Guido

I was driving my car saturday night. I was not hamering on it. Simple driving.

I was watching the tach, and it dropped to nothing. then I hit the gas and it came back up. I didnt know what was going on.

Then I head a noise that sounded like a heat chield rattling against the exhaust (if youve heard this noise yo uknow what I mean) so I pull into a parking lot and my engine is making some pretty bad noises. It still has 45psi oil pressure idling at this point. OPen hood to see if I can see anything although I KNOW I wont be able to.

Turn car off and check oil level. its fine. Ive been keeping an eye on this.

Go to turn car back on and it doesnt want to start but does after a pump of the gas pedal. Its still making some pretty awful noises and the oil pressure doesnt come up.

So I turn it off. and leave it. towed it home and its sitting now.

It sounded like the top end was starved for oil. It was pretty loud from the valve covers. What sounded like rocker chatter to me.

Now, what baffles me the most about this is I installed a thunder racing 224 cam a while back. 224/224 on 112cl. I also added one of the ls6 oil pumps from thunder racing. it had the same casting number as the factory oil pump but there were some noted differences so I was pretty sure I was getting a solid product.

Ive drove the car for about 5000 miles since I put the cam in. Drove it to Louisiana from Indiana for the thunder racing shootout and have put about a dozen 1/4 mile passes on the car as well.

I cant believe that the oil pump would have failed on me already, but there isnt anything else that I can think would cause this to happen short of something getting lodged in the oil pickup and clogging the pump. I suppose its possible but after all the miles on the car, I wouldnt think that would happen.

Im sure someone has had this happen, so someone help me out here.

thanks

Reboot

iTrader: (5)

Check for a loose ground wire.

Guido

LMAO I dont think a ground wire is causing my engine to make noises like its spun a bearing

Guido

No one has any suggestions here?

How is the tach referenced? What would cause it to go to dead?

I could have a broken o-ring on the pickup. The pump could have died. Could be anything but Im still confused how any of it relates to the tach dropping down to nothing.

Mark IXZD 150

iTrader: (1)

Believe it or not... check your plug wires. One may have come loose. I had it happen to me and for some reason, despite running like total hell, it was making a lot of clacking sounds. It was scary but I soon found a plug wire had fallen off the coil. I plugged it back in and the car was fine. Just something to look into on your suituation....

Reckless

iTrader: (9)

I would also suggest checking the ground wires on the back of the driver's side head, and then check the connection to you alternator as well. At least you can eliminate those as a source of problems. If the PCM or alternator are lacking current, your motor will run like crap. After that, I would suspect a valve spring has broken on ya!

Fireball

iTrader: (21)

if it requires the gas pedal to be depressed to restart...sounds like a broke valvespring to me.

Guido

The top end sounded starved for oil and there was no pressure though.

A broken valve spring is going to cause that to happen??

The gas pedal thing doesnt surprise me. Since I put the cam in the car it has acted that way. Typically after Ive drove the car and shut it off, and then start it back up it wants to stumble just a hair since it still has stock programming. Not every time but its a little rough. It was like that with the cam that was in it when I bought the car. It already had a larger cam in it and I know none of the valve springs were broke with that cam because I pulled them all out to put stiffer ones in with this cam.

They are comp cams 918's

Guido

There is metal in my oil looks like engine will be out by the weekend.

Reckless

iTrader: (9)

Let me know if you need ant help Kurt. I can help with a build if you need.

Guido

Thanks bro! I need to find out what it looks like inside the engine really. I hope that nothing is f'd up too bad because i REALLY REALLY dont want to spend a lot of money on rebuidling this. I sold my blue car to save up money and I am not far from having enough $$ to pay this car off. This only throws a monkey wrench in. if I wanted to keep modding cars, Id have kept f'n with the blue car. LOL

Anyway, I may give you a hollar this week.

killer01ws6

Man that does suck,
Hope you find something simple, but with metal in the oil... I am not so sure you will

Guido

Got the engine out on Wednesday evening. Spent Christmas with family and relaxing. Didnt do anything.

Today, started tearing into the motor. Had it all apart early afternoon.
First impressions, DAMN this thing comes apart fast. And its an interesting machine. I like it.

Onto the bad news:
The front lifter on the passenger side failed. The roller tip would not turn without more than a little effort put into it. All the needle bearings inside are visible, but something must have caused it to stop rolling. It looks like its been ran over a gravel road for about 3000 miles. Its all tore up. Likewise, the camshaft doesnt look very nice.


Aside from those items, everything else looked great! Its obvious by looking at the pistons that the engine has been running rich. They are black. The cylinders themselves look fine. A little evidence of wear but they are fine. The pistons are fine. The rod and main journals look great! Nothing spun and it doesnt look like there was ever any metal in the bearings. I will likely get the journals polished while its out though.

The oil pump looks fine. We took the front cover off of it and the gears look like new. There is NO evidence that the pump has ever been installed or ran. It spins easily and there were no metal shavings inside of it. Odd huh? The pickup was still bolted to it securely and the o-ring was not torn at all. Rules out any foulness there.

What I plan on doing:
I have to make sure that the local car quest who does a lot of machine work and hot tanking, can fit the block into their aluminum hot tank on Monday morning. If not, Ill have to see where I can get the block cleaned. Its currently BARE. The only thing still in it is a freeze plug that was too large for us to get out. They are all screwed in which I thought was cool. So getting the block cleaned. Going to reuse the entire rotating assembly. The clutch needs replaced as well as the flywheel resurfaced. It looks like it got pretty hot!! Ill be purchasing the following new parts:

-lifters
-rings
-bearings
-head gaskets
-arp head bolts
-arp rod bolts
-crank pulley bolt
-clutch

The rest of the items will be re-used. Even most of the gaskets. The majority of them are re-usable. Something I learned today. I spent some time on the phone with a few sources of help this afternoon.

I suppose Im a bit disspointed that this happened. A $400 cam is down the tubes. It *may* be savable. Thunder Racing said I could return it to them and they can have the shop that grinds their cams look at it and if its only lifter material thats been deposited on it, they may be able to regrind and it would be re-usable. I dont know if I even want to do that though as I have this other comp cams grind I took out of the engine to put back in it.

This has turned into a real learning experience. Im not sure at all what caused it to happen but it isnt anything that I, or any of us, suspected it would be.

Comments? Advice?

Nine Ball

iTrader: (38)

Well, it could have been much worse, glad it was just a cam/lifter and that nothing else is damaged. I'd probably slap in a fresh set of lifters and a new cam to be safe.

These engines are way easy to work on, and the reusable stuff is cool. Good luck Curt.

Silvr98z28

I just lost pressure in mine at Thunder. I spun all of the rod bearings.
It would run but not under 2,000 rpm's.