Here is what an ugly night at the track looks like

ShelbyGT5HUN · Aug 24, 2020

If the bolt came loose, all that's keeping the pulley locked to the crank is that little keyway. It definitely looks like it slipped and sheared the keyway.

My guess is bolt loosened, pulley sheared the keyway. Lots of people run your blower set up, and unless it doesn't get posted here, I can't remember anyone breaking a snout, yet alone with this set up at these power levels?

PM-Performance · Aug 24, 2020

I don’t think everyone posts here. If they did, I would have known this was a common issue. Remember too, the amount of people on here that actually race their car and run it hard is a small population. My guess is the guys that do have experienced this. Most of the guys I read this happening to weren’t even in boost when it happened. I have read about guys being stock and breaking them too now that I think about it.
While this could have happened, who knows.
I still find it odd there was no locktite on the bolt. I would assume something like that would have it? Maybe not.

CobraSam · Aug 24, 2020

I recently rebuilt and put an ATI super damper on. I’m almost positive, per their instructions, the recommended Loctite on all the bolts. Crank, pulley, etc. I know we used LocTite on all of them. Absolutely!!

Catmonkey · Aug 24, 2020

These are really long stroke engines and there are a lot of crankshaft harmonics involved. Another consideration is to NEVER reuse a torque-to-yield bolt. I'm not saying that's the issue here, but I have removed my balancer on a few occasions and the bolts were tight. I don't ever recall using locktite. I always replaced mine with new hardware. I'm now using the Kinetik crank saver. After seeing their cutaway, the crank bolt is largely unsupported outside of what threads into the crankshaft. The oil pump gears are also impaled through the crank snout. Do you know if this engine has stock gears or billet gears? I'd be curious to see how they fared though the carnage.

BJ is the only one I recall had an issue with an ATI balancer, but his hub cracked and it ate up the crank keyway. I think he detected some imbalance in the engine and found the problem before anything broke. The balancers can and do need to be rebuilt periodically. Any idea how old this particular balancer was? Mine's 7 years old now. It's something I need to keep on the radar.

I'm not all that confident you're going to find a definitive answer to the exact cause of this, but if you have the ability to take pics or video of some of the broken components once it's apart, I'd like to see them.

CobraSam · Aug 24, 2020

Catmonkey said:
These are really long stroke engines and there are a lot of crankshaft harmonics involved. Another consideration is to NEVER reuse a torque-to-yield bolt. I'm not saying that's the issue here, but I have removed my balancer on a few occasions and the bolts were tight. I don't ever recall using locktite. I always replaced mine with new hardware. I'm now using the Kinetik crank saver. After seeing their cutaway, the crank bolt is largely unsupported outside of what threads into the crankshaft. The oil pump gears are also impaled through the crank snout. Do you know if this engine has stock gears or billet gears? I'd be curious to see how they fared though the carnage.

BJ is the only one I recall had an issue with an ATI balancer, but his hub cracked and it ate up the crank keyway. I think he detected some imbalance in the engine and found the problem before anything broke. The balancers can and do need to be rebuilt periodically. Any idea how old this particular balancer was? Mine's 7 years old now. It's something I need to keep on the radar.

I'm not all that confident you're going to find a definitive answer to the exact cause of this, but if you have the ability to take pics or video of some of the broken components once it's apart, I'd like to see them.

Good point about TTY bolts. Definitely never cheap out and try to reuse them. I remember ATI’s directions making that very clear. Plus I remember when I tried saving some $ and trying to reuse TTY head bolts on an Foxbody when I was younger. Didn’t work out too well, lol. I generally like to buy all new hardware during any type of rebuild. I use ARP for about everything, which is probably overkill, but hey.

69b302 · Aug 24, 2020

There is supposed to be an interference fit to the balancer, hence why a puller is needed to remove. If you ever have a balancer that comes right off, after the bolt is removed, you have issues.

Race Red Boss · Aug 24, 2020

Sorry OP, that really stinks. Hopefully you find a good shop that can fix the motor proper and get you back on the road sooner rather than later.

rotor_powerd · Aug 25, 2020

PM-Performance said:
You really think the crank is ok? I can literally move it all around in every direction currently.

I would expect to see a lot of carnage when you open it up

PM-Performance · Aug 25, 2020

For anyone that cares to see updates of the carnage

PM-Performance · Aug 25, 2020

CobraSam said:
I recently rebuilt and put an ATI super damper on. I’m almost positive, per their instructions, the recommended Loctite on all the bolts. Crank, pulley, etc. I know we used LocTite on all of them. Absolutely!!

Yea , that sounds accurate to me. I did not install this, but that did not look right to me.

