did a "race" against this ricer clown at school. It was an 89 CRX. he said it had a B16 motor and ran 11.98's. I laughed in his face, and we lined up at 2 AM. Me in the delta, him in this overgrown excuse for a farting beetle with a thyroid problem. Look at the cross light, it turns red, I bring the revs up to 1500 against the converter. He revs it up ready to dump the clutch. all of a sudden, I hear a BOOM and see flames shoot out of the grille. what happened? good question, I didn't stick around.

 

What do you mean you didn't stick around long enough to see? You left your vehicle there? You smoked him?

 

good question.

 

Back in 1973 I was driving from Mojave, Ca. to Bakersfield in my 58 dodge pickup when I noticed that the oil pressure was down to 6 p.s.i. Thought I could make. Hell, it was only 10 miles to go. Was I wrong. I started hearing a slight tappet sound. Then it got much louder. Bam. Put a rod through the corner of the block and actually had the corner of the block fall on the highway. Tons of smoke. Kinda like a nascar blowin engine. Now that I think about it, it did look kinda cool.

 

sounds like that crx hit the juice to soon. any one ever see what happens to pistons in a nitro motor. complete melt down. i have a few peices of blown motor all over as keep sakes. from one a 300 in line, 2 lubes of the camshaft and the rod that took it out.
we had a vw in the shop not long ago that had a piston in the middle of the radiator core and a big hole in the front of the block. the kid said what do you mean you won't warrenty my motor. like daaaaa.

 

I dont have any car stories, but I do have a couple of tractor ones...

Back when I was in high school I was running my dad's WD-45 down the road with a sickle bar mower in tow. I was running at full throttle in high gear when one of the timing counterweights just decided to let go. The tractor lurched ahead with so much force that I almost fell off the back of the tractor even though I had both hands on the wheel!

I was able to limp it home after I got the tractor under control, which was a miracle in it-self considering the very loose steering.

Awhile back my Father just got a new "very used" 830 Case diesel tractor with one of those cheesy cabs on it. When we bought it we knew that we would have to do some work to it, but nothing major.

This tractor uses a oil-bath as its air filter. What was funny was that the previous owner had made a sealing disk for the fresh air intake, replaced the dustbowl with a ring type airfilter, and emptied the oil from the oil bath pan. Since this didn't make sense to me at the time, I replaced the filter with a new dust bowl, and filled up the oil bath with the proper amount of oil. Notice that I don't mention removing the sealing disk.....

So I jump into the cab and turn it over, and it fires right up. However, I notice that somethings very wrong as the exhaust is really spewing out the smoke, and RPMs are rising very quickly with me moving the throttle!

So I imediately cut the fuel (only way to kill that type of diesel) and the motor is still running, but now the Tach is pegged, plus the motor is making a god awful scream, and the exhaust is starting to get a glow to it! I decided that it was definately time to get the heck out of that cab (tractors don't have a hood or a firewall to protect you), and in my hurry, I got hung up on the door and just decided to rip my jeans off at the leg rather than un-hook them.

That tractor ran like that for 10 min and then died. It took 20 min for the smoke to clear in our farm yard! The exhaust stack was a cherry red color bordering on white! I thought for sure that it would grenade with a shower of metal parts!

The motor had drawn all that oil from the oil bath and sucked it into the motor because the previous owner had removed the baffle in side the aircleaner, and my leaving the sealing disk in on accident.

I thought for sure that I would be executed on site by my Father as we had only had this tractor for 2 days. I was simply honest and told him exactly what happend...he just shrugged and said "At least we know it runs!" and jumped back in his truck!

That was 10 years ago, and the tractor still runs to this day!

 

We've got a few tractor stories too, not quite as dramatic though. The worst I can think of now is when one of the connecting rods in our Ford TW-20 split right down the middle for no real reason. Hairline fracture I guess. The other time that comes to mind was when I was spreading manure with our 7700. About halfway down the field BAM, its just flat out stopped. It turns out a chunk of something broke off in the rear end and found its way into the PTO gears. I still can't believe it didn't break anything else.

 

Our Fire Department had a 79 GMC Fire / Rescue truck blow a 427 once. Mechanics sort of left a few parts in a cylinder after replacing the head gaskets. When it turned over it shattered the cylider, cracked the bore and pulverized part of the head. Luckily, the mechanics paid for that one... that was a several thousand dollar 'oops'. That was the last time they touched the truck. We billed them for the motor replacement.

