So heres the story...

My engine had the T1 camshaft with all of GSCs valvetrain. About 2-3 weeks ago, went to the track. Car was setup at WG pressure, made around 400whp. Car went 11.6 @ 120 granny shifting and on my M&H 235s (Cut a 1.65 60ft) Anywho, went for the last pass of the day....

Valve made contact with the piston at 7k rpms @ 124mph at the end of the track. Two intake valves broke off, hit inside the cylinder just right that it broke the weakest point in my block...The Crank! Everything locked up. Saw my speedo go from 120 to 0 in a blink of an eye. Back wheels came off the ground....Went to go push the clutch pedal in and nothing was there. Ripped it out of gear and got to the turn around spot. Popped the hood, Saw there was 2 holes in the front of the block and the timing belt was completely off. Shut the hood, called for a trailer and went home.

Took it all completely apart the next day, took it to the engine builder to see what happened. Looked like the valves were sinking in the retainers...not just the one that broke off, but multiple were sinking. Everything is still at his shop as of right now so he can do some testing of the springs and such when he has time.

I came to a conclusion, and that is that everything is junk. Head, block, Custom Ross Pistons, Crower I beam rods, GSR trans, twin disc, turbo, ect. I planned on buying the T1 camshaft for awhile, and i knew you had to get the right setup of Valve Train. I thought the best thing to do is go with their valvetrain as i would be running there cams. They state on there Website that their valvetrain with the T1 cams would be good for 10,500rpms and 40psi of boost. I was no where near those limits...

I have not contacted GSC yet until I hear back from my engine builder to see if he finds anything else unusual. I know this is racing...**** happens. But i have a nice HEFTY chunk of change i just threw in the garbage...

Needless to say i will not be running their valvetrain ever again except for their cams. Giving it a couple of months off and its time to get back at the rebuild. Just got to learn from this and move forward.

Here's the car.



The bay.



And now here's the good stuff. I don't have many pictures of the head. The crank was broke in half...so that kind of got my attention because you don't see that everyday.



Block was cracked from top to bottom...



Couple holes in the back.



Took the head off and...



You can see the Intake valves inprint in the releifs. Also the exhaust valves hit pistons when the engine locked up and jumped timing.



After a half hour of trying to get the Trans off...



Took the clutch off...



Once I pulled the oil pan off...makes me sick...



Pictures do no justice at all.



All of the main studs got ripped out of the block.





Here's a picture of the spun main bearing. (This is a joke. Please don't take this seriously.)



Short video of the crank in half.

 

I would definitely contact GSC, sometimes there could be a product issue with a certain manufacturing run and they not know about it. It could simply be a QC issue that wasn't known.

The guys over at GSC have been very helpful to other members on this forum, I would expect nothing but the best customer service from them on this issue

 

I'm sorry to hear this.

 

Yea it always sucks when you put so much time, effort, money, and blood into a build only to have something fail and grenade the whole lot.

I would imagine that the twin plate would be reusable provided the crank breakage did not cause the flywheel to contact the housings... I would imagine the discs are fucked but those are cheap

 

Yes of course. When I ordered everything I had a half hour conversation with them, going over the entire setup. Throwing out some advice, stuff like that. I would like to have the engine builder look over everything before I call so I can tell them exactly what happened.

I'm trying to get pictures up but photobucket on my phone isn't cooperating.

 

something tells me you own an iPhone :p lol

 

Damn man that sucks sorry to hear that ..

 

You'll need to take pictures of the other valves and retainers to confirm that the valves and locks are digging into the retainers. The pics are for your own reference and proof so you can have some sort of customer service from GSC.

Were you running full GSC valvetrain, from springs, retainers, locks, valves?

Sucks to hear about the issues too, good luck in resolving the problem

 

Also measure the free height of the valve springs out of the head, that will tell you for sure if a spring is settling... also check the head where the springs seat, sometimes they can gall the head

 

I'm going to give my engine builder a call today to see if he got any progress done. He plans on doing a spring pressure test because it's seemed like some of the springs weren't keeping up and were actually floating. When everything was installed I went with exactly as GSC told me and had the spring seat pressure at 90.

 

Sub'd. I was thinking about running their valvetrain. Would like to see what the final outcome will be.

 

Pics are up.

 

holy crap on the pictures. I have never seen one that bad. Just a question from what i have read before did you have the block Aligned hone after you put the ARP main bolts in? I have heard that they can change the center line some.

 

that's some total destruction right there

 

That's some SERIOUS damage there. Sorry about your loss man. I hope you work something positive out.

 

I sympathize with you because I've been there myself. But you still haven't posted any pictures of the retainers. The carnage pictures are dramatic but the valve train is the only system that matters considering the title of this thread.

 

Damn, that's brutal. Good luck to you on the rebuild and customer service.

 

Muckman. Like I said, when I had everything in front of me I was most likely taking picture of the block because you don't see a crank be split in half everyday. As of right now I don't have the head or block. I might swing by to get pics of the head, springs, retainers all that good stuff after work today if he's available.

Everything in this engine was checked and double checked. Everything line honed correctly, ect. The engine builder said he took his time to make sure everything was perfect because he knew I was going to be beating the **** out of it.

 

Are you sure that is the intake side? the damage to the pistons are on the exhaust side of the pistons. noticed the valve relief size difference. intake side is wider. if that's accurate the pistons are in backwards.

 

there's damage to both sides.

 

Yes. When the engine locked up it jumped timing. Making the exhaust valves to hit outside of the reliefs. But that's not what I'm pointing out. On that piston, you can see the intake valves were close to the pistons where they were leaving a "clean" spot in the reliefs. I want the get pics of the other three pistons because it's not consistant with the other intake valves. Some of them there is no showing of the intake valve close to the piston, some of them there are, like the one above.

 

Damn... I feel your pain on this one.

 

sorry to hear!

 

geeeze...

with all my internet trolling (lol) i've never seen a honda block crack like that.

in for the results.

 

That guy Chuck on that street outlaws show had a hotrod class civic back in the day, and broke one in half.