Another one bites the dust
 

http://imgur.com/NQ6ot45.png

March 20th, 2016 at around 4pm EST my FRS blew a "grape sized" hole through the top of the block. It was running 11 pounds of boost.

This was the scene when I popped the hood:
http://imgur.com/SVIDYEN.png

And here is the hole better revealed after pulling the intake manifold:
http://imgur.com/e4FWKbX.png

Loaded up on the trailer on the side of the highway:
http://imgur.com/KzL9bBO.png

Initially we thought this was a piece of the block, the machining texture said otherwise. It is a piece of piston.
http://imgur.com/NLAEhw4.png

This engine is crazy easy to remove. We had the thing out and on a stand in only a couple of hours start to finish. Turns out if you leave the engine upside down on a stand overnight, it won't fix itself and all be okay in the morning :(
http://imgur.com/tgoOPhK.png

Scroll down for a TLDR...

3/11/16: Dyno tuning
I had my car on the dyno at Accelerated Performance in Toledo, OH retuning for larger fuel injectors and a new clutch/flywheel. I was looking to put down 350-400, hit my target at 351@11psi :) Happy day, the car felt amazing. A friend of mine said it felt like it pulled harder than his tuned WRX (it did make 60 more horsepower, but you can't beat that AWD!).

There was one minor (and by minor, I mean major) issue... During the dyno pulls the plumbing on the wastegates heated up, the rubber expanded, and one of the wastegates ended up blowing a line off. I never had this issue since I added a boost controller after my initial tune, re-plumbed, and had always been moving and getting cool air in there to keep everything connected. Luckily Don is a very smart man and caught a boost spike as soon as it hit 20psi. But yes, it spiked to 20psi.

My original plan was to run 12-14psi and hit closer to 370 or 400whp. After the boost spike, Don said it would be much wiser to stick around 11psi. I was surprised, as I'm sure he was too, that it hadn't blown up then and there.


3/13/16: "Injector Tick"
It was the weekend after tuning that I noticed a faint ticking (no, knocking) sound. Anyone I called in to get an opinion on the sound said "it's probably fine, don't the injectors on this car make a lot of noise?". Well yes, they do make a considerable amount of noise. However, this was reminiscent of when a good friend of mine spun a bearing in his IS300, an eerily similar sound. I brushed it off as injector tick.


3/20/16: Judgement Day
I was heading back home via the highway with a friend of mine in the car, and two more of my friends following in a Chevy Cruze. We took off in 5th gear, got to the top of 5th, and then it happened. I was at maybe 6500rpm, not really sure, but it felt like I hit the rev limiter. It was similar to the load limiter for boost that was implemented so I glanced over at my gauge which now read "0" (not accurate for a car that is running, but it was no longer running at this point). Looked back to the tach, revs had already dropped. Check engine light. Oil light. Looked in the rear view, and a MASSIVE cloud of smoke is trailing from the back of the car. It covered both lanes of the highway and all of both berms on either side. Pulled off to the side, popped the hood, met with the chilling sight of oil everywhere.

Don had me crank it to try and diagnose the problem. One of the guys with me was then able to identify the hole due to smoke pouring out of it. Trailered the car home (thanks AAA!) and started tearing it down. There is a high possibility that one of the rods actually bent on the dyno when it spiked. 2 rods were visibly bent, bad. One was not easily visible in general so we couldn't tell for sure, and then the last one just shattered. Not sure if there is any head damage, I'll be tearing the rest of it down today.

Let me just say though that Accelerated has been nothing but amazing through this whole build process. Don personally came out to my house to help me straighten out the cluster fuck of intercooler piping when I first installed the kit. Then last night he came out at like 9pm to take a look at the engine. No doubt I will be returning to them for the engine rebuild, providing we are able to work around a similar price range.


TLDR:

Spiked 20psi on the dyno a week and a half ago, PROBABLY bent a rod then. Just this past weekend the engine decided to give out during a top of 5th gear pull. Sucks.

It will all work out man. Good luck with the build, you live and learn.

Did it tick after the boost spike? i had the same issue a while back when all four rods bent. car ran fine. in fact it sounded like a lifter. then obviously we pulled it apart and found out the rods were bent to hell.

It did. I brushed it off as injector tick. I was more or less trying to convince myself nothing was wrong at that point.

Thats what I asked lol. It probably sounds damn near the same, so it might have been hard to distinguish the difference.

Ha Steve I just now realized this is you. Yes, it does sound the same.

Sucks when it happeneds. Good luck with the rebuild now you have a reason to shoot even higher.

Excuses to upgrade even more!

The only question I have is, how much power/tq did it make when it spiked to 20psi on the dyno? :D I suppose that power level is what you can look forward to after fully building out the engine!


How much torque was it putting down at 11psi? Curious to see a dyno chart...


Good luck with the build!

Don doesn't give out dyno sheets lol. At 11psi it put down 350/260. I'm not even sure we were sampling when it spiked, it happened rather quickly.

WTF kind of place doesn't give out dyno sheets?

Are you supposed to take them at their word?

Yeah how you know when to shift?

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk

Thanks for sharing your experience! Albeit a shitty one, this kind of information is valuable to everyone here as something to learn from. Looking forward to hearing updates. Best of luck on your build man!

You shift whenever you want when the power doesn't drop off until after redline.

Also I can walk right up to the monitor and see the numbers, so of course I take them at their word :)