Well, yesterday at the dragstrip my car had timing chain failure on the return road after making a pass. I put the car in second gear and pegged the throttle for a bit(this is a very long return road with nothing on either side but fields) and at ~3500rpm the timing chain broke.

Details on my setup. Vengeance Racing cam installed by them - 231/243 .617/.623 115 LSA, Comp 921 valvespring kit, hardened pushrods, ASP Underdrive Pulley, 160 t-stat, etc. Car made 483/435 to the wheels and my rev limiter is set to 6800rpm. My tune was dead on via my hardmounted wideband 02 sensor and my HP-Tuners logging software.

This setup has had exactly 8k miles on it with mostly highway miles and the car has never been road raced. Total miles on the vehicle is 15k miles. The rockers and valvesprings are in perfect order and show no failure. I will be having the valvesprings tested for pressure to determine if they were the culprit. I had plans to replace them once my combination hit 10k miles. My intake valves are not broken at the head, but merely bent.....which was surprising considering the nature of their design(2 piece welded hollow stems).

There was no indication prior to the break that anything was wrong. There was no sound preceding the break that indicated the valves made any contact at all with the pistons(I had the windows down). I think this is purely a timing chain failure and that being the case, I have absolutely 0 confidence in the car as of right now. How could I ever want to rebuild the car stronger or better when the only thing I can't make stronger is the damn timing chain. The Katech chain isn't stronger, but pre-stretched and heat treated I believe? Thats not enough to give me the confidence I am after and there is no double roller option available for this car(even though I am told people break those just the same)

Updates will follow as more details become available.

Pictures on Page 2.

TC failure and Piston Pictures on Page 4

New Cloyes IRL chain vs Stock broken Chain Pics on Page 7

 

Ouch, hope you get some free parts man.

 

I had a timing chain snap on mine too, with no indication. All of the sudden it broke and it bent most of my valves and left damage to the pistons. It now has a double roller on it.

GL getting things straightened out.

 

The Katech single row chain is a stronger chain. It's the same chain BMW uses in the latest M5 and M6. I'm not saying it can't be broken, but I know it has an excellent track record. One other (expensive) option is a Cloyes RAIN chain; the chain was developed and used for the IRL Aurora V8's.

 

Sometimes **** breaks... sorry to hear. I've been running a LS2 chain in my car for the bast 11,xxx miles since putting my cam in.

 

I have the LS2 Chain as well..

 

You never know it could have happened if you had left the car stock. Never know when a part will fail. The Katech chain is a nice piece, but there is never a guarantee of not breaking. There is a people out there with ls2 chains and tones of miles with big cams and no troubles are reported.

 

check on a rollmaster double roller chain set(made here in australia).
im sure they do a set.
cheers dave

 

Is the Katech chain the Same as the JWIS chain that used to be so popular on this site?

 

The Katech chain is made by IWIS, but not all IWIS chains are made alike.

 

Thanks.
The chain I got from Thunder says JWIS, It makes me wonder what variation I have now. ...I guess Ill have to do more research.

 

That 'J' is really an 'I'.

See here: http://www.iwis.com/index.php?id=608

 

Just a cautionary, my friend over here has this problem TWICE! appears that the front damper is at fault, on closer inspection there are burrs on it where it has gone metal to metal. Its an underdrive pulley, dont know what make though.

 

are you talking about the crank pulley? where was it down to metal? Aren't they mostly make of metal.

 

Yes the crank pulley, it has rubber between the two pieces, presumably to damp the harmonic pulses etc, but it looks like it has gone weak. Thus sending shocks through the chain.

 

Yes that is a common problem with cheap dampers, and it will cause a chain failure.

 

I purchased an ls2 timing chain because I heard they were heavy duty and a good strong replacement.

 

ls2 chains are the same. I have a rollmaster 52X double row setup on mine that works with LS3 and SLP pump combination. AND they have a double row JWIS chain fitted. No spacing of pump required, just have to grind a bit off the lug on the timing cover.

email Ian at www.lsxworks.com and tell him Joel recommended him he will give you a good deal plus exchange rates are in your favour right now.

I went this way because of the strength factor.

Note. Rollmaster have a single row kit that features a jwis chain. If you want to go this way its cheaper to buy the kit and throw the gears away then buy an outright new jwis chain from thunder racing.

I recommend the double row pm me for the finer details of install.

 

The IWIS chain the comes on the Rollmaster CS1130 single row timing set is different than the Katech marketed single row IWIS chain. I haven't been able to find out the specific strength details because no one will divulge that specific data but they are different.

I DON'T know it for a FACT but I've heard the Rollmaster single IWIS chain is NOT as strong as the Katech marketed IWIS single chain.

I'm running the CS1130 timing set currently and have had no issues, but I'm only making 440 whp.

 

I spoke with Cloyes about this at length and asked for their most badass chain that would work with stock gears. The man gave me part number 9-194. It is listed as obselete in their system as when it was developed, double rollers hadn't hit the market yet. After the LS2's came out with their stouter chain and the double rollers took off, there was no market for a single roller where the chain itself cost $360 alone.

According to Cloyes, they did direct testing with the C5R chain, which they said offered little additional snap strength over the beefier LS2 chains from the factory. He rattled off a number of specifics about the 9-194 chain(head treated, pre-stretched, media blasted, better alloys, cold rolled pins, hand chosen/fitted links, etc), but the most important statistic was that he said it was stronger than the C5R chain(the chain itself is an IRL chain that I believe comes on their premium timing sets for the LS1/LS6's).