Kjewer1
Well-Known Member
- Thread starter
- #1
First, a brief history on the car. Kait bought this thing in early summer. It's auto, premium, no PP. Stock my best was a 13.7 at ~101, Kait also went 13.7 but a touch quicker (wtf). With the Cobb tune it went 13.5 at 104. I got the software from Cobb and Kait got it down to 12.7 at 108, still completely stock otherwise. 1.79 sixty foot on the stock tires. At this point we installed an FFTEC front mount and intake, a few small suspension parts, and a BOV. Unfortunately we didn't get any better performance out of it before things went to shit. 
As mentioned in the blown motor thread, I was leaning on the boost a bit, and after a swap from the stock BOV to a Tial BOV it immediately hit 30 psi. We went to the track that night and it was down 3 mph. In hind sight the rod was probably already bent. 3 or 4 runs in that piston let go. Luckily I had my truck there, so we borrowed a friend's trailer and dragged it 2 hours home. This is why I like to trailer even our street cars up there, it's just too far away to take the chance, but I digress...
The next day we pulled the motor out. With ~3500 miles on it, lol.
This is the offending cylinder, #2. I was surprised the rod didn't break.
What's left of the piston:
Some more of it in here. Nothing got past the TB by the way, the intercooler was clean, aside from about a quart of oil in it.
The head took some damage, but it could have been worse.
Broken girdle, bent crank, etc.
Getting a new motor under warranty wasn't even considered. The failure wasn't unexpected, and we would just break it again anyway. The decision was made immediately to just build a motor for it. I wanted to get inside one of these things anyway. This was all done on jack stands in my garage, the same way most of you guys would be doing this. I do have a pretty well equipped garage, and a lot of fast cars have come out of it, but it's just a home garage. Kait and I did the work, along with plenty of help from my buddy Eric.
I got lucky in finding a member of the local DSM club that worked for Ford. He was a big help in getting a lot of these parts shipped right to my house. We started with a brand new block, which we immediately took to CNCWerx a couple hours away in NH for a Cylinder Support System install. Jeff does these for a number of different platforms. His work was excellent. From there it went to my usual engine builder, RAD Auto Machine in Ludlow MA, along with a new crank. The pistons and rods are from FFTEC. We got a number of other small parts from them, including an additional oil chain guide and balance shaft block off parts, head studs, etc, and some useful advice along the way. During this time MAP came out with some valvetrain upgrades, and we couldn't miss this opportunity to upgrade that stuff while we were at it. RAD did some mild porting to the head while they had it as well. Donnie does all of the porting for my 7 second Talon, so he might as well touch this thing up a bit. As I've come to expect over the years, all of his work was outstanding.
I was lucky to have access to all of the Ford service manuals for tear down and reassembly. Guessing at all of this stuff would certainly not have turned out so well. These motors have a lot of TTY (torque to yield) and TTT (Torque Turn Tighten, Torque Then Turn, Torque to Angle, etc) bolts. Being able to sort out which are which was a big help. All TTY bolts were replaced. The Ford gasket set isn't quite complete for this job IIRC, there are a few singles you'll need to order, and a bunch of small parts that save time and make the job easier. The majority of these practically new o-ring type gaskets could have been reused, but Ford's prices are pretty fair on most of this stuff, so we just replaced it all. In some cases however the Ford catalog didn't even list parts that were needed for proper reassembly. Even Ford dealerships couldn't get them. After getting in touch with Ford engineering these parts were located and have been added to the catalog by now. A bit of a pain in the ass for us, but it will be easier for everyone else in the future. We replaced everything in this motor to be sure no left over debris could damage the new motor. Oil pump, oil separator, intake manifold, etc.
Ready to drop in:
As you all know there are a number of special tools and procedures for setting these things up. Everything went well, it fired right up and has had no issues in the last 1000 miles or so that we've put on it. We immediately took it out, made some boost, and changed the oil. It came out nice and clean. We took it up to the track and it ran well. When trying to lean on it again however we had some ignition misfires end the day early. Hopefully we can get it up there again before our season up here ends in a week or two. This time of year the air is good for setting new bests. I've got a number of other cars that I have to get out as well though.
