The inevitable happened...motor blew

[gmendoza]

As some of you know, my car has been pushed to the limit since basically day one. A few months ago, I was at the track when my aftermarket boost controller failed, I got who knows how much boost and my motor let go. There wanst much warning, it blew at the same time I realized th car was making more power than it should.

Here's the carnage:

Hole in the block & damaged liners:

pieces of piston in oil pan

Snapped timing chain

Worn chain tensioners

Many bent valves, broken valve guides and 1 damaged combustion chamber

2 damaged rods

piston pieces that entered the plennum and back down into other cylinders

Oil pick-up bolts snapped

More head damaged

Damaged lobes in 1 cam

Custom Mahle forged pistons vs stock cast pistons that will be installed.

Now for the rebuild:

Custom Darton liners:

Measuring liner stand in

Double checking bearing clearances with Plastigauge (appox 0.0018")

Checking ring gaps (old ring used for illustration only)

Rings installed and gapped per Mahle's recommendation

Underside Mahle piston with JAE Saanz H-Beam rods

New block cleaned ready for assembly:

Oil squirters installed:

Upper main bearings installed and lubed:

Upper thrust bearing installed & lubed:

Crank in:

#4 Main cap with bearing & lower thrust installed:

Main caps installed:

JAE ARP head studs installed (right hand liners, pistons & head already installed):

Adding Hylomar to liner with piston & rod installed

#8 psiton/liner installed

Installing #7

#7 installed:

#5-8 installed:

Head gasket installed:

Head cleaned ready for install:

Both heads on:

Ready to install rod caps:

Edited September 14, 2012 by gmendoza

[alan]

Sorry about the blow up, but looks well on the way to getting back on the road.

[esprit s2]

Jeez that is some carnage! Amazing work to rebuild it though!

[rogerch]

In the immortal words of Barry Sheene, "The motor has lost it's lunch".

[Bibs]

Excellent work

[steve930]

Yeah... You killed that one!!!. Nice progress on the new engine, the old block might make a nice coffee table

[jonwat]

Great pictures, thanks for sharing & hope you get better luck with this one.

[redshift]

Good luck with the rebuild and keep posting.

I suppose it was probably inevitable that the stock pistons were going to lunch themselves at some point considering the mods you had. No margin of error for something like a boost controller failure.

[sanj]

Hi Gonzalo,

What type of boost controller were you using, and what was the nature/cause of the failure?

Rebuild is looking good!

[Mike6]

Will you run this one in , or is that a silly question

[fmxa]

Holy smoke Gonzalo, when Alan said the failure was spectacular he wasn't kidding! Nice job and let's catch up soon

Paul

[gmendoza]

Thanks guys. Yeah, I know it was going to happen one day. I just never thought it was going to be this bad.

Hi Gonzalo,

What type of boost controller were you using, and what was the nature/cause of the failure?

Rebuild is looking good!

I'm using a Blitz SBC-id. It appears the solenoid got stuck on. I've seen two fail this way before. Now this alone wont cause your motor to fail. The Blitz has an auto and a manual setting. If you are in manual and the soleniod fails, then it will fail at whatever setting you had with no additional boost, you'll just hear the buzzing from the soleniod. I had it on auto. While convinient, it can put you in a bad spot if the solenoid gets stuck because the controller is constantly varying the setting to give you the boost you want. So if it fails, you can get less or more (like me) boost depending on what the controller was doing at the time of failure.

Will you run this one in , or is that a silly question

There are two schools of thought on run in. Run it like it's meant to be driven from mile one or baby it for thousands of miles. I'm in the middle. No very heavy load for 500 mi or so but plenty of varying PRM and some load to help the rings.

On to the pics:

more rod caps:

lube'ing & installing oil pump

intermediate shaft bearings installed and lubed:

replacing chain tensioner blocks

Chain & gears installed

Tensioners installed before adjustment:

Lotus alignment tool installed:

All done:

Sealant for front cover:

Front cover on with intermediate seal installed:

Sealing for oil pan:

Oil pan on:

crank seal on (notice key way for intermediate shaft pulleys, see other thread for details)

Crank pulley on

top cover sealed & installed:

oil filter mount installed:

rear cover sealed & installed

Flywheel on (sorry no pcs of rear main seal)

Sensors installed:

Head ready for cams:

Followers in:

cam caps layed out in order ready to be installed:

Cams in & locked with setting pins:

cam seals in, pulleys ready to be bolted

Sealant on cam bolts:

cam pulleys loosely bolted ready for belts:

belts in:

dab sealant on front cam caps ready for cam cover

Cam cover ready to be installed:

cam cover, injector housings, thermostat housing, exhaust manifold & dip stick installed:

Starter and coil packs in

Bosch Gen 3 injectors in

Wiring loom in:

Plennum ready for install:

Then the camera card got full and we forgot about more pics, sorry.

