Engine swap horror stories

I'm writing an article for Grassroots Motorsports on engine swaps. The story will have lots of practical advice and tips, but I also want to sqeeze in a few don't-try-this-at-home anecdotes.

So if you've got a disastrous story about the first time you replaced an engine, I'm all ears. The more carnage the better - smashed windshields, oil pans and fingers all earn bonus points.

I'd rather not use anonymous sources, so you must be brave. If you want to talk, shoot me an email: steve_u<AT>flatout-motorsports.com. Thanks!

Steve Ulfelder
05 ITS
New England Region
www.flatout-motorsports.com

At the ripe old age of 17, a buddy and I were stoked with the idea of replacing the standard straight 6 in the 1957 Bel Air wagon we had acquired for drag racing purposes with a seriously warmed-over small block V8 we'd built over the winter.

About the time we had the old iron up on chains, we thought it would be really groovy to go with a straight front axle and a tilt-up fiberglass front end. Hey, it was a three-day weekend so we had plenty of time, right?

It went downhill from there...

Gregg

[edit: spelling]

[This message has been edited by gsbaker (edited July 06, 2004).]

I was too eager to break in my new race engine this spring and was doing full throttle blasts down the service road when I realized I had neglected to torque on my rear wheels... as one fell off and passed me on the road.

same engine, same day, engine is rattling, sounds like loose valves, only much much louder. valve cover off, I realize I didn't tighten down the valve adjuster locknuts. 6 stayed on, 7 were still on top of the head, 3 made the journey down to the oil pan without damaging anything. LUCK!

last season, I hydrolocked in a puddle and was trying to change a block very quickly, I had it up on the cherry picker and was moving it towards the car. The wheel ran into a pebble so I decided to rock it back and forth to get over the pebble. It was at this point that I remembered I only had 1 or 2 threads of a bolt into the block holding it to the chain on the hoist. It fell, hard. Luckily (again) it landed directly on the alternator pulley, and that was all that needed to be changed out.

Not an engine swap, but a tranny swap horror story.

Got my new HProd Rabbit, and the p/o and I bolted the tranny up (clutch/flywheel were already installed). Slide the engine in and attached the two side motor mounts. Got back to finish it a week later, and when everything was buttoned up, I had no clutch. Couldn't figure out why, and thought that I might have left the pushrod out.

So, out comes the tranny. Pushrod is in place, and all looks good. Swap in a different tranny, just to check. Same problem.

So, out comes the tranny. Really scratching my head now. Several phone calls later, I decide to pull the clutch/flywheel. Everything looks ok, so I'm at a loss. For whatever reason, I decide to bolt the clutch/flywheel together, off the car. Check this against another setup. Turns out that when the p/o had the flywheel lightened, he didn't have the pp face cut, so when everthing was torqued up, the clutch fingers were fully deppressed.

So, on goes a new clutch/flywheel/pp. After much wrangling, can't get the tranny in, so off comes the clutch. Got everything lined up, and in goes the tranny. Same problem, still no clutch. But, this time it was because I forgot to put the throw-out plate back on when I took the clutch off and reinstalled it, to get everything line up.

So, out comes the tranny and off comes the clutch. Got everything put back together and it was all good.

Now, the fun part. This all happened over the course of two days, the weekend before the I was supposed to race the car!!!

Sorry, no broken windshields (lexan), and only minimal blood. But, several thrown tools!!!!

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MARRS #25 ITB Rabbit GTI (sold) | MARRS #25 HProd Rabbit
SCCA 279608

I was about 17-18. A friend just rebuilt a motor for his newly aquired 2002. We are in his garage and we have the motor on the stand. we hook it up to a come-a-long (spelling?) which is hooked to a 3/4 steel pipe running thru two joists. (heck it worked on his Ford Maverick, which just got rear ended and totaled, V8 swap a year before) We lift the motor and start to move the car under it. Suddenly every thing slips and the motor drops about 4 feet, bearly missing the radiator support, bumper and the rest of the newly painted '02. The crank pulley, water pump and pulley are destroyed and we start combing the junk yards for replacements. This whole time he continues to drive the Maverick with open pipes and a 5 gallon gas can as a tank due to the accident. Never gets pulled over. As soon as the '02 gets on the road the he gets pulled over all the time.

The race car came with two engines, neither installed in the car - one "primo" S5 (89-91) and one S4 (86-88) from the junkyard. It also came with an 88 parts car. I'd never seen an RX-7 before and had no idea before I started how they go together.

