Background:
For those who dont follow my DVD series, I own two rather fast toys a 2001 786 rwhp corvette and a 921 rwhp 98 supra.




Current situation:
So its been a long few weeks, turns out the guy who built the forged motor in my supra built a string of bad engines, of which mine was one of them. So as I was just pumping 31 lbs of boost through my car for a few tanks of gas I spun a bearing. Car is now down for a month being rebuilt. I was debating going to a stroker, but we haven't heard back from crower regarding this.



I am taking this opportunity to put a beefier clutch in and some upgraded pistons for even higher boost. (I lost the forged engine after only 600 miles).

Since I got the supra running in October I kept the vette over at a local shop for a few months waiting for them to fix their tune at their leisure. (Since they last tuned it the car was breaking up badly over 5500 rpms). After my supra went down with the motor issue I called up and asked to pick up the car, they warned me it needed a new battery. I showed up a few days later and as soon as I started driving it home, I knew something was not right, the engine didn't feel right at all and the exhaust note was way off. While driving the car wanted to stall in between any shift, it was raining so I couldn't really push the car at all to try and further diagnose a power problem. When I arrived back at my warehouse i noticed a cloud of smoke I was leaving behind me. Called up the shop who said they were coming out the next day to take the car back and figure it out.
Next morning I swapped the battery and started the car up, white burnt smelling smoke filled my shop within minutes. So I drove it over to another local mechanic. Within a few hours I got compression numbers to find out the engine was down 3 clynders and motor was blown. Upon tear down there were holes in 3 of the pistons on the DS of the motor, so apparently they blew my engine up at the shop and didn't bother to tell me until I called to get the car 3 months after they drove it away form me.






Sucks but it was an opportunity to swap the car from supercharged to turbo like i've been planning to do when teh opportunity presented itself. Decided to go with the Hinson Single Turbo kit.





here is the before picture of the engine bay



So, long story short, its shaping up to be an expensive January for me. I have to have the cars up and running by the Philadelphia Auto Show at the end of the month, i'll update the thread with pictures and details as they come up.

 

That sucks and is awesome at the same time. Nice rides. What's getting done to the yellow Gallardo?

 

that does awfully suck.. but now you can try different routes and venture out w/ different builds. Jersey represent

 

engine rebuild. was blowing through 2 quarts of oil a weekend.

 

I feel your pain. I spent a ton of cash between October 2008 and September 2009.

Had a 402 built by a big named sponsor and was unhappy. Talked to them about making some changes to it and the quotes were out of this world. Took it to another shop (Vengeance Racing) and changed heads, exhaust, and cam, then with Mikes tuning she made a **** load more power (see link in sig for full story) and drives like stock. Later I smoked the clutch, then broke the tranny output shaft at the track with torpedoed my diff. After all that I had to swap out a broken rocker. She's mint now but damn what a mess. I'm staying away from the racetrack, can't afford it. I totally feel ya on cars being down too. My DD was down and so was my backup. With snow on the ground the corvette wasn't an option. All is good now though, other then my backup still being down LOL.

Hopefully when the smoke clears, no pun intended everything will be perfect for you. Good luck !!

 

Talk about bad luck!! From the looks of the toys you should share the love .

 

Man that kind of **** poor craftsmanship and lack of pride in one’s own work, really pisses me off. These are the shysters that give all of us whom work on cars a bad name. I would out them in a heartbeat, reason being is they built / tuned it, they should get full credit for it! I would bet they would be claiming it, if it ran the way it was supposed to and made big power, so they have earned it. Build looks solid! Wrap that down pipe. Looking forward to getting those longtube headers for you

 

Man that sux big time. BTW, I have all your DVD's see you guys at the Philly Auto Show.

 

Looking good, Rob. Let us know if you need any making your deadline.

 

More pics please.....this is pure car bliss......

Well, in a way.

Good thing you have the money for this, and NICE TOYS

 

Hey Rob, any updates? SS 5 was great too!

 

Updates with pictures will be coming after I get back from the Philly Autoshow on the 8th.

All Supra parts are in and engine is being built.

All Corvette parts are in and engine is being built.

Everything should be back together in the next 2 weeks.

Glad you enjoyed the DVD.

-Rob

 

I have a hard time feeling bad because the outcome is so awesome

 

feel for ya my wife had a shop in Texas do a H/C package for me in my last deployment. I got the car back and I could not pull on a stock 99 C5. They guy did a shitty job, I had to break his whole work down put in a new cam, heads and the right lifters and wala wouldn't you know it. Good luck hope they run as good as they look.

 

updates

 

Got any more info on this? Looks like it would fit under my hood...

 

rob your dvd's are awesome! make sure to build that supra so you can beat racer X this time!

 

www.hinsonsupercars.com
its his single turbo kit fo the c5 vette.

nastychevelle - The supra will win next time around, even as is the supra would have reeled in and won had we passed 140 mph.

- Updates with pictures to come soon. Dropped another 170 lbs out of the car. I can eat more twinkies now and not feel to bad.

 

im extremely jealous. but do feel for your engine woes. good luck!

 

Sorry to hear about the Supra engine. From the picture of the left side bearing, it appears as though your engine builder did not set your bearing clearances. This can be seen by the parting line bearing wear; which is null. Typically, the babbitt will wear the least amount (but some) in that area due to the reciprocating motion, but this seems to be extreme. This can be adjusted by machining the big end of the rod in a certain way.

I've also seen this type of bearing failure from detonation; flattens the heck out of them fast and then they grab the crank.
Some inside info - King bearings has been doing studies on bearing wear and causes. For instance: when a crank is machined and polished, there are tiny “fingers” that will grab the babbitt and pile the shavings inside the grooves. Although this cannot be seen by the naked eye, it does happen. This problem stems from how the crank is polished and machined. If it is machined with the rotation you will have less of a chance for the “fingers” to grab the babbitt material and cause premature bearing wear. However, in the field this is hard to regulate, so King has been redesigning their babbitt material in an effort to minimize this type of wear.



Best of luck on the rebuild...

Mike