All in all, it wasn't a bad project. These things are a joy to work on compared to many of the older cars I tend to work with. It's nice to know we've got a good base to build on next year. Forced Performance, who supplies all of my turbos for all of my cars, is working on a stock appearing bolt on upgrade for these cars. As soon as they finish it we will have it on the car and collecting data. I'm excited to see what that will do. After that, we'll go bigger I'm sure.
As mentioned in the blown motor thread, I was leaning on the boost a bit, and after a swap from the stock BOV to a Tial BOV it immediately hit 30 psi. We went to the track that night and it was down 3 mph. In hind sight the rod was probably already bent. 3 or 4 runs in that piston let go. Luckily I had my truck there, so we borrowed a friend's trailer and dragged it 2 hours home. This is why I like to trailer even our street cars up there, it's just too far away to take the chance, but I digress... The next day we pulled the motor out. With ~3500 miles on it, lol.
This is the offending cylinder, #2. I was surprised the rod didn't break.
What's left of the piston:
Some more of it in here. Nothing got past the TB by the way, the intercooler was clean, aside from about a quart of oil in it.
The head took some damage, but it could have been worse.
Broken girdle, bent crank, etc.
Getting a new motor under warranty wasn't even considered. The failure wasn't unexpected, and we would just break it again anyway. The decision was made immediately to just build a motor for it. I wanted to get inside one of these things anyway.
This was all done on jack stands in my garage, the same way most of you guys would be doing this. I do have a pretty well equipped garage, and a lot of fast cars have come out of it, but it's just a home garage. Kait and I did the work, along with plenty of help from my buddy Eric. I got lucky in finding a member of the local DSM club that worked for Ford. He was a big help in getting a lot of these parts shipped right to my house. We started with a brand new block, which we immediately took to CNCWerx a couple hours away in NH for a Cylinder Support System install. Jeff does these for a number of different platforms. His work was excellent. From there it went to my usual engine builder, RAD Auto Machine in Ludlow MA, along with a new crank. The pistons and rods are from FFTEC. We got a number of other small parts from them, including an additional oil chain guide and balance shaft block off parts, head studs, etc, and some useful advice along the way. During this time MAP came out with some valvetrain upgrades, and we couldn't miss this opportunity to upgrade that stuff while we were at it. RAD did some mild porting to the head while they had it as well. Donnie does all of the porting for my 7 second Talon, so he might as well touch this thing up a bit. As I've come to expect over the years, all of his work was outstanding.
I was lucky to have access to all of the Ford service manuals for tear down and reassembly. Guessing at all of this stuff would certainly not have turned out so well. These motors have a lot of TTY (torque to yield) and TTT (Torque Turn Tighten, Torque Then Turn, Torque to Angle, etc) bolts. Being able to sort out which are which was a big help. All TTY bolts were replaced. The Ford gasket set isn't quite complete for this job IIRC, there are a few singles you'll need to order, and a bunch of small parts that save time and make the job easier. The majority of these practically new o-ring type gaskets could have been reused, but Ford's prices are pretty fair on most of this stuff, so we just replaced it all. In some cases however the Ford catalog didn't even list parts that were needed for proper reassembly. Even Ford dealerships couldn't get them. After getting in touch with Ford engineering these parts were located and have been added to the catalog by now. A bit of a pain in the ass for us, but it will be easier for everyone else in the future. We replaced everything in this motor to be sure no left over debris could damage the new motor. Oil pump, oil separator, intake manifold, etc.
Ready to drop in:
As you all know there are a number of special tools and procedures for setting these things up. Everything went well, it fired right up and has had no issues in the last 1000 miles or so that we've put on it. We immediately took it out, made some boost, and changed the oil. It came out nice and clean. We took it up to the track and it ran well. When trying to lean on it again however we had some ignition misfires end the day early. Hopefully we can get it up there again before our season up here ends in a week or two. This time of year the air is good for setting new bests. I've got a number of other cars that I have to get out as well though.
All in all, it wasn't a bad project. These things are a joy to work on compared to many of the older cars I tend to work with. It's nice to know we've got a good base to build on next year. Forced Performance, who supplies all of my turbos for all of my cars, is working on a stock appearing bolt on upgrade for these cars. As soon as they finish it we will have it on the car and collecting data. I'm excited to see what that will do. After that, we'll go bigger I'm sure.
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