Racing" have an 03 block with crank that I bought last winter just sitting in a create! As per the e-mail I sent you a while back I will front it to you until you get on your feet if you want? You pay for shipping or come and pick it up?

We even have a set of used heads in good condition 40 or 50K miles on them.

Chris, you and I have talked before and you have always answered my cry for tech help when I needed.

Please don't look at this as charity! This is one friend helping another!

Suavy "Chief Lightning Racing"

 

This is a great idea.

BUT, before I contribute a dime to Chris, I would need some assurance that he was actually going to go forward with the project and get another engine in that truck. Otherwise, he will just spend that money on booze and hookers. We all saw how much he enjoyed grabassing with the hos at SEMA. God only knows what he did in his hotel room at Vegas.

And there cannot be any nitrous on the new engine.

Chris--figure out how much you need, then let's see if it's doable. In other words, how many at $20 each, $50 each, $100 each, etc. I mean, even if everyone contributes $100, it would take 50 people just to get to $5K.

But if this goes forward, I will hit you with a c-note to get the ball rolling. But you have to promise to quit being such a self-doubting p*ssy.

 

Chris
First the heads aren't junk, you can have them align bored, REM deals with a company that can do it.

The block ??? depends. I would take it to a shop and run a hone thru it and find out what it would take to clean it up and then order a custom set of JE pistons to fit.....Its not uncommon to go +.003 or +.004 or in your case +.023 or +.024 and then buy a set of .020 file to fit rings. This way you don't have to go all the way to +.030 and you can leave the block as thick as possible.

I wouldn't think twice about turning the crank either, a good shop can make it dimensionaly better than new, plus its a cheap crank to grind, it has rolled fillets in the corners so the crank grinder doesn't have to worry about corner rads.

Think of it this way.....all of your parts are heat cycled now and ready to be made perfect

Stay away from CP pistons and that gawd dammmmed 150 wet shot and you'll be fine.

I would really like to know witch cylinders you found to be the worse for wear.....
Dale

 

duly noted...