When did your engine blow?
 

Be interesting to see at what RPM (peak tq, or peak hp) motors take a dump.

No option of "when it filled up with salt water"???

Had them blow at both cruising and WOT. Depends on the situation.

WOT - Tired and abused internals - Long story

Cruising - Bad fuel

On a side note, the drives went at peak torque or idle! LOL

Is that similar to oil pan failure? - That's when the pieces parts blow out the bottom and the oil pan fails to keep them in play.

I always liked the no spark problem:
Piston came up and knocked the spark plug out.

Usually a lap or two (or run or two)after the announcer jinx's you by calling you out and announcing " XXXX has some sort of motor in that thing today !"

LOL.

Built 406 small block at 6500 pre-ignition timing took out a piston (#8), top ring chunks pushed into soft aluminum head. Ran it back to house at fast idle, beating and banging as I was on a lake without tow service one late afternoon during the week and NO ONE was on the water. About 2 miles away.

I don't have a story, I just want to post on this thread so I can look at ICDED's avatar. :poopoo:

I had one go when the camshaft broke in half. Yup, the big end of the connecting rod came right up and broke it in half. At least I was able to keep the carb and intake.

Bought a set of 2.02 heads. First time out intake valve broke head off. destroyed cyl 1. Beastie kept running the 30p yards to get me back to the dock...

Had a Whippled 502 that did the big bang thing on accelerating from an idle.

that falls under chit happens option.i don't see my option either,,,,,,,,ray Charles and stevey wonder assembled my motors.lol

Depends on if you call dropping a valve blow? But I was at idle

Vacuum leak by #4 intake caused it to go lean and melt #4 piston. Limped home the last mile on the port engine. You know, the one WITHOUT the power steering!

Wide open, blew both head gaskets. Note to self- if engine ever gets too hot, pull head and inspect no matter what.

Before I even put it in the boat how's that

I really feel for you SS . I'd like to go down and give Randy a kick in the ass for you.

5600 rpm for 5 miles then BOOM!! Oil pain failed to hold rod in pan! Oil all over!

Came off of a large boat wake motor quit, water came up side exhaust

Testing props.. Change the props in the water!! ;) I backed my boat and trailer in the water and cold water got up in the exhaust and quenched a valve seat.Then it fell into the combustion chamber. So I guess that is when it blew. But I did not notice it until my boat was only runnin 90 @ WOT ( I looked and one motor was down 600 RPMS)

5700 RPM on a 250ish hr. 300 Tempest SBC. The boat shuddered for a second then slowed down. No.5 piston hanging out the side of the block, crank came out in 2 pieces, cam came out in several.

Man...I could tell you stories from my Funny Car days that would make you a ll feel like you had a GOOD day when you blew up! lol

why did they go to rear engine dragsters? cuz drivers were sick of engines lowing up in their face!!!

plus the differential right under ur nut sack, parts of legs/feet were lost with clutch/bell housing explosions, Thanks Big Daddy

That would be a helll of an experience.

Oh man, don't make me re live all the miseries .......I try to learn and put them ALL behind me lol

I think I have that pic saved lol

Mine blows every time I start it because its still a 20 year old bone stock merc.:pray:

Alright - long story, but I'll try to keep it concise.

Bought the boat (w/ Merc HP500s) midsummer 2012 and put 25 hours on it right away. Ran fine, no problem. WOT several times. Once it was in storage for the year, I got a call from some random guy I'd never met. 'Do you own White Knuckles?' he asked. I said yes, and who is this. He would only give me his first name, but no last name. Very sketchy character. He told me that the guy who owned it before me (former friend of his, name was Chris) was a total scam artist and pathological liar. One of the stories this guy told me was that Chris blew the port side engine, patched it up as cheaply and quickly as he could, and sold it to a dealer. He claims that the motor was a giant piece of crap inside. I got a little nervous at first, but ultimately dismissed it considering I had gotten several good hours of it already.

Fast forward to this past August. Flying WOT in Lake Michigan with a buddy when I notice one of the engines running 500-600 RPMs lean. I slow down, that engine cuts. I fire her back up, and blew smoke plumes from the exhaust. Bad news. We get the engine apart a few weeks later and find the cheapest bunch of mismatched parts you've ever seen. It was like whoever put it together just picked whatever parts off the shelf to get it running.

I was just lucky that I got a over 100 hours out of it before the BOOM!

Way before my wife...........

Share you have bad luck!

She is awesome! :eekdrop:

Right after I said the boats never run this fast

About 15 hrs after I was told they had Fresh top ends.

Learned the hard way that on a MEFI 3 system, when you are on the limiter trying to win a race :), it pulls fuel back, not spark. 2 pistons were fried. Literally. Looked like they had been cut with a plasma cutter. Oooopsie.

Mine had a small backfire at first startup of the season about ten years ago, was going to a Good Friday Crawfish boil about 4 miles down the river. What I didn't know was that it blew a rubber plug off one of the small ports on the carb base plate. About half a mile into a 3000rpm cruise down the river it blowtorched a hole through number 2 piston.

Never saw the missing plug until I was putting engine back in boat. That was the moment I realized we had reduced the compression from 10.4 to 9.8 and timing for nothing!!!!!!!!! Son of a bittch.

Which time?

When we were drag racing it wasn't an uncommon to "wound" a motor. The button to arm the NOS was labeled "shark" because it eats everything. We were burning the spark plugs down every pass. I have an oil pan hanging in my pole barn that looks like someone shot it with a 12 gauge & it has a piece of the block still attached to it. We did that in Guelph, Ont. back in 2000 if I remember correctly. That was a great venue. I believe we were the only powerboats allowed on the water all year because it was a protected site of some sort.

s

Cruising 3500 - butted top rings and lifted top of piston. Tear down revealed a cheap box store truck rebuild shortblock was put in by the PO.

MIne dropped a valve guide as soon as I cranked after normal cruising. So, I guess at idle.

Fixed that for you.