The first issue was various connector types for the injectors. Turns out the early cars came with high impedence injectors and later cars with low impedence injectors (or maybe the other way around) - and this harness was (custom) wired for some of each type. That got changed quickly.

The engine has two hoisting brackets, but the rear one, which fastens to a transmission mounting ear on the rear engine housing, interfered with the intake manifold. So I gave it a whack with the sledge to bend it a little. Never did get that ear welded back on - my 130 amp MIG welder wouldn't touch it.

With the engine/transmission installed, the clutch slave cylinder mounts to the transmission housing with two bolts. Except the transmission housing had oversize unthreaded holes. Helicoils to the rescue. [Time warp on] They held for exactly 14 months - until last weekend at Gingerman. I had to get a push start and drive the entire race in 3rd gear. [Time warp off]

The newly installed engine wouldn't start without ether and holding the MAF door open. We eventually figured out it had a big vacuum leak. After taking the intake manifold off at least a dozen times, we realized that the intake manifold interfered with the engine housing and couldn't seat properly. Turns out it was an S4 engine housing that didn't fit well with the S5 intake manifold. This wasn't the first nor the last issue that didn't jibe with the race car seller's story. After attacking both the intake and the engine housing with the grinder (and a little JB-Weld to fix the hole made with the grinder) the vacuum leak was history.

Now the engine would start and run, but it had no power. Compression test and EGT readings showed bad apex seals on one rotor. Out comes the engine. A bench test of the spare engine showed bad apex seals on both rotors.

Last chance was the parts car engine. By this time the parts car had experienced enough carnage that it would never run again, so we could only bench test the engine's compression. It was clearly the best of the three, so it came out of the parts car and into the race car (after the necessary grinding of the housing).

Success at last. The parts car engine ran well enough to track the car. At the first event (driver's school), the differential lost a bearing, burned the seal and threw oil onto the exhaust pipe billowing out the smoke. Fortunately we had a rainstorm in the afternoon which kept down the oil and smoke. We limped our way through to the end of the day and passed the school with barely enough track time to qualify.

I came through all this totally exhausted, but having a blast with this racing nonsense.

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Marty Doane
ITS RX-7 #13
CenDiv WMR

[This message has been edited by Eagle7 (edited July 06, 2004).]

Many years ago I had '69 VW pop-top camper bus which needed a new engine. I was living in an upper flat, so the rebuild was performed upstairs in my living room. It was quickly slapped together with pieces from various running or parts engines, including new big bore cylinders and rings. (what's a ring gap?) Minus heads, it was dragged down the stairs, with only minor carnage of said steps and doorway.

A couple days later was my good buddy's bachelor party. Laaaaater in the evening, after the quarter-barrel ran out, it was decided that we needed to take the bus with fresh engine on a 100+ mile jaunt, at high, speed to break it in right.

3:00a.m. tooling down the interstate at 75 or so (floored, pretty fast for an air-cooled VW bus), a loud pop, and no power. We park in a gas station overnight, and begin the treck back home the next morning.

Billowing smoke and creeping along at an ever decreasing speed, a motorcycist pulls up along side us, shakes his fist and yells "Get that piece of XXXXX off the road!"

It eventually locked up hard about 20 miles from home.

Lessons learned:
1) Learn what a ring gap is and how to properly set it when building an engine.
2) Properly break in a new engine.
3) Motorcyclists don't like getting sprayed with oil.
4) Landlords don't appreciate rebuilding engines in their living rooms.

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Steve
[email protected]
<A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/jake7140" TARGET=_blank>My racing page
</A><A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/elrss" TARGET=_blank>Elkhart Lake Racing_&_Sipping Society
</A>

Ok, I'll bite.

18 years old. Threw a rod in my '63 Beetle. Got a '61 (I think) engine to make the swap (ooh, showing my age). Everything installed, guessing where the distributor should be to take an initial guess at the timing. Went to yell at my helper/friend to tell him to wait for me to signal, all he heard was the first "OK!..." and hit the key. There went the end of my pinkie from the last joint on(caught in the fan belt). Ouch.... Off to the emergency room. Everythings still there but it looks kind of weird and I can't straighten it out. Moral: make sure you have good communication with your helper.

#2. Spent 2 months, 2 winters ago, putting together a killer engine for my GTI. Everything perfect. Ring gaps, piston to wall clearances, etc... pretty good motor. Took it to the dyno to set the timing. Well, that threw 2 rods last year after 7 races. What is it with me and rods? http://Forum.ImprovedTouring.com/it/smile.gif Well, of course I left everything till the last minute this winter, and built an engine out of parts I got off ebay. I think $60 total for the bottom end.

