Catastrophic Failure
 

Some of you may have read my other thread about a misfire I had on my car. There has been another failure and this time it seems a little more serious...

https://www.s2ki.com/s2000/uploads/g...98_1977008.jpg

Effectively the cam (or both cams, the jury's still out on that one) have worked loose and pretty much destroyed everything bolted to the head. I have a number of questions that I need to get my head round before I spend any money.

My questions are:

What could have caused this?

Have there been any other known failures of this nature, and if so what was the net cause?

Is this related to the plug issue?

I'm not a big believer in coincidence. Is there a wider issue with the engine that is a root cause?

Should I replace/rebuild the head on this engine, or will it jus be prone to another similar failure?

For your info, I've had the car since November, it has an indicated 64k on the clock and is an 04 facelift car. In my time it's been driven in a spirited manner but never over revved. It has run smoothly with little ot no vibration (certainly compared to my last car).


Your help and advice is always appreciated :thumbup:

Christ that looks a bit rum :(

I have nothing useful to say on what may have caused it I'm afraid.

I know this is a bit of a plug.

But if you get stuck & require a head, I have a complete engine with a buggered bottom end, but top end appears to be sound. If you're ever interested, let me know.

Wow! that is catastrophic.

I too have a nice shiney head, sat on my worktop, that I removed last week.

https://www.s2ki.com/...rophic-failure/

Would seem to be one possible cause.

Over rev / oil issue in the past. Wonder if the extra heat from that wandering plug caused the final damage.

I still think ( from reading other threads) that this was present a long time ago :(

I think the cause needs to be ascertained before proceeding further.

The bottom end would be ok if it were an over-rev, saving £££ on replacing the entire engine.

However, if the cause is not identified, and you just changed the head, and it turned out thay there were more serious issues, then replacing the head alone would be a false economy.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

Which is a very eloquent précis of my original post ;)

So what could the cause be and/or what should be checked? I'm currently of a mind to inspect the bores and bottom end thoroughly and then fix it.

Worth posting this on the UTH forum on the US side, Billman will almost certainly post a comment. As other have said almost all F20 engine failures are caused by either oil starvation or an over rev at some point in its life and this can take years to manifest itself sometimes. If it were me I would just swap the head.

If it was my money ... i'd drain the bottom end, look for debris. Pull the sump and check the crank / bearings and possibly check the bores for scoring - just to be paranoid. I'd also check thrust bearing and possibly replace bearings / shells whilst it was in bits.

Put a known good head back on and enjoy a LOT more miles in the knowledge that the engine is good.

If you can get all that done for less than the cost of buying another engine that may have hidden issues, my head says that's money better spent. However i'd run that past someone that builds engines :)

Feel bad for you there :( Theses instances are rare, but I have to say increasing of late just on this site.

Starting to wonder if I should ever get another one

Holy s4it Paul, I feel bad having to sell mine but seeing this I'm gutted for you. Can't offer anything constructive but I hope you get it sorted as quick and cheaply as possible. As said, for piece of mind get the bottom end checked else it will play on your mind every time you drive it in the future.

If you do decide to change the engine and need some help shout me up.