Engine swap horror stories

[slickS14]

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

[joeg]

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.

[BB Racer]

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

[SPiN Racing]

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.