Blew up again short rant

[Rich F]

Went up to Lime Rock today and 5 laps into my first session the motor started to smoke. Looks like the same type of failure as last time. Had the motor rebuilt with new pistons and a bunch of other parts by a reputeable local builder that's done a few motors for me. He came and had a quick look and listen said pull it out and he'll try to figure out what caused it. timing is right on, fuel pressure & flow are good. Said it appears to be terminal in the lower end either piston/s or rings. Put about 30 laps on it at NJMP 2 weeks ago.
Just haven't got a clue what's causing the problem.

I'm pretty much out of patients with the car and considering just selling it.

[Cobra4B]

Could be that the track configurations is creating a low oil pressure situation... do you have an accusump?

Our Panoz hasn't moved since I snapped the crank in July so I feel your pain.

[Rich F]

C4B
No accusump. I've been running this track (Lime Rock) for the last 10-12 years with other wet sump race cars no issues. A couple of other guys locally have GTS's on the same track and so far as I know they have not had this experience.

Sorry your still on the side lines. Saw your car 4 sale in a couple of spots and from the sound of it youv'e had no bites. I'm wondering if I would have any luck myself.

If you can e-mail me and let me know if you've had any action (stupid offers) I'm curoiuos. rfracer25(at)comcast.net

[boothkc]

Sorry to hear about the grenade. Race cars can be very frustrating to get sorted and hard to know what went wrong. Your builder should stand behind the engine and if this is a GTRA you should be able to build a very durable small block Ford in the 3-400hp range easily. Just wondering if it had any break in dyno time. A good idea is to have the builder run it for 10 hours or so on an engine dyno to tune it and make sure there are no assembly failures.

The Accusump is a great idea for many reasons including pre-oiling. If you are running the Canton Road Race pan it may not be necessary unless Lime Rock has a long high speed sweeper (eg Willow Springs CA) then you can/will kill the engine. If this is a stock Ford pan w/o baffles or a drag race pan then oiling is a concern.

We run the Accusump on the GTSs with good reliability...I think most GTS cars have them after several crumped a few years ago at Willow.

Kevin
GTS/GTRA

[Rich F]

Originally Posted by boothkc

Sorry to hear about the grenade. Race cars can be very frustrating to get sorted and hard to know what went wrong. Your builder should stand behind the engine and if this is a GTRA you should be able to build a very durable small block Ford in the 3-400hp range easily. Just wondering if it had any break in dyno time. A good idea is to have the builder run it for 10 hours or so on an engine dyno to tune it and make sure there are no assembly failures.

The Accusump is a great idea for many reasons including pre-oiling. If you are running the Canton Road Race pan it may not be necessary unless Lime Rock has a long high speed sweeper (eg Willow Springs CA) then you can/will kill the engine. If this is a stock Ford pan w/o baffles or a drag race pan then oiling is a concern.

We run the Accusump on the GTSs with good reliability...I think most GTS cars have them after several crumped a few years ago at Willow.

Kevin
GTS/GTRA

Kevin,
It's in a 351 GTS car. No real long sweepers at Lime Rock. The engine builder said take it out and get it to his shop and he'll try to figure out what caused it. He just rebuilt the motor finished late July. He's always been fair so I believe he'll treat me properly. We do have a Canton RR pan on it and I should add the accusump. (really cheap insurance). Last time I had a few detonated pistons which were not an oil problem. I have been racing for the last 34 years running everything from NASCAR open wheel modifieds to a GT-1 in the SCCA along with a stint in offshore boats. Blew an engine in the offshore boat once and have never had another failure in a race vehicle. Have never had this much heartburn in such a short period of time with anything I raced or tracked. Spent half the summer waiting for the motor to come back and did all the "while your in there" items like clutch, trans, flywheel etc. Been front to back on the car checking everything and replacing anything with a ?mark.

I know we all get po'd at our cars from time to time and I need to cool off a little. I'm tired of working on this car with only negative results to show for it.

Thanks for the Accusump suggestion and feedback. The forum is a great place for guidance and support.

[NZGTRA17]

Sorry to hear about the 2nd failure. Dont give up on the car just yet as when it is sorted you will be happy with it. Both the 351 and 302 are capable of performing very reliably in the chassis, so there is something wrong here.

I cant recall if you found a reason for the last failure?

If nothing conclusive was found during investigation/repair of the last engine, I would take a really good look at not just the engine but also all of the peripherals, i.e.