Best engine I ever had, an absolute screamer...

Go figure.

Jim

Buddy's neighbor is using an old swing set as a hoist support for an engine swap. It's seriously bent and has been sitting over the car for weeks. I'll see if I can get picks for ya.

My worst is an emptied and then unfilled center diff on a 323 GTX. It made it about 10 miles before it seized up. Not an engine swap but this huge mistake lead me to something that will hopefully prevent this type of thing from occuring again. I now write down all the fluids that need filled and other notes of importance on the windshield right in front of the driver with a grease pencil. Can't get in to drive it or start it without staring right at what still needs to be done.



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Chris Ludwig
08 ITS RX7 CenDiv

I don't know if I'll be able to squeeze all these anecdotes into the story, but they sure are cracking me up.

Chris, if you can get a pic of that swingset/hoist, I'll be eternally grateful. Jim (Team Rocket), can you email me at steve_u<at>flatout-motorsports.com? Sorry about the pinkie.

/Steve U

It was the friday before the race weekend, and I had finished installing, starting and running the race engine at about 1 am on thursday; no leaks, no bad sounds. My 'crew' took the support vehicle to work the next morning, and I was driving the race car to work about an hour later, as I did not yet have a tow vehicle. I hopped in, started it right up, put it in reverse, and ... nothing but 'neutral'... and no way to get to work! About 3 hours and one slave cylinder later, I realized that the slave had 'relaxed' while the engine was out, and wouldn't self adjust back in. So much for work (or practice). Lesson learned: Just because it starts and runs, doesn't mean it'll go!

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Dave Youngren
NER ITA RX7 #61

Shortening the story...In the '60's my dad's car burned 4 out of 6 pistons on a 400 mile trip. The engine was professionally rebuilt, and then never stopped burning a small, but significant amount of oil. Fuel pump was changed, and the seals were already new, so the problem was in the oil rings.

Young and foolish, I dropped the pan to remove the pistons and found the oil rings (three pieces) with the spring overlapped on several pistons. No tension on the scrapers...

On reassembly in the driveway (carefully), the engine was found (when completed, of course), to not be able to be turned over with a hand wrench. I proceeded to try (remember the "young" part) EVERY method known to young and foolish people to get the engine to turn over, encluding being pushed down the street with three people in the back seat for ballast, popping the clutch to force the engine to turn.

Of course, I flat-spotted the rear tires.

Eventually, realizing the folly of these attempts, I dropped the pan and discovered one of the rod bearings had dirt that "wedged" the babbett to form a less than zero clearance for that rod...jammed the crank. My dad used a pen knife to scrape clearances in the bearing (1920's style of fitting bearings), and we were good to go. Engine started on the key.

Moral (followed from that point on): Every engine must start on the starter or it gets torn down for inspection.

Good racing.

Bill

A few years ago at the Busch North race at LRP, a buddy of mine blew his engine,(1g RX-7), during the Friday qualifying session. The race wasn't until late the following day so he went home and returned the next morning with a freshly rebuilt engine. It was awesome. Dudes from everywhere came over to help with the transplant. The hoist was someones trailer ramp with a couple of tie down straps and two dudes at either end of the ramp.There was schlepping going on I tell you. Swap was done in no time so we pulled the car onto some pavement and told (we'll call him Buddy Boy)to start it up. It fired up and ran beautifully and I made a few little tweaks and then told Buddy Boy to go drive it around the paddock a bit. As he took off, I realised that there was a puddle of oil at my feet and a trail marking his path as he drove off."What the??? To make a long story short, nobody realised that the rear main seal was not there when the flywheel was put on. Yes, that seal, the big orange one that practically glows in the dark, and can be seen from miles away on a foggy day. After all the sweat and busted knuckles, Buddy Boy did not race that day. http://Forum.ImprovedTouring.com/it/frown.gif
Ray

Quote:

---

Originally posted by ulfelder:
I don't know if I'll be able to squeeze all these anecdotes into the story, but they sure are cracking me up.

Chris, if you can get a pic of that swingset/hoist, I'll be eternally grateful. Jim (Team Rocket), can you email me at steve_u<at>flatout-motorsports.com? Sorry about the pinkie.

/Steve U

---

I went by yesterday and they had already cleaned the mess up. Sorry.



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Chris Ludwig
08 ITS RX7 CenDiv

I put a Yamaha 650 motorcycle engine in an old sears lawn tractor ....

Quote:

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Originally posted by Tom Blaney:
I put a Yamaha 650 motorcycle engine in an old sears lawn tractor ....

