Engine Blown On Way to Law School Exam?
 

OK so I had a bad day. On my way to my last Law School exam of the semester, i was cut off by a truck with shit in the bed, downshifted to go around and once i hit about 8000 my engine killed all power. It was almost like a flopping sound from what i can remember. The engine went completely dead after i took it out of gear. I put it back in to try a jump start while still moving and it went into gear and just made an awful flopping sound. (RPMs went up while rolling in gear). Stopped off the interstate and waited a bit then tried to start it and had plenty of battery, ignition was working fine, but this bitch doesnt seem to be coming back to life. So i had to ditch my car and run to my law exam(those of you who dont know, there is only one exam for each class in law school and this was it so i could NOT miss it). My mom was nice enough to come and get it towed. I feel like the engine is shot but would like your feedback before jumping to conclusions. And if it is blown, what are my options? And I know i could probably research this but listen people, Ive been knee deep in studying for and taking law exams and I really don't feel like looking up all this shit just so some assholes don't flame me on here. Please if you can lend me a hand and give me some info/feedback, I'd really, really appreciate it.

Some details would help ie: mileage, service history etc. It does have fuel in the tank ? Have you had a comp test ?
If you have access to any compression testing equipment , test it.
Nothing has been sucked into the intake ?

Just under 50,000 miles. Regularly serviced. Meaning oil changed on time and running full synthetic. I have a BHR Ignition that was installed beginning of last summer. Other than that I have a Cobb AP Tune, Catless BHR Midpipe, RB Catback and an AEM intake. I had over 3/4 of a tank when it happened. Never had a compression test....never needed one. Havent had any issue with the motor yet, but I had a feeling something might just go wrong to go along with finals this year. Don't have comp test tools and even if I did, I dont think I could run one because it will not run even for a second. At first glance it doesnt appear that the intake has sucked anything in. Wasn't driving through rain/snow, the grill is intact along with the ugly front plate so I'd be hard pressed to think something got in there but I'll take a look once I get to my mother's house tomorrow. Was dark and 4 degrees tonight when I was over there so I havent inspected too much. Everything in the engine bay appears to be normal.

It's hard to say without more info. If it felt like it high a wall while revving then it could be as simple as an ignition issue (While rare, BHR kits can fail prematurely) or as major as a loss of compression.

My plan is to have it towed to a dealership and have them diagnose it. If it is roasted then I'm thinking a Pettit Racing "Off The Shelf" might be the way to go. A swap would be cool (STI or S2000) but would get pretty hairy I'm guessing. The nice thing about a swap would be having a more reliable engine tho.

STI swap? :lol:

sti no way man isuzu v6 for the tq curve=profit

Might as well just get used STI or S2k.....no swap plz. unless you are looking for trouble.

haha i said it'd be cool is all dudes. and you can't deny that. Just a fun prospect to research.

Honda 2000 engines cannot be beat they are the superior engine.

Shady seems to be the only one with a straight up answer

Hope your joking or being sarcastic bc my bf's SI can take those anyday lol

Stock for stock?

Please continue this epic tale.

Nah man, it probably has a cold air intake I bet. SI's with intakes are beasts.

Cavalier all the way:

That is so awesome. I am pretty sure that reporter was trolling him. That system and custom gauges are out of this world.

I can't find the news clip of the reporter holding the short ram intake and saying that it turns the family car into a missile of death. :(

ROFL missile of death.

Hope your joking or being sarcastic. :sad:

That report is 5 yrs old.

How embarrassing... This guy lives in Ontario... Always a good laugh though.

omg rofllllllLLLL !

lol !

Cavalier ... omg intake exhaust header catback gauges CUSTOM GAUGES

he forgot naawWWWWwzz ? how could he ... FAILED!

I need to get a Geo Metro ... with the said mods, I can take a F430 Challenge in a twisties !

