Oil Cooler freeway fun, please read and post opinion

[xyexz]

Just finished building my talon engine and installing it a couple of weeks ago and was working on breaking in the engine by driving it to work on the freeway, 65mph puts me at about 2900rpms so I figured this was a good way to break it in and put some miles on the new engine.

Well the other day I noticed some brown stuff in the coolant when I replaced the upper radiator hose, (I used an old one as I couldn't find my new one just to get her on the road). Well I figured since I re-used the practically brand new radiator from the old engine the barfed it might have just been some stuff that had been left over after the flush out.

So I'm driving home from work and I here a low noise, mechanical in nature and the car felt like it was losing power so I pulled off the side and instantly turned off the engine and put it in neutral.

I get out and look under the car, oil is everywhere, I have it towed to my house and I go to inspect it and the oil filter o-ring was stretched out from underneath it and hanging out the side.

I pulled the filter off and there are a lot of silver shavings in the oil so i'm really disappointed and not really sure where to start. Just put this thing in the car i'm really hoping I don't need to pull the darn thing right back out.

So here are my questions:
1) What does that much oil pressure mean (when it can blow that o-ring out)
2) The silver shavings, could it have come from the crushed oil cooler?
3) How f'd am I?
4) Would I be stupid to close off the oil cooler from the coolant system (as I've read others doing from my searches on here), flushing any remaining oil and coolant and starting the car up?

Share your opinions, i'm already thinking compression test is in order.

 

[forcefed4]

First thing I would do is pull the oil pan and check main/rod bearings...

 

[xyexz]

You can just visually inspect those without taking anything off other than the oil pan?

 

[forcefed4]

Well, downpipe, t-case, then oil pan. Then you can get the rods and mains off one at a time and look at the bearings.

 

[dsmfa9nutter]

*Some* metal shavings is normal for a fresh build. That's why you change the oil at 50 miles and then again at 100 miles to clean them out. If it's a sea of metal flakes, you probably have a problem. Your oil filter might just be clogged or a very cheap brand (fram comes to mind, they like to pop under high pressures during startup, go with a mobil1 or k&n) and spit out it's guts.