Catastrophic Engine Failure
 

Maybe not “catastrophic” in the most real sense, but she cooked her bearings.

I’m at a near complete loss on this one. Inspection of the engine about a year ago after pulling it to replace the dipstick showed a clean bill of health. The only thing I can think of is I made some sort of error putting things back together.

At any rate, took the car out with the wife yesterday and she ran great to our destination. Upon leaving, fired the engine up and noticed the typical valve train clacking that the engine has always had was more pronounced, but it quickly went back to normal.

About a mile away from home during deceleration for a red light, the engine suddenly began making a high pitch growl that changed in pitch and intensity with rpm. Turned into my neighborhood and got the hood open. At first it sounded like an alternator, power steering or water pump. Limped it home and got it up on the lift where I could get around the car a bit more. It became apparent the high pitched grinding was coming from the middle of the passenger side bank, not from the front drive accessories.

Crawled under the car to verify the noise wasn’t coming from the trans, which it wasn’t.

Since the engine was hot, I pulled the plugs and did a compression test. Nothing amiss there, all cylinders pumped between 190 and 200.

Pulled the passenger side valve cover and nothing amiss there either. Only outward issue was the #6 plug which read very rich compared to all other cylinders.

Likewise a bore scope showed a piston without issue. I don’t have a telescoping scope so I couldn’t get a look at the valves. That was all I could really do at the time. First thing this morning I drained the oil. I didn’t even have to cut open the filter. I knew as soon as I pulled the drain plug the bearings were gone.

Pictures attached. I found ferrous material everywhere in the oil. Much of the oil had a consistency similar to molly lube. Anywhere I put a magnet I got metal.

Attachment 634637Attachment 634638Attachment 634639

I haven’t decided what direction I’m gonna go with this currently. I winterized the car and put it up for now while I think about its future. Once I make some decisions I’ll develop a plan, then pull the engine and see if I can diagnose what happened. The engine didn’t seize, so I’m banking on not having any block damage. With the amount of metal that’s gone through this thing, it’s a total rebuild if I go that route.

I’ve thought about selling everything, including the car, but that’s probably an emotional decision more than anything. I’ve considered an LS, but money is probably a wash there, once you account for the swap bits. At that point I’d rather have a the Pontiac engine.

Assuming I go the rebuild route, my plan is to get the engine torn down first and take stock of what may be salvageable, specifically cam and crank. Then start talking with some machine shops.

I’m giving thought to assembling the engine, but I’d probably have more money in tools and measuring devices than it would be to pay to have it assembled.

For those of you that have gone through this process, any insight you have would be great.

I’m going to try and keep this thread as a build thread to cover what I’m doing. I’m going to start calling around on some things this weekend and give myself a bit of time to get past the emotional aspect of this.

Thanks for reading!

That is a major loss.

I remember the striking photos of your beautiful car - you are clearly invested so I hope you can find a way to resurrect the engine.

Sorry to hear.

How about you give us a refresher on the basics of your build so perhaps we might better evaluate what could have caused the failure ?

What heads, compression ratio, camshaft and etc.

Hey Jason, I'm sorry about your trouble. I know it's hard to be in that spot.

I bought your old heads from you, and can help you being semi close(Oklahoma). Many solutions available.

That’s a bummer.

I don’t know but that high pitched growl sounds more like it started to locked up a needle bearing on one or more of the roller lifters.

Having a crank bearing fail and driving it home it would make a knock, and the shavings probably wouldn’t be sticking to the magnet like described, many of the filings found would be nonferrous.

Sorry to hear this Jason. Step one take it apart and see what you have. Hopefully things are better than you're thinking.

Been there done that. Don’t swap to an LS and don’t sell the car.

Hate to hear this. How many miles did you have on it? Looks like something definitely ate itself, but maybe it's not a total loss. If it was a lifter or a bearing to have a knock or a tap. Not sure what a growl could be. Initial thought is maybe the oil pump or timing set. Hang in there. I know it can be frustrating. I got pretty adept at pulling my engine apart last year.

I think in you second paragraph here within the revaltion of the valve train clacking noise that goes away you will find the root cause of this distruction.

Sooooo, how was the oil level before and after the drive?

Its just an engine, pull it and get it rebuilt. Try to find a running engine nearby and keep burning gas.

Thanks for the kind words. I'm starting to build lists and make calls today.

The engine is a 73 455. Factory rods and crank, TRW Pistons. It was originally built by the previous owner and was fresh in the car when I purchased it in April of 98. I changed the top end in 2015.

As cast KRE D-Ports 85 cc, estimated 10.25:1 compression
Comp Hydraulic Roller 232/238/112+4
Lunati lifters
Torker II intake
FiTech EFI

It's backed by a performance upgraded 4l80e, TSP triple disc billet face converter and a Moser 12 bolt.

Yes, I remember those old #62's, I hope they did well for you. I don't know that I have your number anymore, can you send it via DM? Thanks!

That is possible. These lifters have always been loud, so I've somewhat learned to ignore them as they've been checked annually or bi-annually at the least and never never shown signs of having an issue. But it's a known problem area of course.

Thanks Paul. I'm really hoping the crankshaft can be salvaged. That would be beneficial to any build plans and dollars out. Knowing the engine has to come out, I'd be going through everything regardless. I'll likely spec a larger cam and I've wanted to get a set of forged rods in this thing for a long time. I guess now is that time.

I'm still looking at all options, but even my wife wants to see the engine get rebuilt instead of any swaps or selling the car.

I don't know how many miles total the shortblock has on it. The engine was fairly new in 1998 when I purchased it, but I don't know how many miles the previous owner has put on it. He didn't provide receipts or anything, so it was always a big unknown. That said, with my driving of the vehicle, I'd say the engine has somewhere around 30,000-40,000 miles on it. Could be quite a bit more, I know the previous owner daily drove the car.

I would describe the sound as if an accessory bearing failed. That same type of high pitched grinding that is steady and constant. Then magnify it's loudness and intensity by 10. In regards to the oil pump, I put in a new unit from Nitemare performance last year when I had the engine open. Did their pro-pump along with their HD shaft and went with a copper gasket. Checked driveshaft to crankshaft clearances were good and retorqued bolts to 30 ft lbs.

I have a feeling you are probably on the correct path here. Considering this thing looked great last year when I had it open, I would almost bet that a lifter started to go south and it started taking everything else with it.

Oil level was good. The engine doesn't consume oil and doesn't leak. I drained a full 6 quarts.

I'm looking, but no much in the Colorado region that I've been able to find as far as running engines. I might just be down for a while.

Since there’s now been a good amount of grit flowing around in the motor once your tare it down inspect the piston skirts for imbedded grit and of course scratches.

Also pull the oil galley plugs so a hot tank session will remove any hung up grit that might be hiding in there, especially if there’s old sludge in there.

Be sure to take the oil pump apart and check for scratches on the pump cover and gears and double check the bypass chamber for grit.

Once you get it all good and running again you will be surprised how much faster the motor will rev up with the lighter aftermarket rods in there!

I would simply plan on new pistons as well. These are original TRW forgings. Strong, but certainly heavy and old tech. It would be really nice if the cylinder walls could be honed only, but if I've got to go another 10 thousandths I'm sure that's not a huge issue.

I'd like to get a modern ring pack in there and I'll probably go with a gapless top ring.

Hopefully the pump is okay and can be cleaned. It was just installed last year.

WIth a rebuild I'm going to do what I've wanted to with this engine in the past but didn't have a big reason to.

My plan would be as follows
-Retain the factory crank. If it's not salvageable I'll go to a forged 4.25" crank.
-Forged rods to support some additional power and rpm
-New forged pistons with a more modern ring pack
-Roller cam, either Johnson lifters or topped by HIPPO solids, something in the low 240's on the intake side, probably using UD lobes.
-Have the heads gone through, to include a decent port along with porting and matching the TII, move to 1.6 rockers.

Basically I'm thinking of it as kind of a max effort street D-port engine. I don't have any vacuum accessories that I need to power, so I can go a little larger on the cam. The drivetrain is built to handle around 700 hp. I'm not going to get anywhere near that, but if I could pull up to around 570 or a little beyond, I think that would sit in the platform nicely. Any more than that and I think I'm going to be in a traction deficit.

The block is drilled for 4 bolt mains. I don't know if I need to do 4 bolt caps at this power level, but I might go to studs regardless for a bit more piece of mind.

Idea here is to do it once, do it right and not cut corners.

Damn dude, that really sucks. I'd be devastated if that happened to me. How was your oil pressure reading when you got it home?

The FIRST thing you should do is count on pretty much all of your thinking right now to be emotional and even cynical.

Step back, take a week or two off to mull it over and accept the reality of this failure - it's technically a grieving process, in a way, just like any major problem. It's a big financial setback to fix. Once you take some time to digest that this happened, you'll be able to think more clearly on how to approach it rationally. Selling the car is not the right way to go. The car isn't the problem, the engine is, and if you really want to just get the car to move so you can drive it you can spend 2k and dump a cheapo crate 350 Chevy in it and some quick conversion parts and hit the road. I know you won't do that, but you get my point.

Just give yourself time to step back, let the shock and emotion wear off, put a frame around the situation, and approach it rationally.

If you do custom pistons you dont have to do in 10 increments!Let the machine shop tell you what is needed.You might only need to go 5 more to get what you need.Custom means CUSTOM!The ring selection comes into play most of the time.Tom

My 455 died rite after I bot the car so...condolences

I had trouble finding a used one and it was going to take months to rebuild what I had. I even talked to Lenny Williams about a crate which was somewhat reasonable during covid.

I found a used motor a couple states over and rolled the dice on it....so far so good

Hopefully parts and time are on yer side!

Yeah it definitely hurts on an emotional level. While the money side of things stings a bit, it's not a huge concern. At least in that way I'm very fortunate.

I can take the time hit while this is done. If I absolutely really had to have something in this car right away to get some driving in this year, I could have an LS delivered in a couple days and do the swap.

I am definitely not letting myself make any hard decisions yet, but if I end up doing the rebuild, I'll take that time to do some cleanup in the engine. The fender wells and firewall could use a new coat of paint. I'd spend some time really working the gaps and fitment up at the nose, which has been a weak area for this car. I can also do a proper wire tuck with the fenders off, so that when a shiny new engine drops between the frame rails, it really pops off.

I'm trying to think of this more as an opportunity. Make the car a bit nicer, and a new powerplant that I know everything about and gain a bit more piece of mind. Not knowing how the engine was built previously, but knowing it was a pretty basic factory rebuild, I always had it in the back of my mind that I needed to watch what I did with it.

This is a good point. Is Autotech still the go to here? I'm assuming the typical vendors probably also have some custom sizes. Ross, DSS, Icon etc.

I thought about trying to see if there are any crate short blocks available. I might call up Len on that as well. But I think time is going to be there no matter what. If the block somehow is garbage, I might lean more in that direction.

Earlier this year, the 6.2 liter LS in my daily driver Yukon had 2 rod bearings fail and the engine seized on the freeway with 3,200 miles, so there's that. Still had the paper plates on it.

If you're keeping it or selling it, you'll still need to put a working engine in it, so there's that.

When the 440 stroker in my car died, the rebuild quotes here in LA were so high that I ended up buying a 462 from Kaufmann. They'll break it in on the dyno, tune it, then crate it up and ship it to you ready to go.

Good luck!

What was your oil pressure gauge doing while all this was going on? My best guess is you spun a rod bearing and lost oil pressure causing the valve train to become noisy. As the rod journal ground away at the bearing (the growling sound) the clearance was partially restored and oil pressure returned (albeit lower). This quieted the valve train some. You probably wiped out the main bearings too but only an inspection will tell. An event like that usually starts with a momentary drop of oil pressure or a fluctuating oil pressure gauge needle that wiggles a bit at first and then eventually drops.