The car is back on the road and it feels great. I havent done any WOT high boost runs but part throttle feels good. It's very responsive off boost, not laggy at all. It actually feels natrually aspirated. I don't know it that's due to the lighter rotating assembly, rods are about .25lbs (~115gm) lighter than stock, better atomazation of the injectors, port work on the heads around the valve seat area or a combination of everything. Whatever it is, I am very happy.

Now to put some miles on it and turn the boost up again.

Holy smoke Gonzalo, when Alan said the failure was spectacular he wasn't kidding! Nice job and let's catch up soon

Paul

lol, Thanks, sounds like a good idea

Edited September 15, 2012 by Vulcan Grey

[rogerch]

Enjoyed the photos, first class work !

You're footwear however ???????????? (consider yourself severely reprimanded)

[Iconic Ride]

Best V8 rebuild pictures thread since Mike S. jumped ship, Gonzalo. Great shots of stuff I never wanna' see!

[MarkLarge]

I second what John said about best pictures since Mike S.

Real quality engineering Gonzalo - Oh for half your ability!!

I do not know the full background to your car at all and make no mistake I love my V8, but thinking aloud, I was wondering what made you pick on the Lotus V8 to get loads of power out of as is it not fair to say that it could be considered a little fragile for much development?

I know the failure was caused by an external component of course but would love to know if you think it would have happened to a different motor. (say Audi V8 or perhaps Nissan Skyline engine).

That may miss the point of it all i guess and I dont wish to be hung out to dry for these comments - just wondering!!

Mark

[Günter]

Gonzalo, think I missed this one ..so the block was repaired, or are those still available ?

..and the whole rebuild was done by you @home in one week ?

..so, on availability of all those 'non Lotus specific parts' -can you post some numbers/references where we can find those (you use the 'stronger' Gates belts, different liners & Male pistons and rods offered from JAE -OK) ..but where are the exact numbers listed on those dealer/manufacturer pages ??

@John Heath: that's why I say it so often ..this 918engine is simple and even you could work on yours -the problem is to find the right (and for best results 'stronger') parts to do the work.

[Günter]

Scott, there is a specific 'liner stand in' noted in the workshop-book ..you have seen similar views in Mikes and my rebuild too, it is 0.08-0.1mm

[steve930]

Gonzalo, think I missed this one ..so the block was repaired, or are those still available ?

..and the whole rebuild was done by you @home in one week.

I would say 1 week is plenty. I've rebuilt several porsche 911 turbo air cooled engines, which if all goes well I can do in 50 hours our so &i would say the porsche air cooled engine is more labour intensive

[Günter]

one week is just the time to get some of the parts, that's why I wounder..

as long as it is running again, thats a good thing

[Iconic Ride]

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Gunter for your post creating page 2 of the thread. As much as I enjoyed the Gonzalo V8 "family album" pics, each time I returned to page 1 the download time was causing the house lights to dim, and threatened a global shutdown of the internet.

Just kidding, Gonz...keep 'em coming

[steve930]

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Gunter for your post creating page 2 of the thread. As much as I enjoyed the Gonzalo V8 "family album" pics, each time I returned to page 1 the download time was causing the house lights to dim, and threatened a global shutdown of the internet.

Just kidding, Gonz...keep 'em coming

my thoughts exactly, i made the mistake of reading page 1 on my mobile phone earlier today

[Günter]

so it's not only me who can't see the page in full ?..as for those high-res pictures of garage floors and sneakers

OK, just joking ..the engine is back in the car now, I would guess ..and it is one engine more with upgraded parts in the 918 family at least

..so the interesting thing is: where was the engine block comming from !?

Edited September 18, 2012 by Günter

[Iconic Ride]

I recommend everyone with a V8 check under the engine cover to verify the contents.

[Günter]

..still running

[peter_kirkham]

Fantastic work on the rebuild and thanks for sharing the photos. May there be many many miles before the next rebuild!