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Oh, do tell! http://Forum.ImprovedTouring.com/it/smile.gif

Jim

Quote:

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Originally posted by Team Rocket:
Oh, do tell! http://Forum.ImprovedTouring.com/it/smile.gif

Jim

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For a couple of years now we would have lawnmower races around my property, the first year I got my butt kicked by my neighbor who had swapped the pullies on his toro.
So the following year I got an old sears mower that was dead from a guy at work, and a crashed yamaha 650 motorcycle from a junk yard. A few weeks worth of hacking, an axle from a gocart, put the front brake rotor with the rear sprocket, added a whole lot of beer and vola!!.

http://www.sbmsinc.com/grasshopper_2002.html

Unfortunatly when I went to race the guy that beat me the year before in my heat, I had it sewn up but chucked the chain and got my butt kicked again. So we fixed the chain and when the next guy went out it was wild. We were all too afraid to take it out of second gear.....

Here's a couple:

Driving @ Mosport, get a bad engine noise, listen to it with a few other trained ears, everyone agrees it sounds like rod knock. Load up go home, decide to just do a freshening (clean & measure, bearings, rings) of the junkyard motor because I know it at least runs with no bad noises. Get it all together, in the car & hooked up. Starts & runs ok, so I hook up the exhaust to the headers. Damn, if it doesn't make the same stinking noise as the one that is now sitting on the floor! Start thinking very hard about the chances of another bad rod bearing (I thought I had plastigauged them all!). Just about to pack it in for the night when it hits me. Start it up, push in the clutch, wall-ah! no more rod knock. Drain the tranny fluid & find two teeth from the input shaft on the magnet. Moral of the story is always push in the clutch before deciding that the bad noise is from the engine.

Crewing a car for the 24 hours at Moroso, at 5:50 AM a call from the driver saying no power & bad sounds. Bring the car in, it definitely has a good rap to it (pushed in the clutch & it didn't go away), no oil pressure. Having gone home after only 9 of 24 hours the previous year we had a spare motor/transmission in the trailer. Bad part is that we only had one starter, one altnator, one fuel rail, one t-stat housing, one timing belt cover, one coil pack, one header. So we pulled the one motor, swapped all the stuff, put the new one in, buttoned it all up & sent it back out. How long??? 1hr 59 minutes! Came in third in class, 19th overall.

At the Summit Point 12 hour an SSB Neon popped its motor, they too had a spare, but it was in the sister car (identical w/ different numbers) which had been dragged along for parts. After nearly 4 hours on a very hot day, they were just about done when someone asked - Why didn't you just swap the transponder, the hood and the doors? I think those guys just about cried.

Matt Miskoe

[/QUOTE]
For a couple of years now we would have lawnmower races around my property,.... So we fixed the chain and when the next guy went out it was wild. We were all too afraid to take it out of second gear.....[/B][/QUOTE]


Tom

As an engineer, my hat is off to you. Grassroots racing at its finest!

Oohh, when Soren shows up for his next Time Trial, we'll have to let the cat out of the bag. He also won EMRA's Time Trial championship that year in ST3. Guess he can drive anything! http://Forum.ImprovedTouring.com/it/smile.gif

Jim

The Mower is priceless.....

I have been jonzing to make one of these since seeing it.. but too many projects in the works.
Here is what I want along the same lines:
http://www.ringmini.de/English_Version/GSX.../gsxr_kart.html
Here is a page with the video of it running:
http://www.nurburgring.de/event.php3?event...t=000101_v&id=7


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Scott Neville
SPiN Racing
86 RX-7 EP
88 RX-7 20B SP

Three common mistakes that I'll admit to making...

1. I just got finiched breaking in new motor in the car on jackstands and decided to change from 30W oil to the race oil...drained oil, poured in 8 qts and spun over first for oil pressure. Rats...no pressure, I just had 80 psi a minute ago! After I fell to the floor in an 8 qt puddle I realized I forgot to replace the drain plug. DDOOOOHHHHH!!!

2. The old blue paper towels in the carb for superior protection against dirt and debris, until I turned the motor over for the first time and it wouldn't fire up. It would barely spin over and spit and sputter every few revolutions. After checking several things the paper towels appeared in the intake manifold and were barely torn!

3. Same basic thing with the duct tape providing protection on the intake ports while bottom end freshening. Bolt eveything up after long hours and no sleep...won't fire up or even turn over after a couple of revolutions! After lengthy inspection and partial diassembly the duct tape proved its capabiltity of holding out anything from those ports!

Now c'mon, I know I'm not the only one too...um, well never mind. Cheers

No, you are not the only one!

