Heres the run down... theres alot to read and i need help as i am confused to the max.

Took the car to do some drag racing over the weekend. First off I was not launching it like an idiot I was conservatively launching around 4000 to keep my driveline intact. All runs were good. Car showed no issues after my last run. Heres where it gets interesting...

On the way back to my house, saturday evening, I started hearing a loud clunking sound that would come and go and noticed that the clutch was slipping a bit but no warning signs(cel, oil light, or any other lights). I figured that it would make it the last 1/2 mile home.

Upon my arrival to my house the noise had become consistent. Shut down engine and coasted to a stop while in neutral. Had my mechanic come over to check it out with me. Told him the noise and then started the engine to show him. The car started with no issue then 10 seconds in diagnostics the engine seized up but again no indicators came on. We checked the dip stick and still had oil in the operational range. Drained the oil and found no deposits but a very and i mean very small amount of glitter. We put new oil in and let it drain out to see if any more deposits would come out. Nothing to show serious suspicion. This was all done saturday night.

Sunday afternoon after a whole night of frustration and worry I decide to put oil back in and see if she will start. Push the clutch in and pushed the button and the car comes to life. No indicators on the dash and no smoke out out of the exhaust. Loud clunking noise is still there and sounds like it is coming from the rear of the engine/transmission. I move the car over to my driveway and noticed that the clutch was still slipping bad.

At this point I am confused and need some help to be pointed in the right direction. What could cause an engine to stop but not cause a complete seizure? Could it be possible I have a bad clutch, pressure plate, flywheel, throw out bearing, or pilot shaft bearing? Would any of those cause the engine to seize up if they were bad minus the clutch?

Today I will be dropping the oil pan and checking out the thrust bearings and the main bearings. Any and all advice would be great! Thanks guys.

 

Did you remove the vtec unit to check the screen for metal? This is easy to do and should be part of the test. It definitely sounds like it could be something related to the clutch components as you mentioned. You would have to remove the trans anyway to deal with the engine, so its a worthy effort to eliminate. Maybe you will get lucky and see that the pilot bearing had failed or PP or flywheel etc and not have any engine damage.

 

I think u might be able to remove tranny and even whole clutch and start it, see if it's better?!?!? Lol

Even better reason starter is on engine side

 

"Took the car to do some drag racing over the weekend. First off I was not launching it like an idiot I was conservatively launching around 4000 to keep my driveline intact. All runs were good. Car showed no issues after my last run. Heres where it gets interesting...

On the way back to my house, saturday evening, I started hearing a loud clunking sound that would come and go and noticed that the clutch was slipping a bit but no warning signs(cel, oil light, or any other lights). I figured that it would make it the last 1/2 mile home."

Sounds like you damaged the clutch disc and/or pressure plate. I wouldn't drive it around too much, until you can pull the tranny. Hopefully, not too much damage to the flywheel.

Good luck!

 

With no CELs as well even further points to clutch or drivetrain.

 

My poor F20 did not have the issues i thought i had...

Dropped the oil pan to find cylinder 3 rod bearing completely toasted. Chunks of metal were right under rod 3 and you could wiggle rod 3 with very little effort.

Clutch is almost done with life which would explain the slipping.

What to do next...is this engine even worth a rebuild? I keep researching cost of things but i think the extent of damages may be alot more.

I have a spare motor but even that is currently in pieces but the block is still in one piece. That engine only has 130k on it. The engine in car is 160K.

What do you gents think?

 

Thrust bearing will cause engine to seize. Then later it'll startup with no issue. But its your warning sign to fix it, or else it'll take out your motor.

But that wouldn't make noise, nor have anything to do with slipping clutch. So its possible you have two issues. One is thrust bearing causing seize and stall, other clutch causing noise and slip.

Another possibility is bad release bearing. That could make noise, could cause seize, but less likely to cause slip.

 

I found the issue as stated above. It is 2 issues though. 1 is cylinder 3 Rod bearing is non existent and 2 is clutch almost out of life. Engine will need a rebuild as it does have 16X,XXXmiles on it. Thanks for the advice though.

 

I'm sorry for your loss but,

160k
Oil?
Viscosity?
FI? NA?
DD type of driving?
First owner? Second?
And your age? ...lol sorry.

It should be annotated for the sake of everyone plz, and ty.

 

If you have an OEM untouched shortblock I would swap that in. You said the motor is in pieces but the block is still in one piece so I'm a bit confused but as long as the bottom end wasn't touched I would have full confidence in it.

There are other options though...

If you lost a rod bearing you probably damaged the crank and could have scored cylinder walls. I have been told that repaired crankshafts have been poor performers so you should look into a new bottom end or perhaps rebuild with a sleeved block and a stroker kit using a modified K24 crank.

There are also plenty of F20s on Ebay if you want a longblock.