I don't believe they are bad parts, rather parts that are not designed for the abuse we are exposing them to. Engine builders always told me that cast steel engine parts are good up to 5000RPM. After that you're on your own. The crank may be the only reliable component in the Lightning engine. How many reports of broken cranks have we heard?

 

I think it is a combo of two things....too much boost and driving them too hard!!!

I am running a total 13 psi on my truck and have never had a problem with her(19,600 miles), and she gets wiped down with a diaper and parked in her spot and driven once a week.

I can see why everyone would more boost to run faster at the track, but sooner or later something is going to give and the only one losing is the owner. If I had a #6 pulley on my truck now, I would be running over 18 psi!!!! That is a lot of damn boost!!! Then these people want to race every grandma mobile and ricer in a five block radius and when the rods give way they moan and complain and go, "What went wrong???".

I think to be totally safe at any psi, we need to upgrade these crappy a$$ rods. Yeah, I drive my L like a grandpa.....but I still have my stock motor with no problems!!!

 

I believe it's two variables. The trucks are leaning out because the weather is cooler and the chip hasn't been adjusted and/or WOT boost is being held for a long time at high speeds. If you hear pinging, get out of it right away. The stock internals are fine for standard chip, pulley, air kit bolt ons. However, heavy doses of N20, big pulley's with lean conditions will kill any rods....especially stock ones.

 

I have been really gathering as much information as possible with all of the blown motors as of late to try and come to a conclusion of what and why this is happening!What is even more scary is that there are several more trucks that I know about right now that are blown up that are brand new that are not on the internet reporting back to us.I believe strongly that the cold air has alot to do with why these motors are blowing up with the bigger pullies on.The cold air itself is sometimes good for 2 pounds more of boost and it also can affect our air-fuel by as much as 1 full point leaner,I know it has on my truck!Another thing is having your shift points set to high for your shifts is not good either so i would check to see where your truck shifts at! Lets go back and take a long look when all this started happening and it leads us to late fall early winter when the problems started so i would suggest to either get a conservative program for the rest of this winter season from your tuner or just drive your truck smartly until warmer air returns!

Matt

 

I think to get to the bottom of this you should revamp the pole and remove BAD PARTS and insert WHAT YEAR IS THE TRUCK? and remove DRIVEN TO HARD and replace that with WHO'S CHIP IS IT?

Noel has a point, and also it seems to me that a lot of 2001' trucks are blowing up. Something about maxing out the MAF sensor one to many times and going lean or something.
Dale

 

This last statement about the Mass Air being maxed out one too many times has me curious. I read a post a while back that said something very similar. Supposedly they...tuners, some of which have information that this is an inherent problem with the mass air. Is there ANY credible evidence or information to suggest this is happening? Someone, Anyone ??????????

 

I'm going to add my .02. I agree that bad parts should be removed from the survey. No one here as of yet has posted a blown stock engine! Not that im aware of!!

The parts are engineered to take the stock hp rating. You alter that and that makes it a bad part? That's like buying a stock vette and moding the ***** out of it. Blowing it up at the track and saying it was the engines fault. It was the owners fault for not having the sense or not knowing what they were doing. I see more people here buying mods and don't understand the basic fundamentals of a combustable engine.

I'm sure their would be less blown engines if the people were more educated or informed as to the functionality of the mods and how it effects the engine.

It is going to be hard to point the finger at a tuner here. Everyone believes their tuner can do no wrong. Well, we are all human and make mistakes. Even if it was the chip! How can you prove it.

Are the tuners going to pull $7K out of thier pocket and admit it was their chip or program? Hell no! Buy it at your own risk! No one taks responsibility for what they do! It's always someone elses fault! It's the rods or chip, pulley maybe.

How about owner didn't know what he/she was doing! Seeing posts like....... What is this pinging i hear? What is detonation? Ford is trying to screw me, Lost my warrenty because I had mods, heard a noise and didn't let up at WOT. Now i have pieces falling from my engine!!!!!!

Sorry, done venting! Get educated if you are going to mod!!

Thor.

 

How do you max out a MAF??

My first motor had no mods I had it 3000 miles and it started knocking real bad at start up but after warming up you really couldnt hear it.

