Blown motor last night

Well, I was puling onto the highway about 10 minutes after leaving work when I heard a loud noise come from my engine bay and then I lost all oil pressure so I quickly turned the car off, pulled to the shoulder, and had it towed back home where I discovered that the lower connection of the turbo oil feed line had been blown clean off of the block.

I haven't done any further analysis so I have no idea as to what could be the true culprit of this problem but my next door neighbor is a serious mechanic and has done many engine rebuilds so we may be ordering a built long block to replace it with. If you guys have any idea as to what could have caused this problem, that would be appreciated.

I don't believe it had anything to do with my tune, but I do believe that for those who have a summer tune on your car. Just do a simple pull and have your tuner check and make sure everything looks good for this roll in of colder weather. it will take 20 minutes tops and it may end up saving you a lot of money.

The car has 29,903 miles and regular oil changes from the day it left the lot, everything was kept up with including all other fluids and general upkeep, the car had been running perfectly that morning.

I will keep this thread updated as the information is found and decisions are made as to what is going to ultimately happen to the car.

What's your engine code on the valve cover? Keep us updated on your progress with it.

I'm also curious to see the engine code. Any windows or do you think it's possible it just shut down from the sudden loss of oil pressure? Maybe that's a bit optimistic.

have you ever replaced your turbo or messed with that line? this almost happened to me but completely our fault during install of a new turbo

long story short if anybody was curious i was replacing my stock turbo with the vs2 my friends bro cross threaded the bolt where the OP is referencing I didn't notice it prior to turning on the car since he somehow still tightened the bolt. When I turn on my car I noticed smoke I go to check and oil is gushing out.... :( turned it off immediately and saw the line off just like OP. Luckily no engine damage so now that thread has been helicoiled and honestly some very very small amounts of oil still leak out of it. When i change my oil I do not notice any measurable loss. So this has me thinking if this was bound to happen anyway and the replacement of the turbo just accelerated it and if he really did cross thread it or there was a pre-existing issue. I don't know

paullyd210 said:

have you ever replaced your turbo? this almost happened to me but completely our fault during install of a new turbo

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The turbo itself had never been tampered with. It had a new CAI put on it, and a MAP downpipe. But other than that it was completely stock.

jbailer said:

I'm also curious to see the engine code. Any windows or do you think it's possible it just shut down from the sudden loss of oil pressure? Maybe that's a bit optimistic.

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I will pull them today with the AP and see what comes up. I shut the engine off on purpose to limit damage to internals as much as I could because at the time I had no idea what had truly happened.

When the tow truck guy showed up, he was trying to figure out how to put the car into neutral as I was on the phone with my insurance company. He Managed to start the engine and it ran but I very quickly and sternly told him to shut it back off. :headbonk:

Juben said:

What's your engine code on the valve cover? Keep us updated on your progress with it.

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Havent checked yet, I will find it and put it up here on the forums. The build date is one of the earlier ones as I bought the car back in July of 2015.

It could be the noise you heard was the line popping off and banging against something else. Obviously your mechanic can look into but if there is no damage done then you may be able to do what we did and helicoil it

good luck man i know i was pissed when it happened to me

Sounds like hes saying that when it windowed the block, it was in the area that the oil drain tube is from the Turbo. I don't understand what he means that he dosent think its from the tune, then says something about a summer tune in the winter, so I suppose it is the tune ?

KadenW23 said:

The turbo itself had never been tampered with. It had a new CAI put on it, and a MAP downpipe. But other than that it was completely stock.

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kaden I know you say the turbo has never been tampered with but you bought your car used and it could've easily been tweaked with prior to your being the owner and then returned to stock. If someone screwed up like we did and cross threaded that thing with that much pressure down there it could've easily came off over time. Just a thought man

perfweld said:

Sounds like hes saying that when it windowed the block, it was in the area that the oil drain tube is from the Turbo. I don't understand what he means that he dosent think its from the tune, then says something about a summer tune in the winter, so I suppose it is the tune ?

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I don't believe that it is from the tune as I stated, but that is just my theory as I have no solid evidence to state otherwise. I may be completely wrong and it may very well be my fault for not getting the car retuned for the summer. But as a word of advice for those who read this, I've seen motors popping on two other occasions on these forums where it HAS indeed been from the tune not being adjusted to the colder weather.

Also to clear it up there is a roughly 2" diameter whole on the side of the block where the oil feed line connects at. But instead of just the oil line coming out, it brought a large piece of the block with it.

I apologize for the confusion.

KadenW23 said:

I don't believe that it is from the tune as I stated, but that is just my theory as I have no solid evidence to state otherwise. I may be completely wrong and it may very well be my fault for not getting the car retuned for the summer. But as a word of advice for those who read this, I've seen motors popping on two other occasions on these forums where it HAS indeed been from the tune not being adjusted to the colder weather.

Also to clear it up there is a roughly 2" diameter whole on the side of the block where the oil feed line connects at. But instead of just the oil line coming out, it brought a large piece of the block with it.

I apologize for the confusion.

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ahhh okay makes sense now i know its been cold down here in TX well to us at least lol were you running your 93 or e30 tune?

paullyd210 said:

ahhh okay makes sense now i know its been cold down here in TX well to us at least lol were you running your 93 or e30 tune?

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Just a 93 tune from Adam. It hadn't been revised since we did the datalogging back in June when I got the intercooler installed.

KadenW23 said:

I don't believe that it is from the tune as I stated, but that is just my theory as I have no solid evidence to state otherwise. I may be completely wrong and it may very well be my fault for not getting the car retuned for the summer. But as a word of advice for those who read this, I've seen motors popping on two other occasions on these forums where it HAS indeed been from the tune not being adjusted to the colder weather.

Also to clear it up there is a roughly 2" diameter whole on the side of the block where the oil feed line connects at. But instead of just the oil line coming out, it brought a large piece of the block with it.

I apologize for the confusion.

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I wonder if this is a block casting defect? Can you see if there is anything internally behind it that failed which could have hit against the block or is it just the oil channel behind the hole?

That seems very strange, usually holes in the block are a result of rod, bearing and crank failures, which are fairly rare but it doesn't sound like that happened here. Or could something have broken loose and torqued the oil return or inlet line (not sure which your referring to)?

What do they do to the tune to run in colder weather ? Sorry for the loss, get rolling on a built shortblock right away, it takes time to have them built, no one seems to ever have one on the shelf.

TheLion said:

I wonder if this is a block casting defect? Can you see if there is anything internally behind it that failed which could have hit against the block or is it just the oil channel behind the hole?

That seems very strange, usually holes in the block are a result of rod, bearing and crank failures, which are fairly rare but it doesn't sound like that happened here. Or could something have broken loose and torqued the oil return or inlet line (not sure which your referring to)?

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It tossed a rod buddy ......