Scoobie

iTrader: (8)

Gentleman, I agree the Rod is the likely culprit. What bothers the **** out of me is that No one drove the car from the moment it loaded on the truck at the shop in one state and was delivered the next morning in Florida. It was "perfect" and then it popped 100 yards from our F'ing driveway. This shop has absolved all responsibility. This could have been an act of God, but my wife wasn't racing, or doing anything foolish with our 14month kid in the back seat on the way to the DMV the first time she drove it.

SS RRR

iTrader: (2)

What may of sounded perfect may not have been. It's possible the problem was already there and catastrophic damage was inevitable. It will be real interesting to see what all the bearings look like. That could be your tell tail sign as to what happened.
A friend of mine broke all the inner main caps on his engine. He had no idea until he tore it apart for an unrelated issue. Car ran fine.

guppymech

iTrader: (7)

Sorry about your bad luck. Maybe you should park the car until you get home from deployment, then you could work on it. You can't keep paying shop labor rates.

Scoobie

iTrader: (8)

This is true. For a moment though picture how I feel. I trusted my car to a professional shop that diagnoses a slight occassional miss as an Opti problem. I pay 487.43 in parts/fluids and another 560.00 dollars in labor for the Opti and MSD wire install. I get a report that the car is fine. It is loaded on a truck, dropped off in my driveway, and throws a Rod 100 yards later. Act of God, perhaps, Coincidence, might be, feeling like I'm screwed the F over while I am half a world away? I'll let you answer that one.

SS RRR

iTrader: (2)

I can understand how helpless you feel. I just don't see how a rod breaking like this could be from swapping an opti? Dunno man, but I do wish you the best of luck with the rebuild.

Scoobie

iTrader: (8)

I agree that it isn't related to the Opti, that is pretty obvious now. But from the moment my wife started the car it was off.

draggin97s10

iTrader: (2)

What part of our country do you reside?

Scoobie

iTrader: (8)

Well my wife is in Florida. I hail from Texas. We are stationed in Germany, but I am deployed in Afghanistan. Does that help? The vehicle and my beautiful family are all in Orlando, Florida. Tough I know.

Scoobie

iTrader: (8)

I would, and the original plan when I bought a 2nd toy was to restore the exterior/interior to showroom new and build a GEN IV stroker. Show car/cruiser was the goal.

My wifes unexpected pregnancy prompted us to send her home to Florida. It was 1,800.00 dollars to ship her Nissan from Bavaria to Mickey Mouse. She said we'd "save" money if she just drove the Camaro instead since it was still stateside. We decided to do it since It was going to cost around 6K to get her a plane ticket home, ship our two Boxers, rent a place, deposits, 2nd hand furniture, the works to get her settled. We were trying to save money for baby # 2 and I was given a budget of 4,500.00 for the car. The Headers/Y/Opti, Spark Plugs, Wires with Labor and Fluids ran 3,100.00. I'd say I'm going to break budget now, you think? lol, If only we knew!

BALLSS

Capt.

First, thank you for your service to our country.

From this side of the internet and looking at the pics "something" caused the engine to suddenly lock up allowing the inertia of the timing gear/chain to shear off the dowel and bolts. Certainly not a common occurance. As noted your initial problem, to the mechanic, "appeared" to be ignition related and Opti was suspect. My guess is, as stated earlier in this thread, is some significant failure within the rotateing assembly was in progress making it appear as a miss and thus the Opti was suspect.

The engine will have to be torn down to see what exactly failed but I suspect after the carnage in the pics that the motor is toast and a strong possibly the crank and block may have been damaged beyond repair. Since you can't do any of this work yourself from your location and have to pay a shop to tear it down and then say "you need a complete new engine"...will really be financially painfull. Cutting bait and pushing the button on a reman "stock" motor or buying a rebuilt "built" long block from somewhere will be very exspensive also. getting the shop to put in a "junkyard" motor may be the cheapest but comes with risk of the unknown condition of the junkyard motor. Unfortunately all these options suck financially.

You mentioned the shop changed "fluids" when doing the Opti swap. I assume coolant...but did they also do a oil change?

If there was a issue going on with the internals I would suspect metal shavings would have been in that oil at that time....but if so shop did not notice...

We feel your pain and frustration being removed from your family due to deployment and dealing with this problem.

killerz97

iTrader: (1)

Is it possible that when they changed fluids, assuming they did an oil change, that they didn't put any oil back in? I know this has happened in the past on other vehicles but I haven't ever seen a rod break. Might be a good idea to check the condition of the oil.

Scoobie

iTrader: (8)

Hey guys, damn I didn't even think of that part yet. Our mechanic is planning on dropping the oil pan this weekend and inspecting the block from under before pulling out. I will ask him to check the oil level. I was charged for an oil change. The shop manager told me he drove the car for about 20 miles after the header install to remove the codes and ensure all was well. The Opti was changed after. I have no clue what happened after. I was only told it ran as smooth as silk.

Scoobie

iTrader: (8)

That is what my gut tells me as well.

ws6t3rror

iTrader: (3)

I may be wrong, someone correct me if I am as it has been years since I touched an lt1. However, I don't recall any of the lt1 blocks that I have had apart having staked cam galley plugs. If I am right your engine has been apart before.

Also worth mentioning that if the bolts backed out of the cam the pressure from them on the back side of the opti will take it out.

With a broken rod your block is suspect and likely damaged. I would seek out a different engine to throw in or rebuild.

F0x Slaughter

I don't think the rod breaking caused it. I think you had an oil problem like an oil pump failure or the pickup tube fell off (happens a lot on these).

So the cam froze up, sheering the retention bolts. Pistons continued to move slamming the valves bending the valves and push rods. Then probably breaking a rod.

You can run an engine with a broken rod. depending on where its broken it will just flop around in the cylinder.

1961ba427

iTrader: (26)

I agree with others who advised having a junkyard motor installed until you can get home. That is if you can't just have it parked until then. It makes me angry to see how many families get taken advantage of while their loved ones are away serving our country.

cprmn14

Wow man how does that happen?..

Honestly before you get wayy too deep into shop bills, i think take the loss, and get a used longblock. Sounds like it would be the best/cheapest/overall quickest solution.

Good luck man, I cant imagine how stressful it mist be having to deal with all this and be so far away. PS God bless you for defending our country.

slingshot928

If she stopped fast, the pick up tube could swing in the pan causing zero oil pressure. When you mechanic takes off the pan, he can check to see if it is still tight in the oil pump. Everytime I would stop fast my car would lose oil pressure then come back, and when we took the oil pan off, the pickup fell into the pan.

Hope everything gets sorted out, thank you for serving our country!

1toofastlt1

iTrader: (4)

Are you sure they added oil for the oil change

Scoobie

iTrader: (8)

Pan is full of clean oil with of course, metal shavings. Cam and Crank rotate just fine according to the Mechanic so perhaps the Cam didn't seize up which makes me even more courious how the bolts all sheared. Engine is still in the Car (Its the weekend) but will be out by Tuesday I was told. Will keep updating this thread as we find out more. I will provide a lot of pictures once the engine comes out and I get them. Thanks for all of your support folks. My wife has to drive this car so I have to get it put back together.