Hey guys,

I know I do not post on here much but I just wanted to share with you my last 2 days of hell with my new motor. I will start from the beginning I have a 1998 C5 that is my pride and joy and after hanging around on this site for a while I decided to build myself a motor. So last december I picked up myself a busted motor and the process began.

I began to start ordering parts and what not to get this thing put together and make my vette a mad powerhouse on wheels. Well, with the help of many sponsors on this site I compiled myself all the parts to build a great motor (based of my opinions from posts on this site). I called and pm'd many people to verify everything was going to work together etc. After several months (4 to be exact) all the parts where here and ready to be taken to the machine shop.

I take it to this shop in KC that does great work and I have him machine the block, degree the cam, shave the heads for a true surface and assemble the whole short block. Get the block back to my mechanics and we turn the block several times to make sure everything is good. Then they have the heads ported, assembled, and studded. I have the intake manifold port matched to my heads. Now we do a compression check on the cylinders and make sure there is no hitting. Everything great.

Well now this bad boy is ready to be put back in. While they are putting in the motor I pick up a new 3.73 rear differential and 3800 SSF to this car move. The install goes great and again we turn the motor manually to make sure everything is sound. Good! Let me tell you guys this is a huge cam and we had trouble turning it initially but after a couple good hard cranks it fired right up.

Well the motor is running real rich. Cool, it is a big cam needs some serious tuning right? We two pedal it to keep it alive long enough to get some heat cycles in on the valvetrain. Still good. Starts actually running better. We rev it to around 5000 a couple times and make sure it sounds good and there would not be any surprises at the dyno. So the dynotune comes. To be safe we have it towed to the dyno place (not a sponsor so will not advertise for him) they get it say cool we will tune tommorrow. 20 minutes later they call and say they wont tune because they are basically scared of liabillity issues. PANSIES! Now I have issues the closest dyno is St. Louis. Well we run across another dyno in town and they are willing to tune. Now we are up to date almost.

They begin tuning Thursday for a few hours before the plugs fowled because of the rich condition. No problem. Change them out and leave it there over night to resume in the morning. The next morning they call my mechanic at 1030am (they open at 10am) and say the starter failed. He says no problem we can believe it because we did crank on it hard in the beginning to get it started. We put it up on the lift yesterday and take of the starter. Where it bolts onto block is completely busted and just dangingly there. Huh? We put on the new starter and same sound. Crap! Probably the flywheel. Teeth probably busted off right? We decide to turn the flywheel and see if any teeth are busted.

This is where all hell breaks loose. Not that it hasn't been hell to begin with. The motor is locked. I say some stuff and leave the shop and my mechanic calls today and says when can you come we found the problem. The dyno people busted the starter trying to turn a motor they locked up. The intake valve in cylinder one broke off and imbedded itself in the sleeve. This motor does not even have 1 (YES 1) mile on it. Now this damn motor has to come out. I have exhausted all of my funds ($10,000 to be approximate) and I am seriously almost in tears typing this. I am stumped. My mechanic is being way cool and taking out the motor free of charge but I cannot afford to have this block re-machined because I have spent almost every dime I have saved for over a year to do this project. I am in college and do not know what to do. Guys I need some serious advice on how to tackle this. I blame the dyno company. The car ran and turned everything was groovy until they got it. HELP!

If you made it this far thank you for listening to rant and rave. I am just so depressed about this I wanted get this off my chest since my parents do not know that I even had a new motor put in. My girlfriend left me a couple days ago after almost 2 years and I thought "Well at least I will have my car ready in couple days". Now I am just F*cked.

 

Damn, Dude. I would blame the Dyno crew. I hope this works out....

 

I am so so sorry this has happened to you! I wish I had some good advise for you, but all I have is some sympathy!

 

I really feel for you man, but what caused the valve do that?, somthing had to of happend, i dont think the dyno co did it, i mean all they did was start it right?

I am not tryin to make you feel worse but something is amiss here. I spun my #6 rod bearing and had it rebuilt only to spin the same bearing less than 2months later taking the engine with it.. this time i bought a new longblock.


