This came out of a 100% stock 1998 engine with 113,000 miles. The rod bearing was still good and it still ran very quiet but with a miss.
It didn't ruin anything else.
Do you guys think it would be wise to replace all the pistons because maybe whatever caused this to break might have stressed the other ones?
I plan on running 400 hp and the stock redline or 6000 rpm.
PS I bought it like this.

 

Over revving possibly, maybe a dropped valve. I can't imagine nothing else was damaged. I'd inspect the sleeve in that cylinder for scratches or dings. Also inspect the head for damage. How much money are you working with and what are your plans for the motor(drag, street, daily driver, reliable, etc..?) I would suggest a hone job, new pistons, rods, and bearings. That would make for a motor with many more miles ahead of it.

 

man i dont mean to sound like an ***, but you might want to get your hearing checked!!

that rod is in several pieces!! at the very least, it would sound like a jackhammer in your engine bay.

but to answer your question, i would seriously consider a full rebuild while you have the car apart. 113,000 is a good time to do that plus it will ensure all is well when it goes back in. take this oppurtunity to save you some money and trouble a little later down the road

 

yeah no doubt ... i hope this thread is a joke because there is no way ir ran like that, atleast not so good as to just have a miss

 

I'd imagine he had a miss before, then this happened. He is telling us that there were no odd noises before the rod gave way, in case we asked.

 

Guys will you take the time to read this.
At least the bottom where it says PS I bought it like this.
I bought a 1998 trans am for $420 and drove it five minutes home. There was no coolant in the oil, there is a small chunk missing out of the bottom of the cylinder.

So yes it might have made noise when it let go, but I have five minutes drive time in the car, maybe 20 minutes looking at it because the guy said it was a bad injector. I knew it wasn't because it didn't have regular blow by it had a puffing out of the oil fill.
I did a compression test, found #2 dead, pulled the head, drilled and tapped a hole in the piston (since it wasn't going up and down), threaded a bolt into it and pulled it out.
I parted the car out, kept the engine, trans and rear. I plan to rebuild the engine and put it in a 2000 S10.

Now just for your own amusement click on my website link, go to the camaro page, download the only sound clip on the page. This sound clip is a 2002 SS AFTER GM did the work to fix the noise. THE NOISE THEY NOW SAY IS NORMAL.
This mother ******* '98 T/A with a blown rod idled and ran quieter than my camaro, which had 25,000 on it when that was recorded.

And BTW I pulled the engine and took the pan off, theres a small chunk missing from the bottom of the cylinder below the pistons travel, #1 has some hit marks on it. Thats it.
I'm not ******* deaf, maybe the jackass who had the car before me was but I know what a blown rod sounds like and this engine never sounded like that WHEN I HAD IT.
Guess why it still had oil pressure...because the big end was still on the crank.

Dropped valve you say, no the picture below shows what a dropped valve does to a piston, and I will add that this engine ran also, the rod didn't break.

 

Well think again because it did. It had a real bad miss, never heard one noise come out of it.

See the piston in the above post? That was caused by a broken intake valve head. It happened at 5000 rpm, it was shut off and put in neutral at the first sign of a miss.
Think about it, at 5000 rpm if it was shut down in one second the piston came up and down 83 times in that one second.
This engine ruined both heads because metal traveled through the intake, bent push rods, valves, bent a rod, cracked the cylinder. And guess what it runs today.

My point is this...how long do you think it took for the rod in that LS1 to break? no one knows, my guess is not long.

The reason for posting this question is to get an idea of how often these engines break the rods clean off at the big end and the small end leaving nothing left to bang around. As opposed to this 'real'rod that let go and took everything with it.
Do these **** LS1 rods normally shatter like glass?

 

I post some pictures of this LS1 sometime in the morning for you non believers, top, bottom, inside whatever you think you need to see.

 

That's crazy that it ran as well as you say it did. Not saying I don't believe you, just that it's hard to swallow. To answer your question, no LS1 rods do not generally come apart like that, especially at stock power levels. I'd say stock rods are prettly reliable until 500 + rwhp. The stock rod bolts on the other hand are another story altogher.

 

ok first off, calm down a little, i was only kidding about the deaf thing.

second, if you asked the question to find out how often these things grenade, then why didnt you just say that in your first post? we would have understood your intent then. but instead, you sort of sounded naive when you asked if the rest of the rods and pistons should be replaced after you found a rod in your oil pan in pieces

 

If the mating surfaces aren't too beat up, post an "up the bore" shot of the broken end of the rod at the piston end, and a "down the bore" at the next piece in line. I don't know exactly what fatigue cracks look like on a powdered rod, but I broke a forged one just below the pin on my '70 Z/28, and you could see the progressive crack lines growing across the I beam (technically know as "beach marks"), until, with less than 1/2 the area intact, it let go at 7,200 RPM...

 

OK, everyone put your keyboards down, and step away from the monitor

There's a few things that could have happened, and rod bolts is one of them. It could have been over rev (but you'd expect a little valvetrain damage too, I guess), high rev while cold (and the piston was still slapping around), etc. It certainly isn't a "regular" problem with LS1's that have close to stock set up...