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IMO... Spinning the motor to the mfg's redline shouldn't cause failure regardless if done on street or track. If so, the mfg is to blame not the consumer. It's within the warrantied parameters of a car marketed as track ready.

I don't recall seeing ANY mention of cars and coffee in any of Fords marketing on this car.

Wonder how many 1LE ZL1's have similar failures... or M3/M4.... or Supras... or Miatas lol
I haven’t met a single zl1 or zl1 1le owner that’s had a 10’th of the issues I’ve had. Say what you want about FI cars and tracking… but that motor really holds up.
don’t forget porches with that list you’ve got going :)
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pilotgore

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Weren't the late production 2019's included in the Timing Belt tensioner TSB? Did you ever check your Vin# against the list?
It didn’t apply to me, but thanks for the thought.
 

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So is there anything different ie problem fixed with the replacement donk or is the same as the buggered one?
 

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Of the 9,300 miles you have on the car, how many are track miles? I recall @honeybadger saying a while back that a full refresh should be performed at around 40 hours of track time. I know you are looking at getting the replacement motor under warranty so may not want to say publicly, but you’ve posted A LOT about your track time on here so I personally am viewing this as a car that likely has seen a fair amount of track hours.

The reason I am bringing this up (not trying to call you out for sure, you’ve been a valuable resource on this forum) is that most people reading the post and commenting back about the terrible reliability of the Voodoo motor aren’t considering how much time the car has spent on the track. All motors that see regular track use need maintenance and spinning the motor between 7,000 and 8,250 rpms is a lot different than a weekend trip to cars and coffee. Context is important.

I’m also not suggesting there aren’t some trade offs with the nontraditional FPC, but how the car is used is a significant factor.
40 hours of track time between overhauls is a spec of the fp350s. It is a metric based upon hard track time.
 

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If I was going to track the 350 like Kevin (honeybadger) does, I would convert to a CPC. The 350RC only lasted a year on the circuit due to reliability issues.
 

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Dang. Sorry for your troubles. FWIW every guy with a GT350 I have spoken to at a track event has gone through at least one engine. I don't remember an exact number but at this point it is over 10 guys for sure. Some I see pretty often at the local SCCA-run HPDE weekends. One guy has gone through two engines on his 2017 but both times for somewhat random reasons; first was a warm idle tick that they could not diagnose or fix and the second was an oil leak that they also could not diagnose or fix.
 

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You don’t see these kinds of issues with LS motors or even coyotes for that matter.

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I guess you've never heard of the LS7. A few years ago I was shopping for a C6 Z06. After researching the LS7 I was not confident that it was a good idea to buy a vehicle with that engine, especially used. I have a lot more confidence in the Voodoo than I do in an LS7 based on my reading. I agree Coyotes (especially prior to the PTWA cylinder bores) have been pretty good.

If I was going to track the 350 like Kevin (honeybadger) does, I would convert to a CPC. The 350RC only lasted a year on the circuit due to reliability issues.
I have seen people say that but is reliability really the reason? I remember the Voodoo made way too much power and would have won every race, so it needed a lot of restriction to keep the races more even. IMO they should have just let the GT350 cars win every race. The car is superior to the others, IMO it should win.

Anyway, they went to a Coyote, which still needed to be restricted, but not as much. And I'm sure the Coyote was cheaper to run. Without strong evidence that the Voodoos were breaking all the time, I believe the engine change was made merely to save money. I don't believe that change is evidence of a problem with the Voodoo.

It's normal in real racing to tear down and rebuild engines frequently. So they decided they'd prefer to do that with $7K engines rather than $20K engines. Who could fault them for that, especially when the $7K engines make more power than they needed?
 
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Tomster

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I guess you've never heard of the LS7. A few years ago I was shopping for a C6 Z06. After researching the LS7 I was not confident that it was a good idea to buy a vehicle with that engine, especially used. I have a lot more confidence in the Voodoo than I do in an LS7 based on my reading. I agree Coyotes (especially prior to the PTWA cylinder bores) have been pretty good.



I have seen people say that but is reliability really the reason? I remember the Voodoo made way too much power and would have won every race, so it needed a lot of restriction to keep the races more even. IMO they should have just let the GT350 cars win every race. The car is superior to the others, IMO it should win.

Anyway, they went to a Coyote, which still needed to be restricted, but not as much. And I'm sure the Coyote was cheaper to run. Without strong evidence that the Voodoos were breaking all the time, I believe the engine change was made merely to save money. I don't believe that change is evidence of a problem with the Voodoo.

It's normal in real racing to tear down and rebuild engines frequently. So they decided they'd prefer to do that with $7K engines rather than $20K engines. Who could fault them for that, especially when the $7K engines make more power than they needed?
Yes, @Epiphany is familiar with the circumstance.

Yes, cpc's are more reliable.
 

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I guess you've never heard of the LS7. A few years ago I was shopping for a C6 Z06. After researching the LS7 I was not confident that it was a good idea to buy a vehicle with that engine, especially used. I have a lot more confidence in the Voodoo than I do in an LS7 based on my reading. I agree Coyotes (especially prior to the PTWA cylinder bores) have been pretty good.



I have seen people say that but is reliability really the reason? I remember the Voodoo made way too much power and would have won every race, so it needed a lot of restriction to keep the races more even. IMO they should have just let the GT350 cars win every race. The car is superior to the others, IMO it should win.