 

About 5 years ago I had a friend with a toyota pick up try to blow his 22re. he sat in his driveway with the pedal floored....as far as I know he's still sittin' there...

 

I read about a race team that had an old Dodge truck for their hauler. The 440 was worn out so they dropped in another one and then built a frame out of 2X4s to hold the old one, drained out the oil and fired it up with a long string attached to the throttle. No cooling system, either. It ran for about 1/2 hour till it seized up, after it cooled off it fired right up again.

Many years ago I worked for a truck rental company (some of you may remember JarTran truck rentals). My boss had an old Baja Bug that someone had swiped the engine out of, I had a VW 1200cc 40 horse laying around. He bought it from me and I installed it in the Baja, and we put a swing-up towbar on the front. We would use it for road trips when we needed to pick up trucks from other dealers to fill our reservations. 3 or 4 of us would pile in and go to Eureka or Chico (from Redding, Ca.) and tow the Bug back behind one of the trucks. Well, we had this idiot who started to hang around the lot, and he talked my boss into letting him go on a road trip to Chico one evening. When they got there he insisted on driving the truck towing the Bug, as he'd never towed anything before and wanted to see what it was like. My boss gave in, as this guy could be really obnoxious and that was the quickest way to get him to shut up.
My boss told him to make sure the Bug was in neutral and to take it easy. The moron said, "Yeah sure, no problem," jumped in the truck and took off. My boss followed him down the freeway at 70 mph, honking and flashing his lights to try and get the guy to pull over, as he could see the little 1200 just buzzing like crazy back there. The moron never looked back, his first clue was when the 1200 scattered and locked up, causing the Bug to fishtail back and forth behind the van. My boss showed me the remains the next day. The idiot's attitude? It was the boss's car, HE should have made sure it was out of gear, hell no he wasn't gonna pay for it. At least he stopped hanging around so we figured it was worth it. Always wondered how many RPMs a VW will turn in 1st gear at 70 mph...Too many, I can tell you that! -TD

 

My latest can be seen in my gallery, and is a convincing arguement for using one piece stainless valves.
I once blew a Briggs twin in a lawn tractor, one of the rods shattered, I wound up running it on one cyl for the rest of the summer.
I used to have a 1984 Mazda B2000 pickup, not a bad little truck. It had a majorly stretched timing chain, though, and the timing would wander so bad it wouldn't hold a constant rpm. I finally got sick of the truck, it kept stalling on me, so I decided to kill it. Pulled in the driveway, put it in neutral, set the parking brake, and stood on the gas. It revved up to about 5k, choked down to about 1500, revved up again, choked again, then finally got up and went. It probably hit 6k, and then banged hard. Nothing came out, but the engine locked solid.
I have been a paticipant in intentional engine eliminations before, also. I was working at a dealership, and this S10 Blazer came in with a loud rod knock. Pulled the pan, the bearing were wasted, but the warranty wouldn't pay unless the engine was actually blown. So, put the rods back together, back the truck out of the bay, and drive around to the back of the shop- still no oil pan on the thing. Put it in park, stomp the gas, and waited about 10 second. The thing revved up to the limiter, held there for a few seconds, then it started squeaking, chirping, griding, and making all sorts of bizzare noises, before violently chucking a rod. The engine immedietely stopped, ripped apart the driver's side motor mount, buried the middle part of the rod about 4" into the pavement, and caught fire. The best part is I got paid to do that.

 

some guys have all the fun!!

 

Off topic a little but this brought back a great memory from '82...

My Uncle asked me to tow his bug home because the fuel pump was bad. He had also killed the battery trying to start it. So we borrowed a cousins truck and we hooked up the dead bug and I towed it for him the 30 miles from Meridian to Clarke County Mississippi. We stopped on the way, got the fuel pump and when we got to his place he put in the pump. I was getting the jumper cables when he jumped in and fired her right up. I was stumped....

He then told me he kept the bug in gear the entire trip back. And all along I thought the Chebby just couldn't pull the little car. Not sure what gear he used but it spun the engine enough to recharge the battery.

 

What he meant was, he didnt stick around!
He didnt hang around to see what happen to his car.
He just took off... like a jerk. (probably laughing all the way to the next stop light)