Carnage! Tear down of 385ci sbc
 

I Finally got the motor out and tore down the shortblock. The motor had under 2 hours of run time on it. It had spun one bearing and tore up many others. About the only 2 unaffected rod bearings were cylinder 1 and 2. The rest were chewed up and damaged the crank to some extent. The worst offenders being 3 and 4. All of the main journals looked great. It was obvious on most rods that they had seen some heat on the big end. The crank was an Eagle forged 383 crank, 6" SCAT H-beam rods, and SRP forged .040 over pistons. I can not tell you what the bearings were as they were chosen by the builder, but I would imagine they were Federal. The motor maintained great oil pressure the whole time. 30psi at idle and 70psi at 4,000rpm. Temps were normal at 150 or so as well. I had not even made it through the break-in procedure before it started knocking. I was driving around the lake varying RPM and load to seat the plasma moly rings.

Any Ideas?

Sorry for the poor quality pics, but it was dark and late. I'll try to get some better ones.

Re: Carnage! Tear down of 385ci sbc
 

And the last one.

Re: Carnage! Tear down of 385ci sbc
 

Man, that's ugly, sorry to hear it.

Re: Carnage! Tear down of 385ci sbc
 

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Sorry for the test in your thread. Trying to view the picture.

http://offshoreonly.com/forums/attac...chmentid=99002

http://offshoreonly.com/forums/attac...chmentid=99002

Re: Carnage! Tear down of 385ci sbc
 

Remove the crank and look up inside the rear main and see if you see a small plug,bigger than a dime smaller than a nickel. Is the builder going to stand behind his work???

Re: Carnage! Tear down of 385ci sbc
 

No, the builder is not standing behind the work. It was a long time between the build of the short block and run time and even more time until I had the motor pulled (9 months total). I work in L.A. and live in Austin so I am on the road 5 days a week. It is the position of the builder that they do not believe the run time was under 2 hours and that too many things may have gone wrong beyond what they had done. It angers me greatly because during the build I spared no expense and encouraged them to take as long as they needed to get it right.

Badtoon: I dont know about the plug. I'm in L.A. right now, I will check it out this weekend. What is that plug and what should I be looking for?

If you look at the third picture, it looks like that oil passage is plugged. Do you think that is bearing material wedged in there, or was it not properly machined?

Re: Carnage! Tear down of 385ci sbc
 

It's called an oil filter by-pass plug and if it's not there it can cause a lot of damage. Chrysler small blocks years ago had the same setup and I watched a racer blow up a bunch of them before the found the problem. A good builder will make sure it's there it's just a guess on my part. Good luck. I have a 327 CI small block that I built at least 10 years ago and it hasn't been run yet. I told them the warranty ran out and I should have Z-barted the engine.

Re: Carnage! Tear down of 385ci sbc
 

Due to the facts that you had high oil pressure and the mains were ok I would say the rods had too little bearig clearence. Was this a standard or reground crank? If 1 rod bearing set is in decent shape, you should be able to measure the bearing and the crank throw sizes and see.

Re: Carnage! Tear down of 385ci sbc
 

PatriYacht

Yep that's a strong possibility and if the stinking little plug is missing you will have high oil pressure BUT no oil where it's suppose to be.

Re: Carnage! Tear down of 385ci sbc
 

If that plug was missing would'nt the mains have gotten torn up as well as the rods?