Forgetting to disconnect EVERYTHING when taking the old motor out is a bummer; discovering leaks is the worse, however on getting ready to fire the new one.

Once I had a waterpump leak while filling the motor with coolant--big mess--and I also had the experience of not having sealed the cam sproket bolt.

Can you say Exxon Valdez?

Cheers.

Steve,
I have two stories (that i'm willing to tell)

The first one, not so funny at the time, but a good learning story.

We put a new (to us anyway) motor in the car, hooked everything up and thought we were all set. Went to start it and it turned over and was sparking, but wouldn't run. Figured out there was no fuel, fuel pump wasn't working. Thought that was weird since it worked fine with the last motor, but replaced it anyway. Still have the same problem. Decide to check the electrical connection, it's hooked up to the harness fine, then even use electrical checker to check for power and voltage, everything is fine. Take the fuel pump out and try it in another car, where it works fine, then reinstall it and it won't work again. Finally, check the motor again, and see a single wire dangling, bolt it to the side of the motor and it fires up perfect, right away. Seems we missed one ground wire when reinstalling the motor. Then when we tested the connection we were creating our own ground, so we couldn't detect it. We learned that electrical problems suck, and double check the wiring harness, especially grounds should be done by someone who didn't do the installation in the first place.

Story two: We had an alternator go bad and kill a battery. Replace the alternator, but the battery got too low and can't hold a charge anymore. Go to the local parts store and get a new battery, but the one they have has side terminals and top terminals. Somehow the little crappy plastic cover gets knocked off the positive side terminal. 5 laps into testing we see the car on fire, and when we open the hood it's the biggest mess everywhere. Seems the battery grounded to a stainless oil cooler line, shorted and caused an electrical fire combined with a hole in the pressure side of the oil cooler. Many curse words later we fix everything and finish the race in the afternoon with a battery stolen from a family members car who came to watch the race. Again, electrical problems suck, and never get a battery with more terminals than you need.

look forward to the article, and love everyone's stories.
Brandon

LAST WEEKEND.. (duck)
Was running on 4 hours of sleep and was goaded into getting the final touches done on a friends car to fire it up in the garage with the new EFI I had installed weeks earlier.. but as the final touches werent done yet.. hadnt cranked her over.
I ask him if he had hooked up the ground from the engine to the chassis.. SURE!...... Went through everything.. front to back from the electric fan and waste gate to the fuel pump relay..
Crank the engine and it is kinda sluggish on cranking.......
Hmm Odd..
It sat for nearly a YEAR as he bought everything for the car OTHER than the driveshaft it originally got parked for....
Hmm.. Pull the plugs.
Cranks fast.. smooth.. little puffs of ATF (It is a RX-7 that was sitting since we put a dash inte chambers at the beginning)
Hmm..
Pop em in lets check the timing again..
All is good.
Spend a hour going through the wiring and all computer settings.. all is good..
Hmm odd....
Crank her over with the plugs in etc... and in about 4 seconds of cranking smoke surfaces from the area of the wiring harness!!!!
F*@% F*@% F*@% F*@%
Disconnect all Electrical IMMEDIATELY
Go to it.. and see that it is a GROUND wire... check colors.. Yep.. Air Temp..

WTF? It is hooked to a CHASSIS ground!!! It is a GROUND on the computer...

Gank the intake manifold.. Undo ALL the loom on the engine.. Carefully pull this wire that has fairly melted insulation.. to the point of needing replaced.. but not black anywhere..OUT of the loom..
Now that it is isolated spend over 2 hours tracking down EVERYTHING..
All is good.. all the relays.. the computer etc etc.

Hmm... Odd... (Now into my 12th hour and its 12AM)

Carefully start powering the harness etc.. and checking for odd voltages everywhere.

FINALLY replace the meltey wire.. and still all checks OK..

Hmm Odd..
Power up the system.. No problems.. everything checks OK.. Nothing odd..

THEN my close friend an electrician says to the car owner.. Where did you hook up that ground!?!? The owner says the famous words....... "WHAT GROUND?"

I coulda Killed him.. It was 2AM and we realised he never hooked up the 2 Gague Ground to the engine...

The Starter used the Air temp ground wire as a GROUND!!!

Needless to say.. 15 minutes later the Turbo was burbling along in the garage happily at 2AM with a downpipe only.
Another 15 minutes later I was in the shower thankful the computer didnt get melted, and on my way to bed.

As stated above.. dont mess with electricity... or at least dont let friends beg you into working on the cars with 4 hours of sleep.