PM-Performance · Aug 25, 2020

Catmonkey said:
These are really long stroke engines and there are a lot of crankshaft harmonics involved. Another consideration is to NEVER reuse a torque-to-yield bolt. I'm not saying that's the issue here, but I have removed my balancer on a few occasions and the bolts were tight. I don't ever recall using locktite. I always replaced mine with new hardware. I'm now using the Kinetik crank saver. After seeing their cutaway, the crank bolt is largely unsupported outside of what threads into the crankshaft. The oil pump gears are also impaled through the crank snout. Do you know if this engine has stock gears or billet gears? I'd be curious to see how they fared though the carnage.

BJ is the only one I recall had an issue with an ATI balancer, but his hub cracked and it ate up the crank keyway. I think he detected some imbalance in the engine and found the problem before anything broke. The balancers can and do need to be rebuilt periodically. Any idea how old this particular balancer was? Mine's 7 years old now. It's something I need to keep on the radar.

I'm not all that confident you're going to find a definitive answer to the exact cause of this, but if you have the ability to take pics or video of some of the broken components once it's apart, I'd like to see them.

So BJ called me the other day and we talked a bit and told me his experience.
I will deff be getting a crank saver after seeing their video of the slop in the crank. That is wild to me they let that fly!
I was told by Brenspeed it had billet gears of some sort. Getting info from that has been rough. My balancer was put on right before I got the car, so its about 2 years old and maybe 5k miles of my driving on it. Not sure what the hub looks like yet. I may try to tear into it more on my own as I get time and will post more data as I have it.
There was most certainly no imbalance. I have been running this car and its been solid up until this happened.

One thing I do wonder now is if maybe belt tension from that ARS tensioner didn't help things? Addition of the RXT didnt help things? I mean there are alot of SOLID points in this car.

SteveWK · Aug 25, 2020

Sorry to read about your mishap. I have an ATI balancer and the bolt came loose on mine too. The only reason I caught it was because I temporarily put my cats back on with a stock tune and I started to have all kinds of problems with misfires. With the cats on and all four O2 sensors active, the ECU will determine if any misfires are severe enough to damage the cats and then shut fuel/ignition off to the offending cylinders. Idling with 2 or 3 cylinders not firing is quite noticeable. The loose crank pulley wasn't snug up against the crank position reluctor wheel which caused to it to wobble and then the ECU saw that as misfires. I have a crank saver bolt on now. I really should get it checked to see if is backing out at all.

PM-Performance · Aug 25, 2020

SteveWK said:
Sorry to read about your mishap. I have an ATI balancer and the bolt came loose on mine too. The only reason I caught it was because I temporarily put my cats back on with a stock tune and I started to have all kinds of problems with misfires. With the cats on and all four O2 sensors active, the ECU will determine if any misfires are severe enough to damage the cats and then shut fuel/ignition off to the offending cylinders. Idling with 2 or 3 cylinders not firing is quite noticeable. The loose crank pulley wasn't snug up against the crank position reluctor wheel which caused to it to wobble and then the ECU saw that as misfires. I have a crank saver bolt on now. I really should get it checked to see if is backing out at all.

thats wild! Yea I had NO indication prior of any issues. While I joke that the car is problematic, it really was running like a top.
I talked to Mike at L&M and went through everything I found and he said it sounds like it backed out. He doesn't want me removing anything else from the motor and wants everything so he can do a post mortem and make sure we know what caused it for certain.
He said best case shooting from the hip, $7-10K deak plus whatever I want to add to it like cams and the IC brick I planned. Its about double what I expected, but 1/2 of what it could possibly be. lol.
He said usually these are a crank and couple/few valves and rocker maybe here and there in about 80% of the cases of this happening. He also confirmed he does an upgraded bolt, but he said the Kinetic is the BEST option out there, so I will be using that this time around. He said he will deff double key my crank just for good measure anyway.

Catmonkey · Aug 25, 2020

I tried watching the 2nd video this morning, but between hurricane prep and a son in law in the hospital with covid, I wasn't at all successful. What little I picked up were the wear marks on the balancer bolt. Here's the crank snout cutaway from Kinetik's website.

Your bolt shows a lot wear about where the threads end, which to me would be an indication the bolt was loose before the crank broke. The larger hole diameter above the threads would let the bolt wobble. From the few snout pictues I've seen broken, it's typially straight across right at that necked down area. That might explain the wear marks slightly above deeper marks. I'm sure Raushner will figure it out.

You're shipping him the whole long block? If you didn't want to do that, Houston Engine and Balancing services could take care of the heads. That's who I had resurface my heads and perform a multi-angle valve job. They also installed my Manley valve springs while they had the head apart. Your money, your choice.

