Engine DEAD!!


In the interest of trying to understand what happened, as some others have asked what mods do you have? Has the SC or accessory belt ever been replaced with one that was perhaps too short? Is your balancer stock or the oversized IW? Does it look okay? Did you notice any shaking or vibrations when the engine was running?

As far as what you should do next, I believe Heffner has said that even for Ray's car they probably did more than they needed to. If you are planning a "regular" Heffner TT, a stock short block is plenty fine. Besides, to go higher you'll need a different fuel system and all sorts of custom things. The 4.0 already pushes the stock fuel limit, but the internals are just fine. Ed found with ported heads etc he could get the same power with less boost, but your problem is the bottom, if it were me I wouldn't turn this into a bigger deal than it is. But keep in mind you could have something out of balance if you can't attribute the problem to something else. You might even want to consider the flywheel or clutch.
 
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You're all talking a foreign language to me - like one of those foreign horror movies. I know it's scary by the music they're playing, but I don't really understand.

Sorry your engine's not well, glad it didn't die. Will you be able to find out why it happened?
 
Very sorry to hear about this failure. While it's certainly unusual, that doesn't make it less painful for you!

Lot's of decisions to make, and I don't know enough about specific details to give you perfect guidance BUT I would not go for an iron block. It feels like you'd be going "backwards" with iron.
 
The reason behind it all...

The reason for the crack in the crank needs to be found in my own doing..!

Back in '06 I had a shop drill a hole in the crank damper to mount a pick-up for a mag sensor - and at that time we had no idea it was a fluid damper :frown

I did aprox 500 miles before I found all the damping grease on my floor pan, and the damper was replaced right away. So I suppose that the crack I see know has started back then - lucky me my oil pump belt came off so I that way was warned before complete disaster..!

Chris: My favourite option right now would then be to port the heads and perhaps go for a set new cams - and then call on Heffner for the TT treatment.
Jeff: The thought was of course to go for the aluminium block upgrade..

Specs on my car:

3.4 Whipple
Headers
AP upgraded clutch
Cracked crank:-(
 
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How far in did you drill the Dampner to have caused this? Was this done while on the vehicle?
 
Back in '06 I had a shop drill a hole in the crank damper to mount a pick-up for a mag sensor - and at that time we had no idea it was a fluid damper

I did aprox 500 miles before I found all the damping grease on my floor pan, and the damper was replaced right away. So I suppose that the crack I see know has started back then - lucky me my oil pump belt came off so I that way was warned before complete disaster..!
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Goes to the caliber of people we have on this Board.... How many people would step up to the plate saying, "my bad"? Best of luck getting it back together.
 
Any thoughts on this belt issue?
 
Hmmmmm... long shot, but see ByeEnzo's failed oil pump pulley here... http://www.fordgtforum.com/forums/showthread.php?19626-The-saga-of-421
 
nota4re said:
Hmmmmm... long shot, but see ByeEnzo's failed oil pump pulley here... http://www.fordgtforum.com/forums/showthread.php?19626-The-saga-of-421
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I was thinking the timing was wierd....
 
Kendal: Thanks for the kind words - I just wanted to come clean also in order not to make a whole bunch of you nervous, and start ripping of your sump covers.
I could perhaps have gone: "I did NOT drill that hole in my crank damper and I did NOT put cigars in dark moist places on my staff member" :ack
I will for sure inspect the pump after reading the "ByeEnzo post" thanks for linking.

HHGT: The 6mm dia hole (10mm in) was drilled with the damper on the car, but I don't see that being the problem, do you?? The reason for grease came out was that the bolt came out on its own.
"Weird timing"?? as in, belt coming off and crank being cracked sounds like one should have something to do with the other??

Another thing I noticed today was that the left cam chain has quite some slack!!! - is there some sort of "oil tensioner" that would have loosened the chain in those seconds it was running without oil pressure??

How many of you guys would go for ported heads and new cams hence the motor is going apart anyway??
 