I think somthing is amiss and someone is not telling you everything. I just dont see how the exhaust valve broke and embedded it self in the sleeve by the dyno co starting the car.. i mean maybe i am reading this wrong..

Did they cause the exhaust valve to break? or did it break due to them tryin to turn it over and keep on trying that?

Hope everything goes well.
Goodluck,
I dont wish bad carluck on my worst enemy, its to expensive

 

Man, so sorry to hear about the problems.

Do you have any idea yet why the valve dropped ?

I'm unsure what the liability of the tuner is... Maybe someone else here can answer that.

Keep your chin up bro, here's to you getting back on the road soon..

Cheers,
Bad30th

 

Sorry to hear about your luck. I would just start by taking it apart and going through what you have that is salvagable and go from there obviously the heads are going to need some work and that is the place I would start to look for your problem just what I am thinking and what ore the specs on your cam? You say Real big How big and how tight were the clearances? Just because you turn it over doesn't mean that at high RPM's that it wil not make contact. I am sure you are aware of this and 5000k for a second just means that it made it once at 5K what about 6 or 6500? Do you think they were tunning it and making a run on the dyno when it happened? Just a few thoughts. Still I would not blame them yet I am still thinking a valve issue with the heads. And with that said it isn't there fault it could have happened to you on the street? I would just think about your stock block that came out and maybe think about a cam and heads for now untill you get a little money saved to fix it again. you can find some cheap parts on here to get you by until then. again that is all I can offer you for now. Hope this gives you some ideas on how toresolve your problem as easy as possible. Oh and about your girl friend if it is meant to be she'll be back and if not there are lots of other fish in the sea that I am sure would love to date a guy with a Vette! Good luck!

 

You said you had a really big cam in the new motor. What kind of piston to valve clearance did you have? Sounds like you could have tagged a valve, happened to me once after I broke a valve spring. Valve broke off and took out the short block and one head. Hang in there, you'll get it worked out. All of us have had some kind of car problems over the years.

Good luck,
Glenn

 

Sounds like dyno company number 1 made the right call. I'm not quite sure why they would turn down tuning services though. That seems kinda weird. Going by what you say about the cam being so big, I would seriously suspect P/V contact. That is deffinatlly not the tuners fault. He could be at fault for your starter though. Any time a starter removes itself from the block by no human help, its gunna be nasty. He had to have known something was F'd up.

 

I guess you are right. What is crazy aboutt this is man I swear there are not bent/broken pushrods or other valves and no other marks on any of the other pistons and the spring of the dropped valve is not broke. The head of the valve is completely gone. Also the park plug of that piston is gone. When I say gone I mean man-handled. Ate the f*ck up. I may have been so freaking mad that I missed marks on the pistons but I highly doubt it. I am just so angry right now. I know that manually turning a motor won't tell the same story at 5k but we had it there a couple of times an I would suspect we have heard something from valve float or PTV issues. We specifically told the dyno company no more than the stock limiter untill there were some break in miles for fear of something like this. I am thinking this is an over rev maybe? We are just so unclear right now. I really want to beat someone's ***. I am thinking that they would have heard the valve drop. Don't you? Why would they not tell me? They are the last people to hear the thing run and i know they heard the valve drop and the motor seize. Unless they f*d up.

 

Oh yeah the cam is slightly bigger than the T-Rex. (Lift wise). And thank you guys for hearing/reading my complaing and sorrows. I appreciate it I do.

 

RIP

Man, next rebuild go smaller on the cam, unless you're the next pro stock champ.
Bigger than T-REX
Also might want to use a reputable LS1 motor builder, not any builder. These are not SBC and need experienced poeple for such a radical builtup.

IMO too many companies involved. The poeple that put the motor together, should be able to dyno too.

Save what you can, do not reuse the heads, just get some other castings. And seriously check your PV Clearance.