I haven't found his "body kit" yet.... looks like a stock body to me. Er... I mean "spectacular"

These so called humourous replies arent helping the OP.

Do you have anything to contribute?

Any solutions for him?

Your post is as useless as our commentary good day sir.

probably a blown coil, happened to me on the interstate as well

shady always has the answers.

Good grief
<face palm>

It just had to be a Canadian interview, sigh

If you stopped checking out how good you think you are, you would see I did suggest useful advice, unfortunately the OP thinks the motor has to be running to do a comp test. But I do appreciate the use of Sir. Hvala vam puno

the OP has purchased a S2000 and has proceeded to brutally beat any Mazda RX8 in a straight line in the hopes that its one of us....

im also curious as to how the exam went?

It's already been addressed. Without more info there is nothing we can do. So unless your noob self has any valid input then why don't you go back to reading the new owners thread.

haha some funny responses on here. I have a tiny update. Been incredibly busy lately and my mechanic has been backed up for weeks so I'm finally getting my car in on Monday to see what's up. I did plug in my Cobb AP the other day to check the PCM codes and it threw a catalyst code which is expected because I have a catless midpipe AND it has a code that says, "P0301: Cylinder 1 Misfire Detected." So i'm guessing it's a bad coil or perhaps a spark? Any thoughts now that you have a little bit of info? Thanks everybody!

UPDATE. Hello people who probably don't really care! I have an update for you. Turned out i blew an apex seal hard. Sent my motor down to Pettit Racing for a rebuild. Cam was impressed when he saw the inside of the motor because he said it was so torn up it looked like he did it himself haha. 99% needed to be rebuilt or replaced. Cam is assembling it tonight so hopefully i have my car back in a couple of weeks! Getting real tired of driving the STI....it's too damn bumpy but that effer hauls balls haha. It just doesn't have the class of O'l Rexy. SO i did in fact blow the motor and will have a 99% brand new engine, lightweight flywheel from Pettit and a new racing clutch as well. Very excited to turn the key in a couple weeks. Now ya know i guess!

now you just need to figure out why it blew in the first place, to keep it from happening again.

Figuring out why if blew could be super easy, BUT it normally is dam near impossible! could have been a number of things, a little ccarbon build up, running cheap synthetics with high additives, bad coils before the BHR kit was installed, front bearing starting to wear and causing flex in the engine, etc... but im sure the builders could tell better by actually having the engine in hand. Make sure you run a QUALITY premix such as idemitsu premix, or any other JASO and not some cheap tc-w3. I would also flush your oil coolers and the radiator. Might also wanna change the clutch out too depending how many miles you have on it lol

my mechanic think the failure was caused by the sparks/ignition. I had a BHR ignition and new sparks but they think that the leading and trailing sparks were put in wrong and that caused the fail. I don't really know if that was it but it really doesn't matter anyways because this is essentially a brand new motor now. and yeah i'm having a new clutch put in too haha.

yea that would do it! lmfao

Actually, trading the leading and trailing spark plugs won't cause this kind of problem, and even most spark plug wire mixups are also non-harmful. There are a few combinations of wire mixups which could be damaging, but they would become damaging immediately, not sometime down the road.

thats kinda what i thought myself. I figured if it was going to cause that kind of damage it'd do it pretty quickly not over a year later....So i don't really know what caused it haha i'm just glad it's all fixed now!

The reason this can be caused later on down the road is because o carbon build up. If the spark timing and range were to change to far from stock it would cause a more incomplete burn of the mixture in the chamber resulting in a carbon build up. Over time as more and more carbon builds up ether pieces break apart or it can dislodge seals or break them. or i have also seen where the two rotors were more then a few ounces apart and over time it would wear on the bearings causing a weir wear pattern and in turn would cause the rotors to dig into the side housing blowing out the corner seals and breaking the tips of the apex seals. i have seen three or four engines like that, now obviously this wasn't what happened in your engine so sorry for the rambling on :dunno: