Bad News

This time I went and did it. Cruising along at 25 mph minding my own bizniss and all of a sudden cough, buck, puff of smoke from under the hood and no power. I pull over to the curb and do a quick inventory check. Fuel at the carb is OK. No obvious wiring harness melt downs. Distributor is still in place and bolted down tight. No oil puddles or fuel puddles. Hmmmm... OK lets spin her over and see what happens. Oh look! The carburetor is on fire! Backfiring through the carb. No start. Call the flat bed truck and take her home, put her in the garage.... Seems like I dropped a valve or some other thing. No obvious bad noises....
bummer

:gurney:
 
Oh sheeeeet .......

Pull the valve covers .... Hopefully only a piece of a intake valve broke off allowing ignition into the intake.....

Hopefully it's not one entire valve dropping onto the piston.....

Damn if it wasn't for bad luck you would have no luck at all ...
 
I have mixed feelings about putting more money and effort into this motor. It has a poor history ever since it was new. When I first got it installed it used oil - a lot. My mechanic said "Run it for a while, do some spirited driving and downshifting to seat the rings". That went on for several weeks. One day I took it in for some repairs and when I picked the car up the Mechanic said "Here's the keys, drive it for a while". I drove it for about 2 miles when it started to lose power and make chirping noises. I pulled over, popped the hood and checked around looking for something obvious. When I pulled the dipstick it was dry - NO OIL! What kind of a mechanic gives you a car, tells you to drive it and doesn't put any oil in it? So that motor was trashed. The mechanic had to send it back to the machine shop for a second rebuild, this time on his dime. When I got it back I had the definite impression that it had a lot less power. The builder refused to give me info on the build, specifically I never got a cam card or any other spec's on the motor. This was all back around 2008. Now I have this issue with what looks like a valve failure and the motor still uses a bit of oil. Like I said, I am leary of putting more money in to this motor!
Here's my game plan...
There is an automotive machine shop nearby that has a stellar reputation, Withers' Automotive. If I can put the funds together I would like to pull the motor from my 'Vette, send it to this shop and let them go over it, then re-install it. My only other option is to go with a new crate motor and that is a bit pricey.
 
My opinion: get the engine hoist from AutoZone (rental) , pull the engine, take it apart.....

Right now it doesn't run anyways and the entire dis-assembly won't cost a dime..... just some quality garage time.....

Assess the condition and come up with a plan after dis-assembly.....

I suspect after the first failure they just took a bottle brush to the bores, polished up the pistons, new rings, new bearings.... done......

If your block has to be machined (which it likely does) then you might as well look into assembled short blocks - this is the same thing I went thru back in 2006.... I got a nice roller block (.030" over) short block with forged rotating assembly (383ci) for under $2000 - machining my old block and buying the rotating assy separate and then assembling myself would have cost the same.......
 
I have been shopping forged rotating assemblies, they have gone up in price quite a bit. That being said, where did you end up getting yours and what did you get? I know a whole lot of nothing about the internals when it comes to choosing parts. To add to the mess I see Vortec heads on some combinations, what's the story with them?
 
DeeVeeEight said:
I have been shopping forged rotating assemblies, they have gone up in price quite a bit. That being said, where did you end up getting yours and what did you get? I know a whole lot of nothing about the internals when it comes to choosing parts. To add to the mess I see Vortec heads on some combinations, what's the story with them?
Click to expand...

If I had to do it again, no doubt it would be a LS1 swap. That said, here we go:

I bought a short block from M&R engines in LA..... Found them on Ebay, called a few times, they took their time and were patient with me an all my questions so they got my business.....
Roller block, .030" over, decked to 9.005" , forged crank, H beam rods, forged pistons (i think 17cc dish) to get to 9.8:1 CR, roller cam 230-236 (Comp) ... I wanted to keep my Edelbrock heads which were almost brand new at the time....

Incl. a pretty nice oil pan, lifters, all the good stuff cost me $2800 shipped to my door....

Rebuilding my old tired block would have cost the same if not more.... Nowadays a LS2 takeout incl transmission is a better deal and better value than what I have.....
 
How to jump to conclusions or Boy do I feel dumb

So I have been examining my options and looking for my local machine shop. It turns out that Withers' Automotive has retired, sold all of their machinery and moved on. Withers' has had an exceptional reputation for decades.... oh well.
So I went to the local parts store and eventually to a local racer who owns an exhaust shop to ask for leads on machine shops.
While talking to the exhaust shop owner we discussed the sequence of events leading up to my motor quitting. I mentioned valves, valve springs, timing chains and so on.... That there were no catastrophic noises, puddles of oil or anything of that nature. Then he says "rotor"?

BINGO!

I pulled the dizzy cap and put a hand on the rotor and gave it a twist. It spun freely a full 360*... not good, or on the other hand, VERY GOOD. It turns out that my distributor spun apart, apparently it does not like 5K plus rpms!

First clue, the new access window in my rotor.

100_1912_zpsd276c878.jpg

Second clue, the rotor spins 360* and comes off in your hand with part of the Hall (pulse) generator.

100_1913_zpse4b1ffe0.jpg

WHAT A RELIEF!!!!

So now my question is... do I shell out the money for a rev limiter while I am at it? I have a heavy foot and an addiction to torque. :devil: What distributor/rev limiter combo do you suggest? I'll be buying one this weekend and putting it in if I can get it fast enough.
 
Well thats good news!
I know MSD has taken a shit in the quality department over the years but I havent had any issues with my ready-to-run dizzy so far. The new ones come with built in rev limiters that you can set on the fly by grounding their tach wire.
 
I have it, and like it. :chinese:
I like that the rev limiter is built in, so it cuts cost a bit by not having to get a box or separate rev limiter. Maybe its just the boxes MSD makes that suck? I have a ready to run dizzy in 2 cars no issues.
Ill recommend it
 
DeeVeeEight said:
vette427sbc said:
Well thats good news!
I know MSD has taken a shit in the quality department over the years but I havent had any issues with my ready-to-run dizzy so far. The new ones come with built in rev limiters that you can set on the fly by grounding their tach wire.
Click to expand...

Can you make a recommendation?
Click to expand...

Stock HEI, CASE CLOSED!!!!......


use the GM module, not some POS aftermarket crap, and put in a new sending coil, and run it forever.....:friends::D

OH, solder the crimped coil wires going to the bat and tach terminals....they are crimped from factory, right through the formvar on the coil wire, I caught one once pants down....bad connection to the coil from the connector on the batt term.....soldered it and it's fine for years now.....
 
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OK, so I agree that the DUI is excellent, but then so is the stock HEI. And they are practically bulletproof.

Did you ever find a reason for your dizzy blowing apart? It's something you might want to look for before just dropping another one in place. Won't cost you anything to look! Good luck.
 
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