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How many engines have you exploded or hurt really bad????

Cranky

Banned Henchman #27
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I've hurt one but it didn't grenade. It was a 440 and it only got hurt a bit......got lucky but I don't believe in luck. Sold a 56 Chevy back in 70 and the guy blew it up and wanted me to pay him back and well, I just laughed. Many years later I sold a jet boat that had a 454 in it and it too let loose and I did help out on it but that was my last Chevy ever!!!!
 
I've hurt one but it didn't grenade. It was a 440 and it only got hurt a bit......got lucky but I don't believe in luck. Sold a 56 Chevy back in 70 and the guy blew it up and wanted me to pay him back and well, I just laughed. Many years later I sold a jet boat that had a 454 in it and it too let loose and I did help out on it but that was my last Chevy ever!!!!
Not standing up for a Chevy, but some people can tear up an anvil with a rubber hammer.
On the Mopar side I have never had one fail. I've worn a couple out, and sold rather than rebuild. I even ran a 383 to 8500 rpms one night at the strip and it didn't come apart.
 
I have never actually wrecked one to where it wouldn’t run. I’ve had rods knocking, had one break, another one break a rocker shaft losing 4 lifters, a cam sprocket wobble almost entirely loose but I’ve never ran an engine to death.
I had freeze damage split a Chevy 350.
Another 350 developed a rod knock.
Uhh, actually I’ve had 2 or 3 of those.
With Mopars, I had 2 slant sixes that had rod knocks. My second 440 for the red car shucked a rod at 846 miles but still ran.

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I’ve lost gears in transmissions though. Only one failed while out on the road.
I’ve logged well over a million miles in cars and trucks since I started driving…you can credit distance commutes for construction jobs for much of that number. I’ve lost numerous tires, cracked windshields, a few collisions and traffic tickets too.
 
I blew up a 340 pretty good. I installed a reverse manual valve body , and forgot on the one two shift on one run :rolleyes: . First to neutral at 6000 rpm. I did save one rod.

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Five. Nitrous can do some nasty stuff. I used to keep broken parts, but they’re sad trophies
 
Never.
To the opposite, I've managed to bring a couple back to life that were declared damaged and needing rebuilt.
That doesn't mean I haven't beat on several; just means I have a modicum of mechanical sympathy.
 
I can only remember one, my first Mopar. 1956 Savoy L-6. I was "racing" a buddy with his 1950 Plymouth when I developed a rod knock. General consensus among my dad's buddies was to remove the rod/piston assy. and drive a properly sized piece of wood in place of the offending rod assy! I did not.
Mike
 
Just one.

Back when we were kids my younger brother and I were arguing over a knocking sound coming from our '68 Formula S 383 4sp Barracuda. He said it was a main bearing, I said it was a connecting rod bearing. So we decided to hold the pedal on the floor and wait for it to blow. It did. Big hole in the side of the block with the connecting rod sticking through it. I said to my brother "See!"
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Years later found out there were only a little over 1200 of these ever made. :rolleyes:

I had a 1964 Polara 500 back then also. Tried blowing that 383 with over 120k miles on it. Couldn't do it.
 
Most of mine were repairable..mostly.
We had a 455 pontiac we were circle track racing, was running 6200 in the straights(pretty high for a pontiac) eventually three rods let go after doing a full lap with no oil pressure and it was still running drove into the pits.
At topeka going about 100mph at the 1/8, the car slid sideways and lost traction, the 440 split two cylinder walls and two rods ended up in the pan. Scared the crap out of me, I still ran a 10.70 at the 1/4 w the six cylinder.
My favorite.. was a 225 that was knocking..we intentionally tried to kill it. It went "CLANK" chucked the rod onto the battery.
I have grenaded two 12.7 Detroits in semi trucks running down the interstate...one windowed the block. That was a hole mess of smoke.
I have lost count how many seized or locked up ..but didn't fly apart.
 
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I have never had total brake failure but have had one end of the system run dry.
Only once have I had a suspension failure. The lower ball joint on my Camaro broke sending the control arm down into the inner section of the rim. This kept it from hitting the ground.
All the jumps I did in 1998-99 with the Dart Sport and Dart 4 door and they held together. I bent frame rails, ball joints and control arms but nothing actually broke.
 
Two.
I had an inaccurate tach in a 327 Vega. I thought it was funny, laying down at around six grand, found out later that what I thought was 6k, was really 7.5+k. Racing a big block elco on the street, cast piston busted, kicked the piston pin thru the cylinder walls. Buh bye...
The other one was a 396 in a 55. Terrible shifter installed by previous, i was letting it shift on its own, at old Irwindale, and way too early. So I decided to shift it manually. Got neutral instead of high gear at 6600 shift. Buh bye rod bearings, rods, and crankshaft.
 
My beloved X - Three times I took it too far. The third time I took it to the renowned tech school in Minneapolis - Dunwoody Institute. They kept it all winter that year and tore it down to nuts and bolts and completely rebuilt it - all new Mopar parts. They refused to do anything not stock as I wanted a bigger cam - since they wouldn’t I had them just put the old one back in that was a bit bigger from when I bought it. I guess you could say it was then blue printed and balanced. No labor since it was a school - it cost me all of $500 back then for the parts. Ran like a dream from thereafter….. The best thing I ever did to her …
 
One car engine. 2.2 T2 in a 1987 GLHS. I had it operating outside of its safe range with 18psi of boost back in the mid 90's. Dropped a valve and destroyed the engine. Replaced with a 2.5l T2 that I also operated on the edge of sanity and eventually holed a piston.

I also destroyed a go kart engine, again, operating outside of its safe limits (I removed the governor lol). Fixed it with a forged rod.
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The first 440 that i put in my 71 383 Cuda, back in the dinosaur days.
Coming back from a Spring Fling car show in Southern California, i was heading back home, northbound on the I-5, when suddenly the engine let go.
Upon disassembling the engine found a head of a valve broke off the stem, and that's what destroyed that engine.
Put another 440 engine in it and that was the one the car sold with, along with the original 383 engine, that i stored away.
 
Not really an engine, but the converter in my glide in my Tina.
The new one, in a cleaned out glide, was two tenths quicker, and three mph faster, in the eighth.
Note: faster than this one when it was still in one piece, and working. It was a lot faster than this one as is.

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Back in the early '80's, I had a blown 475 cu in rat motor in a pickle fork jet boat. I found out how long a set of aluminum rods last. There wasn't much I could use except for a few externals after it windowed the block.

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Eons ago, back in the garage, we purposely ran a Chevy 250 ci inline 6 without water or oil. To see how long it would run before seizing. It lasted almost 2 minutes.
 
My S/S 360.

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I've grenaded a half-dozen since I was a kid. Made many others quit running.
 
There have been a few... By far the funniest one was a 3.8 V6 in a Taurus... I was working at a dealership & had a Taurus come in with a rod knock... I said rod knock, Service manager was sure it was carbon.... Insisted that I run a little water through the intake to loosen the carbon... :lol: So... I did... With him standing right there... It took less than fifteen seconds to confirm it was a rod knock... It kicked a
rod out the side of the block, dumped three gallons of coolant & five quarts of oil in my stall... Plus some tranny fluid which I didn't understand.... Until I started taking it apart... And found the rod had not only windowed the block but had punched a hole in the transmission too.... The whole thing was covered under warranty....
 
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