Anyway, they went to a Coyote, which still needed to be restricted, but not as much. And I'm sure the Coyote was cheaper to run. Without strong evidence that the Voodoos were breaking all the time, I believe the engine change was made merely to save money. I don't believe that change is evidence of a problem with the Voodoo.

It's normal in real racing to tear down and rebuild engines frequently. So they decided they'd prefer to do that with $7K engines rather than $20K engines. Who could fault them for that, especially when the $7K engines make more power than they needed?

I had a Corvette C6 Z06 with the LS7 engine. Problem was that Chevrolet's sub-contactor that did the machinign on the heads made mistakes that were not pciked up by either Chevroletn or the contactor. Problem solved once the heads were redone, by my decision at an independent competition machine shop - at my cost. Chevrolet never issued a recall - disgraceful. Car though was fabulous - 3,150 lbs (I weighed it; with fluids), and 505 hp (naturally aspirated so there is no hesitation, i.e. turbos). Nothing comes close for the price. Love my 2019 GT350 (upgraded to 550 hp), but no modern vehicle comes close (at a "reasonable" price). " Tongue in cheek" my 1965 GT350 beats it on weight but of course that's a ridiculous comparison. Ultimately traded in the Vette for my 2016 C7 Z06 which I upgraded to 710 hp without setting a code.
 

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I guess my point in all this is that unless there's data that cars are popping under track use more frequently than under street use, the comment of creating context is irrelevant and only serves to create an illusion that tracking is the cause of the problem.

So does that data exist?

Because it certainly seems to me, and admittedly it MAY be because people aren't admitting they were tracking when it happened, that a lot of the popped engine posts I've seen were stating the cars were just driven normally. And proportionately, I would think that the large majority of owners don't track anyway since it's an insanely expensive hobby... The normal gt350 fb group has 8X the members that the track gt350 page has... and probably only 5% of the track guys come even close to Kevin/Honeybadgers track hours per year.
 

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pilotgore

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I guess my point in all this is that unless there's data that cars are popping under track use more frequently than under street use, the comment of creating context is irrelevant and only serves to create an illusion that tracking is the cause of the problem.

So does that data exist?

Because it certainly seems to me, and admittedly it MAY be because people aren't admitting they were tracking when it happened, that a lot of the popped engine posts I've seen were stating the cars were just driven normally. And proportionately, I would think that the large majority of owners don't track anyway since it's an insanely expensive hobby... The normal gt350 fb group has 8X the members that the track gt350 page has... and probably only 5% of the track guys come even close to Kevin/Honeybadgers track hours per year.
Going along with this, when the 2020’s were dropping valves early on, most of the owners I talked with through the forum saw the failure between 700-2800 miles, mostly with no track use.
 
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IIRC, the GT350R-C was campaigned for two years, 2015 and 2016, winning the Continental Series championship in its second year. That said, I understand that the FPC engines required more "attention" post-race than say the engines from the GT4 program (which are CPC as opposed to FPC).
 

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Yes, @Epiphany is familiar with the circumstance.

Yes, cpc's are more reliable.
I disagree that CPC engines are automatically more reliable, but I guess if you add "all other things being equal" it is possible. For example, Ford has never made an 8,250 RPM Coyote. My assumption is the Coyote would destroy itself in short order if you tried to run it regularly at 8,250. Or at least, it wouldn't hold up to Ford's internal requirements for durability.

If they did the best they could to make the Coyote run at 8,250 - even spending more money than they did on the Voodoo - would it be more reliable than the Voodoo? I'm going to say I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised if Ford's engineers know, however.

I wouldn't be surprised if a Voodoo with a 7,500 rpm redline and a few other minor changes would hold up a lot longer and be comparable to a Coyote in reliability.

I guess my point in all this is that unless there's data that cars are popping under track use more frequently than under street use, the comment of creating context is irrelevant and only serves to create an illusion that tracking is the cause of the problem.

So does that data exist?

Because it certainly seems to me, and admittedly it MAY be because people aren't admitting they were tracking when it happened, that a lot of the popped engine posts I've seen were stating the cars were just driven normally. And proportionately, I would think that the large majority of owners don't track anyway since it's an insanely expensive hobby... The normal gt350 fb group has 8X the members that the track gt350 page has... and probably only 5% of the track guys come even close to Kevin/Honeybadgers track hours per year.
I agree. Very few people can afford that many track hours. Even just the time. If someone gave me the money I would probably still have to give up my marriage, because I just couldn't spend that kind of time away from home.

IIRC, the GT350R-C was campaigned for two years, 2015 and 2016, winning the Continental Series championship in its second year. That said, I understand that the FPC engines required more "attention" post-race than say the engines from the GT4 program (which are CPC as opposed to FPC).
Thanks for the clear statement about this. I remember something about headers not holding up well and I'm sure there were lots of additional details you posted. I remember some fabulous posts you made about the team, the cars and the series.
 

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If the photo you showed was a damaged fracture surface, then I withdrawal my Metallurgical Offer.


Metallurgical Disclaimer
Metallurgically, the metallurgical analysis of a metallurgical analyzed analysis would offer a metallurgical answer based on the metallurgical analysis.

Glad to see there's a fellow metallurgist haunting the forums.
 

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Perhaps what we need is a metaphysical alchemist well-versed in phrenology and electrogravitics to have a look at the Voodoo
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