They installed new 2001 motor still stock except air filter and no problems have 20,000 on truck now!! Waiting on warranty to expire them its all my fault if I blow it then its only money after 36,000!!! Just my dime worth!

 

Thor:

I agree, but when I think of "Bad Parts", I believe it could include an expelled plug or a broken plug causing valve damage.

While rare, these things have happened modded or not.

Just my .02.

BTW, when you bleed, is it blue?(J/K).

 

NCETRY,,, I am about 99.9% sure these trucks have a steal crank and not a cast piece. The only reason I can't say 100% is because I haven't ran mine over yet, and got a good look at it. Even the brochure says it's steal, and that the wrist pins are bigger than standard. RPM is a huge factor with internal stress. Every 1000 rpm increase equates to a 25% stress increase on parts,so keep the revs down. Now, to detonate a cylinder with increased rpm and increased cylinder pressure caused by increased boost, is well, you get the point. detonation is like asking the piston to stop and go the other way. Just because you can't here it ping, doesn't mean its not detonating, so look at it this way if you can hear it, it's worse than it sounds!

 

TampaSVT,
Man, im not saying Ford doesn't make their fair share of mistakes.
They do and the plugs getting blown out of the head is one of them.

For the sake of debate im going to just stick to this topic. All the threads I have read losing rods have had a chip or pulley or both. I agree hard driving like high RPM tire shreading burn outs is abuse! That can criple an engine fast. I'm a Ford man and I hate to see people put blame on an engine component that has proven it's self under stock conditions, instead of blaming themselves.

I think people have mod fever. They are letting the need for speed, cloud their judgement. I would say approach with caution.

Sometimes I think I do bleed blue. lol But im not a Ford fanatic or a devils advocate!

 

Check out this thread and read what Mr. D'Amore has to say.

http://www.nloc.net/forum/showthread...&threadid=9907

Dale

 

Doug
Why can't you conduct the poll like how they vote in Chicago? Vote early and Vote often.

 

What Jim is saying is true. My 99 has an 01 in it now with a 99 computer. THANK GOD! I can't wait for my #6 to get here. Sal?

Thanks Dale

Herb

 

Again..I'm not a L owner...just a fan but our LS1 mafs get maxed at I think 58 lb/min flow. Once it gets there I think we have the same problem with the computer not knowing what to do as a stock camaro/firebird will probably only flow a max of 33 lb/min so
we have quite a bit of a safety zone built in. When people start serious modding. some of the our tuners know how to extend the maf frequency table past the 58 lb/min limit. If you guys are hitting the maf limit and then the computer reverts to a stock table, then possibly you are leaning out and that will ruin your day
and motor if you get lean enuff. My next thought is the fuel injectors. Someone said you guys have 42lb injectors. What fuel pressure does the L run at? I'm wondering if some people are maxing out the injectors and having them go static. Also does anyone monitor fuel pressure to make sure the pump is keeping up at the hp levels you guys are putting down? Forced induction requires a lot of fuel when you are in the boost. Example: my 2000 trans am ..stock with a 100 shot of N20 could run the stock fuel system fine. Removed N20 and added turbo...with 5 psi adding 100 hp my stock fuel system was inadequate at anything over 4000 rpms. It took me awhile to accept that it was the stock fuel system as 100hp is 100hp wether its N20 or boost but I was wrong...just like the other forced induction Ls1 guys were telling me. Another thing......yes this is long.....I dont think the stock Ford parts are the problem. You guys have pistons and rods made to take boost. Ls1 has 10:1 compression (too high for boost) and hypereuretic (spelling) pistons which are not good for boost. The Ls1 guys have no problem running 9 psi of boost as long as we don't detonate from running too lean or too much timing. Heck Harlan has been running over 500 rwhp for a year (573 rwhp as of now on 12psi) on a bone stock engine. He runs low timing and 100 octane but my point is the stock parts. This is not a ford vs chevy as I think you have better stock parts for boost than we do. Sooo....control detonation with proper a/f, timing, and octane for the hp level you are running and no blown engines. This is only my opinion.....not trying to be a troll with all the LS1 references....just trying to throw some ideas at you so the Lightning motors can live a long time cause as I said..I'm a fan!