- Is the oil system plumbed correctly?
- Is the radiator partially blocked some where?
- Are there support wires inside the radiator hoses to prevent them from collapsing when hot?
- Is there a restriction in the oil system?
- Is the oil pickup the correct distance from the bottom of the pan?
- Is the dipstick marking providing the correct oil level?
- Are the senders for temperature and oil pressure reading correctly (verify with independent gauge)?
- Is the thermostat opening correctly?
- etc etc

Let us know what your engine builder finds/says when the engine is stripped as there may be some learnings for us on this.

Kel.

[Cobra4B]

Originally Posted by Rich F

Sorry your still on the side lines. Saw your car 4 sale in a couple of spots and from the sound of it youv'e had no bites. I'm wondering if I would have any luck myself.

If you can e-mail me and let me know if you've had any action (stupid offers) I'm curoiuos. rfracer25(at)comcast.net

Yeah I posted it up on Racingjunk and NASAforums, but we're probably not selling it. I just threw it up to see what it'd do while my dad figured out what he was going to do. Have/had one serious buyer talking higher teens, but I'm 99% sure my dad's going to proceed with a 347 build.

Unlike yours, our failure was very very clear.... random undiagnosed issues would be very annoying.

[Rich F]

Originally Posted by NZGTRA17

Sorry to hear about the 2nd failure. Dont give up on the car just yet as when it is sorted you will be happy with it. Both the 351 and 302 are capable of performing very reliably in the chassis, so there is something wrong here.

I cant recall if you found a reason for the last failure?

If nothing conclusive was found during investigation/repair of the last engine, I would take a really good look at not just the engine but also all of the peripherals, i.e.

- Is the oil system plumbed correctly?
- Is the radiator partially blocked some where?
- Are there support wires inside the radiator hoses to prevent them from collapsing when hot?
- Is there a restriction in the oil system?
- Is the oil pickup the correct distance from the bottom of the pan?
- Is the dipstick marking providing the correct oil level?
- Are the senders for temperature and oil pressure reading correctly (verify with independent gauge)?
- Is the thermostat opening correctly?
- etc etc

Let us know what your engine builder finds/says when the engine is stripped as there may be some learnings for us on this.

Kel.

Kel,
We thought the problem was timing. I had a couple of badly detonated pistons.
The gauges all read in the normal range today
Water 210 Oil 220
Oil Press 60
We added jet extensions to the rear of the carb in case it was fuel starved. Also installed angled Brasswell floats. Running fat / rich jets breaking it in. nothing appears to be kinked or blocked in cooling or oil lines / hoses.
After a quick check of the motor today (leak down test and running it) the engine builder told me to pull it out and he would get into it.
He agrees that we missed something but we really have no idea. Fuel pressure and flow on the fuel pump appear to be right (checked during rebuild).
I'm going to try and get it out and to the shop Friday.

I'll post up when we get inside.
Thanks,
Rich

[NZGTRA17]

Originally Posted by Rich F

Kel,
We thought the problem was timing. I had a couple of badly detonated pistons.
The gauges all read in the normal range today
Water 210 Oil 220
Oil Press 60
We added jet extensions to the rear of the carb in case it was fuel starved. Also installed angled Brasswell floats. Running fat / rich jets breaking it in. nothing appears to be kinked or blocked in cooling or oil lines / hoses.
After a quick check of the motor today (leak down test and running it) the engine builder told me to pull it out and he would get into it.
He agrees that we missed something but we really have no idea. Fuel pressure and flow on the fuel pump appear to be right (checked during rebuild).
I'm going to try and get it out and to the shop Friday.

I'll post up when we get inside.
Thanks,
Rich

Rich,
was the new engine dyno'd in the chassis post fitment? If it is burnt pistons again then the likely suspects are the cooling system (localised overheating leading to detonation), fueling (lean condition causing detonation) or ignition (irregular timing). One thing I always do religiously now when dynoing Rich is fit a detonation sensor to the engine while it is being dyno'd. We take fuel and ignition past the optimal points during the runs to make sure that we have some safe detonation free margin at our choosen jet/timing settings when running dynamically on the track.

Did you note down the cylinders that let go last time as it will be interesting to see if it is the same ones or different holes this time.

Kel.

PS - If you dont find anything obvious on the strip down Rich, I would also have the distributor curve graphed on a distirbutor test rig (most good dyno shops or ignition shops should have one) to ensure that the curve suits your engine. Perhaps it is pulling in to much advance to soon.

[boothkc]

Rich,
sounds like you have lots of experiance and a good builder, but some bad luck.

