Spun a bearing, what do I do

[Stangcobra1122]

Hey everyone, not so happy to be posting this but oh well
Yesterday I spun a bearing on my new(ish) 01 cobra. I changed the oil today and 3qts came out of the 6qt pan. I then cut open my old oil filter and found metal flakes in it. All signs point to a spun bearing
Anyway I drove the car at least 30 miles with this bearing shot, I did not notice it until I got home from work, which brings my total time driving on this bearing to around 40 miles.
Anyway I figure I'm going to at least need a new bearing, and probably new crankshaft which, if I buy it from Tousley ford will be about $1200+labor.
But I'm wondering, what else could the bearing have damaged, if its the heads/rods/crank/bearings etc... would it make more sense to either rebuild the whole bottom end with forged parts, or swap in a new motor.
I have a very tight budget, so high priced suggestions are not the best, although I know everything will be expensive.
Let me know what all of you think would work for the least expensive and best rebuild I could do, that is if you think a rebuild is an option. I will need to pay labor costs at about $90 per hour, although that may decrease if I buy more hours.

 

[SVECobraR]

It all depends on your budget and what your goals are for the car. If you just want a dependable daily driver then find a good condition used engine and have that swapped in as that is definitely the cheapest, easiest, and fastest way to go.

 

[Stangcobra1122]

My budget is at most about $5500, but thats all money I've saved as college spending money(not my college fund, I'm stupid but not that stupid) so I want to avoid spending all of it.
Where could I find a decent engine to swap in? I'm guessing junkyards arent my best option

 

[Tay Cobra]

i spun my bearing on my 99 cobra and got a probe engine kit, got 550hp rated crank rods and piston and steel billit flywheel and did something things for around $3000

 

[gmsux]

Be sure to replace or delete the oil cooler as your driving needs dictate, it will trap the debris and then when you start your new motor the debris will get pushed right into it. No bueno.

 

[3Stang]

How did you spin it?

 

[fangs99]

You can save a lot of $$$$ if you do it your self.
The normal price to pull and install the engine goes $700-1000.
All the machine work to rebuild the engine including the heads is about $900-1000.
The crank might be salvagable. A good forged piston, pin, ring kit is around $1000.
MMR has forged I beams for $350-400 if I remember right.
You should be able to have a built short block w/ stock rebuilt heads for $4,000-4,500.
Oh, one last thing I highly recomend you spend you spend the extra $250 on ARP head studs.
Good luck OP.

 

[TBCobra]

Sorry to hear this man. You have some different options here.

1. Swap a mach 1, Lincoln aviator etc motor in

2. Rebuild bottom end with forged parts

3. Buy remand motor

You live in Cary I see, not too far from me, but you should check out Fastlane Motorsports in Benson.

I was quoted around 6k for a rebuild with forged internals and about $5,500 for a remand motor.

Any pics of your cobra, I may have seen it around.

 

[olgreydog7]

You may not need a crank. You will most likely need at least 1 new rod. When I spun a bearing I just polished the crank and replaced two rods and all the bearings and that was it. Unfortunatly, you can't know that until you tear it down. Hell, I think mine ended up costing less than $2000 in parts and labor, and mine is all forged stuff. It would be significantly less to swap in stock stuff. Plus, depending on the labor to polish the crank, you could get by cheaper getting a used crank. The stock crank is forged and a really good piece. I wanna say used cranks go for about $200-300.

 

[fangs99]

If you do a stock rebuild, it would be alot cheaper.

 

[aka paco]

seems like it would be cheaper/easiest just to get a used good block from another cobra, or a mach or lincoln

 

[01yellercobra]

Is it knocking or are you figuring it's spun because of the metal flakes in the oil?

 

[01cobravortech]

Sorry to hear OP. I had 2 rod bearing failures on 2 different motors on my 01 Cobra. I was curious...were you using 5w-20 oil? Running that car to redline a lot?

 

[Stangcobra1122]

It was knocking
No idea what oil the car was running but the previous owner had a tune where the powerband was shifted to 4krpm+ and it had sacrificed a lot of its low end torque for that, the car was definitely a track car and was probably over 4k rpm most of the time
I knew something was going to go wrong, now I just need to get it rebuilt and retuned on a decent street tune rather than some track bullshit

 

[01yellercobra]

seems like it would be cheaper/easiest just to get a used good block from another cobra, or a mach or lincoln

This might be your best option. It shouldn't take more then a weekend to swap motors.

 

[mike6466]

if you drove that long on that bearing screwed up your bearing is done. most likely that rod journal is messed up. possibly the crank but polishing will have to happen anyways.

it will be wise to go ahead and forge the bottom end. honestly its not that expensive. but then again i did all my own work. just bought parts at cost. my build come to little over 1400. trust me and others that have done there own work, its not that hard just gotta do everything by the book and make sure torques specs and measurements are a must.

your still gonna be spending the same amount of labor whether you forge or not so might as well spend the extra money and forge. not only will that open alot of doors for you but also make your motor stronger being stock and also last longer. thing about it in the long run

 

[Stangcobra1122]

So is there a thread somewhere for what parts I would need for a forged bottom end then?

 

[ShadesofGrey]

hmm

if you drove that long on that bearing screwed up your bearing is done. most likely that rod journal is messed up. possibly the crank but polishing will have to happen anyways.

it will be wise to go ahead and forge the bottom end. honestly its not that expensive. but then again i did all my own work. just bought parts at cost. my build come to little over 1400. trust me and others that have done there own work, its not that hard just gotta do everything by the book and make sure torques specs and measurements are a must.

your still gonna be spending the same amount of labor whether you forge or not so might as well spend the extra money and forge. not only will that open alot of doors for you but also make your motor stronger being stock and also last longer. thing about it in the long run

What power you making with that mod list?

 

[mike6466]

What power you making with that mod list?

low numbers. last time i had it dynoed i was leaking 80% of every valve. timing chain were stretched out. motor was crap. i was still able to get 299 and 302 ftlbs. after the rebuild it feel smuch much stronger. so id hope more then 310. but you gotta understand its low compression motor. gonna maybe go for twin turbo but keeping my options open and with this motor i can go any route.

 

[olgreydog7]

your still gonna be spending the same amount of labor whether you forge or not so might as well spend the extra money and forge. not only will that open alot of doors for you but also make your motor stronger being stock and also last longer. thing about it in the long run

Not if he only needs to swap one rod and a set of bearings. One stock rod is ALOT cheaper than 8 forged rods, 8 forged pistons, piston rings, boring the block, and full disassembly/reassembly. Alot less labor too.