I was at the local shop about a month ago getting work done on my headlights. The owner has a whipple powered GT. He showed me his old crankshaft and harmonic balancer. He had a machine shop fab a new balancer that fit deeper on the end of the crankshaft. The stock one only fits over the crank about 1/2 inch. With a non stock blower, non stock pulley and oil pump drive belt pulling on the end of the stock balancer it pulled the balancer off center and scored the crank.

This kindof looks like what happened to you. I can give you the shops contact info if you need to confirm this is what happened. PM me if you need it.
 
My engineering take on the drilled hole is as follows... The dampner may have experienced additional moments of inertia (due to the added weight) beyond the designed engineering limits that may have not been noticeable in the form of mild vibrations at least to the driver or casual listener when the RPM range is low. As the RPMs increase, so did the forces that may have created undue stress on the shaft as pictured. The irregular rotational forces would have traveled down the crank and to the bearings where I would suspect the first inline bearing took most of the additional force and the last in line took the least. The picture shows a bearing (I cant really tell which one it is inline but I do see a "4" stamped in the picture) that in my opinion experienced these forces and would explain why the wear on the bearing is not uniform.

To truly find the cause, and if my hypothesis is correct, Kendall (or anyone with CAE software) would have to model the scenario of adding this additional weight to the dampner and run the analysis over time at 7000 RPMs. But you realize to do this the analyst would have to have all the Ford specs available, and hence why I originally suggested that Ford would be interested in analyzing the stress crack.

If additional forces were the culprit, I would also check all the links on the chain to see if that has had any cause and effect and potentially even stretching.

Hope that helps. Kendall?
 
HHGT said:
I would also check all the links on the chain to see if that has had any cause and effect and potentially even stretching.
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Chain "stretching" is often sited, but seldom correct. For a chain to stretch the steel's yield strength would have to be exceeded. That doesn't happen. Usually the chain measures longer due to wear in the interface between the links and pins.
 
Hmm - it was just a 6mm hole and a bolt was screwed in there, and I doubt that there is many grams difference between the removed material and a 6 x 10mm bolt...
 
Silverbullitt said:
The owner has a whipple powered GT. He showed me his old crankshaft and harmonic balancer. He had a machine shop fab a new balancer that fit deeper on the end of the crankshaft. .
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An entire new balancer or a mounting flange for the damper to be bolted to?
.
 
sorry to hear about your car, fyi I ran my car hard and I developed a slight ticking and knock, I thoght the worst, but when we disassembled the engine we found nothing except the left chain with too much slack, the chains are a source of problem for these cars and have been some time! instead of putting it back to stock again we ended up porting the heads, changing the cams, pistons, and all internals except for the rods and crank. and new chains and tensioners, make sure you replace them as well, its cheap insurance. the car runs great now
 
Based on that which you shared I would suspect that the fluid filled dampener lost enough so that it could no longer control the oscillations; the normal process of a crank in motion and the extended snout area was twisted back and forth under finally it fractured. Yes it could have been worse and yet this still is ugly.

Now why the oil pump belt came off is IMO a greater question; because it is a Chevron design this is a difficult task because even if loose the odds of it coming off are very remote but rather being lose would cause greater stress on the shaft and bearing as such if I were to speculate I would say that when it was installed it was done with the idler rotated however still in place and the process of forcing the belt on placed a small nick in it that over time became a tear and the rest is history.

So what would I do at this time; if money is no object.....everything and I would not get draw to the crate motor light.

BTW I would "never" add any weight to a dampener without have it rebalanced, "period". the work that a dampener does is extreme and on these gals with so much hanging off of them IMO even more so.

Takes care

Shadowman
 
You need one of these babies:)

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I also make it with 1'' longer crank snout,dual keys and a custom balencer with a longer hub to acompany the longer crank for Blower cars. Doesn't innerfear with the original oil pump drive either... Its billet with Center Counter weights also as the factory crank does not have center counter weights and are prone to move around after 7300 rpms. ( I know not many if any run them above there, but this is the cure todo so)

Btw you got lucky!!!!!!! and how did the rest of the bearings look, mainly towards the rear of the motor?
 
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Look at what BMF said. That is the fix.
 
2112 said:
An entire new balancer or a mounting flange for the damper to be bolted to?
.
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What BMF indicated is the fix.
 
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