Blew Motor Up
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On The Tree
Joined: Apr 2006
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From: Texarkana, TX
Blew Motor Up Well we took the the car to RPM in lewisville thinking they would iron everything out but they did everything but that. To anyone thinking of going there DONT! The setup was PRC Stage 2.5 5.3s/MS3. Nothing extreme. The guys were not listening to anything we wanted done with the car and basically had the attitude of we're doing this sit there and shut up. It came out of there running worse than it did before we went and got 25 miles from home and the motor let go. It was only an 84K bottom end. There was no reason for it to let go other than the tune. The install was done by very LS1 experienced people. Sorry just had to rant.
Thread Starter
On The Tree
Joined: Apr 2006
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From: Texarkana, TX
On the way back home the motor blew looks like a it threw a rod through the block. It is locked up. When it rains it pours. I put heads and cam in it Monday and it died today. You can see chunks of piston #2 in the intake behind the throttle body.
sorry to hear that but RPM is the only place i wold let tune my car. lord knows it could have been anything. i have MS3 and heads and they have tuned my car and will be having them tune my nitrous when thats on 
mabey the motor just picked a bad time to go.
mabey the motor just picked a bad time to go. Last edited by burritoboy9984; Dec 1, 2007 at 08:26 PM.
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Joined: Jan 2002
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From: Dallas, TX
Donald....
I am sorry to hear that your motor let go, but I think you are jumping to conclusions just a bit to soon.
I am not certain of the exact specs of your heads/cam setup, but I know that you are running a large enough camshaft that I would guess you have one of two issues. Either the heads being milled and/or the larger than stock valves coupled with the large duration/lift camshaft caused a piston to valve clearance issue. Option two you had a valve spring failure.
You just put the setup together this week and the car obviously had a mechanical failure of some kind. It is next to impossible that it was a tuning issue that caused the problem.
I would suggest pulling the valve covers to assess the damages before you go shop bashing, no need to burn bridges, even if it is heat of the moment emotion.
I would like you to PM me and tell me what made you feel like 'we were not listening to anything you wanted done'. I know that you were dissapointed with the numbers your car put down, but there is only so much that can be done with the setup you put together.
I am sorry to hear that your motor let go, but I think you are jumping to conclusions just a bit to soon.
I am not certain of the exact specs of your heads/cam setup, but I know that you are running a large enough camshaft that I would guess you have one of two issues. Either the heads being milled and/or the larger than stock valves coupled with the large duration/lift camshaft caused a piston to valve clearance issue. Option two you had a valve spring failure.
You just put the setup together this week and the car obviously had a mechanical failure of some kind. It is next to impossible that it was a tuning issue that caused the problem.
I would suggest pulling the valve covers to assess the damages before you go shop bashing, no need to burn bridges, even if it is heat of the moment emotion.
I would like you to PM me and tell me what made you feel like 'we were not listening to anything you wanted done'. I know that you were dissapointed with the numbers your car put down, but there is only so much that can be done with the setup you put together.
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I totally agree with rpm on this. I work at a dealership and we have customers that come in telling us what to do all the time. You put a battery in my car and now I have a flat tire crap. If you zinged the motor up to 6900 without a tune first off you need to not own a performance car. Second I belive that the cam heads combo you have require flycutting. OCrrect me if I am wrong. Or you had a valve spring let go. To blame the shop for mechanical failure when all they did was tune it is wrong, dishonest, and childish. Either something was wrong in the install, or in the products that you put on the car. My 2 cents, Josh
I really don't think it was the tune either. In your post that burritoboy linked above, you said you took the motor up to 6900 immediately after installing the h/c... NOT a good idea, EVER. You were complaining about valvetrain noise and disregarded it and romped on it? C'mon now man... clearly that's not smart. Not talkin **** man it's just kinda common sense. 
Thread Starter
On The Tree
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From: Texarkana, TX
The noise the car was making was the lifters and pushrods pumping up it just took the car to run about 10 minutes. I changed the oil the next day and there was no metal on the plug or in the oil.
Thread Starter
On The Tree
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From: Texarkana, TX
I had a friend who was with me that also got his car tuned it is a cam only nitrous car. It put down decent numbers but drives like ****. It still dies and idles and stumbles off idle. Neither of us were happy with the tuning mine just happened to fail.
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From: Dallas, TX
I don't think there is much else that needs to be said.........and about your friends car......that car ran nicely when it left esp for an A4 with a cam on a 110 lsa.
Thread Starter
On The Tree
Joined: Apr 2006
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From: Texarkana, TX
No, not yet. If I did I'd sure cut you a deal on it. I'll look around for ya one though. I'm gettin ready to go over to Iraq for a year on that MRAP program and gonna be looking for another LS1/T56 and another '69 to put it in when I get back.
Last edited by LS69TA; Dec 3, 2007 at 09:01 AM.
