AHH!!! Blew my motor!?!

[1fast97gsx]

Basically last night coming back from the races ( I ran once and won ) I was about 1 mile from my house and made a right turn. I was cruising around 2000 rpms in 3rd and felt some strong vibrations ( kinda like you're in too high of a gear at low rpms in a manual car ) so for lack of something better to do I went down to second gear. I noticed the rpms dropped considerably faster than normal between the shift until I let the clutch back out ( I was shifting slow to see if I notice anything abnormal ) and then about 200 feet up the road the car kinda jerked and stalled out locking up all 4 tires. I was with a buddy and he gave me a push home in neutral since I was right by my house. I tried rotating the crank with a 1/2 drive and it's not moving at all either way. I'm assuming the oil pump seized up? Anyone have any other ideas? I wasn't boosting or beating on the car and te oil level is right where it should be as well as the coolant. The idle seemed to be 200 or so rpms lower than usual a few minutes before this happened and my dummy light sensor is bad so I didn't have a real way to monitor oil pressure. I just want to think through all the possibilities before I take apart the motor if it's going to be a complete waste of time. If it was in fact lack of oiling the pistons, bearings and crank would all be junk as well as the oil pump correct? Other parts may be salvagable like the rods, cams, and all the other little junk? Check my profile for motor mods if interested. Thanks.

 

[1fast97gsx]

Another possibility is that I somehow messed up a ringland. Could this also physically lock the motor? The reason I'm leaning against an oiling issue is because I think I would have heard knocking or ticking or at least some lifter noise. I'm assuming a ringland went and this jammed up the motor. Is this a possibility, and what all is usually ruined when this happens? Could I just buy the next size up pistons and rebore / hone the block and replace the bearings if need be and I'm good to go?

 

[weith1111]

Something super easy would be to let the oil out. Are there metal shavings/pieces in the oil? Might be a good first step. That's about all I can offer, sorry

 

[1fast97gsx]

There were metal shaving but not a crazy amount ... just slight signs of them. Still doesn't explain what really happened, but I suppose I will tear it down this weekend.

 

[blue92laser]

I'll tell you what, if you do have metal shavings in the oil pan, then i bet theres a balance shaft bearing sitting at the bottom of the pan and it wont come out cause its all clumped at the bottom of the pan. Good luck, but, I am going with a balance shaft bearing on this time. Same thing happened to my friend and I was in the car, the oil pump gear seized up cause the bearing went.

 

[blue92laser]

I'll tell you what, if you do have metal shavings in the oil pan, then i bet theres a balance shaft bearing sitting at the bottom of the pan and it wont come out cause its all clumped at the bottom of the pan. Good luck, but, I am going with a balance shaft bearing on this time. Same thing happened to my friend and I was in the car, the oil pump gear seized up cause the bearing went.

 

[byebyev8]

well is there a fix for that because I'm goin through the same exact thing my car made a wierd noise and the timming belt would get lose and then really tite. I pulled the head and the crank wouldn't budge, the pistons look brand new and the timming was dead on I jus wanna know if the oil pump siezed up would that cause the short block to be destroyed

 

[gsxtacy]

main or rod bearing spun and wedged itself together locking down the crank.

Cause?

Oil Starvation for a split second after being "hot, and thermally broken down".

Thats just my guess. I have seen it before.

Sucks man. Best of luck.

gsxtacy

 

[byebyev8]

ya jus to think of it I think my car ran a lil bit hot before it happened but my temp guage stayed normal but ya this sucks

 

[1fast97gsx]

I'll pull it apart and take a look tomorrow ... something tells me a ring land broke during the race ( still don't know why since no knock or extremely high egts were seen ) and then gave out fully on the way home. The broken ring land would explain low vaccum and my low idle issues I had on the way home. If this is the case would I usually be able to pop the piston loose and out of the cylinders and just buy the next size up pistons, get it overbored again and reassemble? Never seen the damage a broken ring causes as far as if it's rebuildable or not but I'd like to home I can salvage the rods, crank, cams, valves and all the other expensive junk except for the pistons.

 

[hostile]

You need to take the pan off, a problem with a broken ringland would be low compression and smoke. Not a locked engine.

Take the pan off and see if any of the rods look abrnormal.

 

[timloomis]

the balance shaft locked on my buds motor that i tore down.it destroyed the timing belt to,and destroyed the whole motor,rod through the block.it was due to lack of oil.the bearing actually spun out of the hole in the block and ended up in the oil pan.like it was stated,take off the oil pan.

 

[RiceKiller_TSi]

Since this is all theoretical I gonna go against the grain and say:

My guess is that after your race your timing jumped a few teeth. Then on the way home the already loose timing belt made another quantum leap into the realm of the big bang theory. Once your valves were bent the car began to idle badly due to the compression loss, then once the rest of the valves got pounded from the pistons you had zero compression across the board.

The crank wont turn because the head is fubared and probably missing some rockers due to the bent valves putting the lock down on the timing belt. The head is frozen up there for the crank wont turn thanks to the timing belt holding it steady.

 

[1fast97gsx]

Well I took it all apart and my original idea of a broken oil pump was correct. #2 rod bearings seized themselves to the crank and locked the motor. The bottom on the cap was total black from the heat. As soon as I popped that rod out the motor turned over again, but teh other bearings were in bad shape as well. The oil pump will barely even turn. That oil pump was brand new too when I did the build up.

 

[Suparata]

Do you have any pictures of the oil pump?

 

[Maglin]

that sucks man.. I know you just recently built your motor. I had a oil pump go and only damage was to the pump which was a nice thing. I have a brand new OEM front case and recently have gotten a strange oil problem between 3-3.5K my oil pressue goes low and then comes up again around 4K rpms. I think mine is due to boring out the oil pressure bypass to much.

You are going to want to take those rods in and have them resized as any spun bearing will mess up the big end and if not fixed will just happen again.

 

[TSIfreek]

that sucks man.. I know you just recently built your motor. I had a oil pump go and only damage was to the pump which was a nice thing. I have a brand new OEM front case and recently have gotten a strange oil problem between 3-3.5K my oil pressue goes low and then comes up again around 4K rpms. I think mine is due to boring out the oil pressure bypass to much.

You are going to want to take those rods in and have them resized as any spun bearing will mess up the big end and if not fixed will just happen again.

If you are having an oil pressure fluxuation like that its the oil pump failing from my
experance. The boreing of the oil pressure bypass hole will let more oil out under high oil pressures not low from what I know. I just had mine done and oil pressure droped some at high rpm. I had over 100 psi and now its just under 100 maybe 97-97 psi. Oil pressure is the same at idle.

 

[1fast97gsx]

I don't have any pictures of the pump or anything else for that matter since I just haven't been in the mood to deal with this right now. My pump wasn't modified at all ( except for the b/s delete ) and neither was the oil filter housing. I may play with the pump tomorrow and take a look inside it but I know the drive gear would barely even turn. Are there pictures of anything specific you would like to see on it? I took another glance at the crank and it appears I MAY have lucked out and not damaged it, however it's too hard to tell. All the journals look decent except for the #2 rod which has bearing buildup on top of it so I don't know if that can't just be removed from the crank and the crank polished. The rod is black on the bottom half from all the heat produced so I will most likely need to replace it. All the others are fine and the block looks good as well.