We run 2 GTSs in SCCA here in Norcal. The motors have been very reliable and are engine dyno'd to 445hp to be SCCA compliant. We upgraded the quality of the cranks (SCAT), rods, and forged pistons, but run the Edelbrock heads and spec manifold, cam, carb etc. The original Panoz engine internals were pretty junky and easily improved w/o "cheating" on HP.

Sounds like an early MIF (maintenance induced failure), but I'd really get them to run the new engine on an engine dyno first and tune it etc. We bring the headers and all externals to the builder and 5-10h of dyno time is put on them to make sure all is well before they are installed.

We "refresh" them every 100hrs.

In 4yrs of running the GTS I haven't had a single mechanical DNF (except for a tire puncture) and have won 2 4hr Endurance races. This can/should be a very reliable fun car....

Keep the Faith.

Kevin

[Rich F]

Originally Posted by boothkc

Rich,
sounds like you have lots of experiance and a good builder, but some bad luck.

We run 2 GTSs in SCCA here in Norcal. The motors have been very reliable and are engine dyno'd to 445hp to be SCCA compliant. We upgraded the quality of the cranks (SCAT), rods, and forged pistons, but run the Edelbrock heads and spec manifold, cam, carb etc. The original Panoz engine internals were pretty junky and easily improved w/o "cheating" on HP.

Sounds like an early MIF (maintenance induced failure), but I'd really get them to run the new engine on an engine dyno first and tune it etc. We bring the headers and all externals to the builder and 5-10h of dyno time is put on them to make sure all is well before they are installed.

We "refresh" them every 100hrs.

In 4yrs of running the GTS I haven't had a single mechanical DNF (except for a tire puncture) and have won 2 4hr Endurance races. This can/should be a very reliable fun car....

Keep the Faith.

Kevin

Kevin,
Your note above is the very reason I decided to go with the Panoz. Just hasn't worked out that way for me. Dyno time may be part of the next package. I'm feeling pretty disgusted and discouraged right now fighting the urge to "dump" the car.

Thanks for words of encouragement,
Rich

[NZGTRA17]

Originally Posted by boothkc

Rich,
sounds like you have lots of experiance and a good builder, but some bad luck.

We run 2 GTSs in SCCA here in Norcal. The motors have been very reliable and are engine dyno'd to 445hp to be SCCA compliant. We upgraded the quality of the cranks (SCAT), rods, and forged pistons, but run the Edelbrock heads and spec manifold, cam, carb etc. The original Panoz engine internals were pretty junky and easily improved w/o "cheating" on HP.

Sounds like an early MIF (maintenance induced failure), but I'd really get them to run the new engine on an engine dyno first and tune it etc. We bring the headers and all externals to the builder and 5-10h of dyno time is put on them to make sure all is well before they are installed.

We "refresh" them every 100hrs.

In 4yrs of running the GTS I haven't had a single mechanical DNF (except for a tire puncture) and have won 2 4hr Endurance races. This can/should be a very reliable fun car....

Keep the Faith.

Kevin

Kevin, did you upgrade "from" or "to" Scat cranks? If "to", did you also use Scat rods? Assume you use a 4340 item?

Reason I ask Kevin, is that I am currently piecing together a 369 cube shortblock using a Dart block, Scat 4340 std weight crank, Scat H beam rods and CP pistons. Have had variable feedback about both Scat and Eagle in NZ so interested to hear of your experiences with Scat if that is what you are using.

Kel.

[jmimac351]

Rich, I have a few buddies here with 3 Panoz cars between them. They had some issues with maintenance on a few of the cars that led to problems. Then they started dabbling in building their own motors, swapping heads with new valvejobs, etc.... and still had problems. Motors coming apart, motors overheating.

One of the guys has a 347 crate motor from Ford in his cobra replica and I reminded him that he's run that snot out of that car on the track and never had a problem. So, they finally went the crate engine route and haven't had a problem with that setup so far. They did the $3495 306 setup from Ford with the GT40 aluminum heads.

I'm not saying the crate engine route is the best solution for everyone but from my experience it's a tough setup to beat in terms of reliability and value.

Good luck.

[Cobra4B]

Basically Ford motors just suck If you're frustrated put in the garage and put a cover on it and take up another hobby for a bit. After a couple months if you're still over the car then sell it.

We're probably putting a 347 in ours, but reusing our AFR 165s, Edelbrock Performer RPM manifold, and Pro-systems carb to choke it back to 330-340 rwhp which is all we can make for ST2.

[jmimac351]

Does the DSS engine come with a warranty?