Best of luck

 

Just for the record though you will probably never know the truth so it is best to move on and deal with the problem at hand. That is why I want to be present at any tunning session that way if anything goes wrong at least I know what the truth is no matter who's fault it is. When I went to MTI for tunning they have you sign a waiver of liability on your car because they did not build it so if it blows on the Dyno it's on you/me. It is understandable because not everyone build motors the same and equal quality etc... Is your motor you took out of the vette still available? If so that sounds like the cheapest fix right now! I agree something does not sound right about the valve dropping and them not knowing it etc... But you will never be able to prove anything so focus on the fix.

 

Not the dyno tuners fault.

Something was wrong with the motor build-up.
They may have known this when they sent you on to the other shop.

 

I don't know.. sounds shady to me.. did you ever start and run the car between the time you towed it to dyno tuner 1 and dyno tuner 2? I'm just shooting from the hip here, and I'm kinda suspicious by nature, but it sounds like something shady *MAY* have happened at dyno tuner 1's shop.

If you didn't even start the car before you had it towed from shop 1 to shop 2 I'd be even more suspicious... I'm just theorizing here, but for a guy to take your car in for work, then turn around and say "errr, umm.. I changed my mind, come pick up your car, I don't want to work on it." that sounds a little fishy to me. He may well have jacked something up, and then just broomed you and the car out the door.

I mean, PtV clearance, or assembly error is what most of the guys here are hinting around at, but if you ran this thing in your garage for a couple of heat cycles, and blipped the throttle up to 5k+, I'm not so sure I agree.

 

P/V clearance is where I am leaning as the head of the valve was broke off and this more commonly happens from contact with the piston, but who know for sure? And I was thinking that he ahad the heads ported etc... so I am guessing it to be my number two guess. Still doesn't matter whats done is done.

 

What kinda vavles did you use. Stock or after market. Sence you said that only one broke i would be suspetions. I would send the cam off to TSP or Thunder to have it put on the cam doctor. To check and see if one lobe was ground to big. Also what pistons are you running. Stock or after market. This sounds funny to me because most of the time it is the intake that tags the piston not the exhaust. I think you had a **** vavle to begain with and just go unlucky from the start.(NO ****) i know.

 

My dad spent $12,000 on a BBC for his 67 Chevelle. Before he took delivery of the motor, he had the motor itself taken by the shop that built it and dyno'd. That way if it took a dump it would still be the shops problem and not my dads. Not really going to help you now though... The shop that put the motor together should have some questions to answer.

Also, like someone just said, ALWAYS be there and never let the knuckledraggers at a some random place try to do anything.

 

Yes these heads were ported to the extreme. I had/have Diamond Forged Pistons with -2cc reliefs. Manley Stainless Steel 2.02 Valves. All forged parts and Chromoly Rods. The car was supposed to be done that thursday and but because the plugs fowled we had to wait till the next day. Well my mechanic, a friend and I were there the first day and I had to leave town for the weekend friday morning so my mechanic was going to shop for me around 11am the day the motor f'd up. And no the car was not run after it returned fromm the first dyno shop. God I am pissed.

 

You are getting excellent advice from this forum, plus it's a good place to vent. Inspector12 gave some excellent advice to just move on because otherwise it's going to eat you up.

However, I had started to post a reply that was identical to what 99_SS-M6 said, I also was very suspicious of the first dyno shop taking in the car then calling 20 minutes later and saying they didn't want to do it. That's really wierd! Of course, unless they over-revved it (and that's not possible if you have the PCM rev limiter in place), then it wouldn't be their fault. But they may have heard something and decided the best bet would be to wash their hands of it.

Thanks,
Glenn

 

Well they didn't start it. That was what was crazy about it. They looked at my mod sheet and got scared? Anyways, talked to Jason at Texas Speed and explained everything. He is a really cool guy talking to me about this. The PtV on the intake was .070 and the exhaust I do not know. Checked the motor and it appears that every intake valve had contact. No exhaust contact. Jason said that sounded weird. Well, the head is trashed and so is the one piston and the block is cracked. The guy that built my motor, my mechanic that put it in, Jason at Texas Speed, and myself all think that this thing was over-rev'd. I will update you later tonight when we decide our course of action.