PM-Performance · Aug 25, 2020

Catmonkey said:
I tried watching the 2nd video this morning, but between hurricane prep and a son in law in the hospital with covid, I wasn't at all successful. What little I picked up were the wear marks on the balancer bolt. Here's the crank snout cutaway from Kinetik's website.

View attachment 1659093 View attachment 1659096

Your bolt shows a lot wear about where the threads end, which to me would be an indication the bolt was loose before the crank broke. The larger hole diameter above the threads would let the bolt wobble. From the few snout pictures I've seen broken, it's typially straight across right at that necked down area. That might explain the wear marks slightly above deeper marks. I'm sure Raushner will figure it out.

You're shipping him the whole long block? If you didn't want to do that, Houston Engine and Balancing services could take care of the heads. That's who I had resurface my heads and perform a multi-angle valve job. They also installed my Manley valve springs while they had the head apart. Your money, your choice.

Sorry to hear about what you got going on there. Stay safe man and prayers for your son in law.
L&M is like 45 mins from me. So I would just take the longblock to him. He wants everything in front of him if he does it for a post mortem. Its a serious fee for his work, but I guess its small in the grand scheme of things?

Yea, wow, looking at those pics side by side, I think you are on the money on your assessment. Still crazy if it worked loose, but I have had alot of people saying theirs had too. I wish I knew this crank saver existed before. i would have done one for good measure.

Thanks for your insight and responses. Again, stay safe man.

Catmonkey · Aug 25, 2020

I don't know why I thought you were in Texas, but if you're that close it makes sense to bring them the whole engine. Thanks for the well wishes. My son in law is in his early 40s, but he started having some breathing difficulties yesterday following his positive covid test early last week. He developed a lung infection that they're treating. He's not on a ventilator or in critical care, but just something else to deal with.

PM-Performance · Aug 25, 2020

Catmonkey said:
I don't know why I thought you were in Texas, but if you're that close it makes sense to bring them the whole engine. Thanks for the well wishes. My son in law is in his early 40s, but he started having some breathing difficulties yesterday following his positive covid test early last week. He developed a lung infection that they're treating. He's not on a ventilator or in critical care, but just something else to deal with.

Jesus man, I'm really sorry to hear. My prayers for him. Hopefully a quick recovery.

stkjock · Aug 26, 2020

PM-Performance said:
Sorry to hear about what you got going on there. Stay safe man and prayers for your son in law.
L&M is like 45 mins from me. So I would just take the longblock to him. He wants everything in front of him if he does it for a post mortem. Its a serious fee for his work, but I guess its small in the grand scheme of things?

Yea, wow, looking at those pics side by side, I think you are on the money on your assessment. Still crazy if it worked loose, but I have had alot of people saying theirs had too. I wish I knew this crank saver existed before. i would have done one for good measure.

Thanks for your insight and responses. Again, stay safe man.

I feel your pain, lost my motor three days after I got the car from sfdachi, Mike at L&M redid mine, fortunately for me at the time (2010) he still did the full R&R work, so I dropped the car there and he did all the work. Had the car now 10 years and 12K miles or so and I drive it hard, use a WOT box and the motor has been rock solid.

Mike is very good about figuring out what broke, on mine it was a fairly simple diagnose, broken oil pump gears, he found a few other little things that we improved on the rebuild.

Bottom line - I highly recommend his work, worth the money.

PM-Performance · Aug 26, 2020

Thanks for the info. I hear he is the best. I wish he did the R&R too, but I get that’s a lot of extra work.
Now I just gotta figure out how to fund it.
I’m tempted just to sell it for some dumb price as is.

Robert M · Sep 1, 2020

I am late to reading this tread, all three pages. Sorry to read about the damage, I know you have also been fighting heat, so this just adds to the frustration......

One thing I noticed a few years ago, wayyyy back when the Crank Saver was first introduced as a "Group Buy", the company Kinetik Motorsports that offered it for sale.......Back then that was the only GT500 related part that they offered, and even today, out of the hundreds of GT500 parts that "could be offered" for sale on their website, they only list three parts for the GT500, one of which is this crank saver.

It would seem to me that "out of all of the GT500 parts in the world" that could be offered and sold by them, that the crank saver is one of only three parts they offer, there def. must be a market/demand for that item, they saw it early and have offered this small (often overlooked) part for a long time when no one else did.....

2007-2014 GT500 – KINETIK MOTORSPORT

^^^^It's insurance value is worth every bit of $120, whenever the crank bolt is taken off, for what ever reason. In the link above, click on the Crank Saver info. and then the second image (image 2) and that will show a side-by-side of the oem bolt attachment in the crank snout and then the crank saver attachment.....

R

Here is what an ugly night at the track looks like

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