Well this certainly isn’t how we planned it. A couple of weeks back, Chad introduced his big block powered Nova that he called “Yang”. The name comes from the whole “Yin and Yang” philosophical thing with the Nova that my dad, Bob drag races here in New England. The two cars are similar but different in many ways although they both run into the single digits at the digs. Actually, in the case of my dad’s car, it ran into the single digits before last weekend. Chad’s car has the rat motor whereas pop’s has a 406ci small block.
Anyway, pop’s car was working good during a test session a couple weeks back and he was running time trials at an actual bracket race when things got ugly at about 7,000 RPM last weekend. Unfortunately, when things get ugly at that engine speed, the damage happens before even the swiftest of efforts to stop it take place.
In no particular order, the pin retainin the roller tip of a rocker arm failed, a valve spring broke, and when that happend the intake valve got all up in the piston’s business. Because this was an alky motor running massive amounts of compression (like 15:1) the head of the valve was really pulverized, to the point of it literally not being there any more. All that’s left is a valve stem that looks like a piece of spaghetti. The nice Dart Pro 1 head is deeee-stroyed.
The good news is that the oil is still clean, and there is no sign of coolant in it, so the block, which is also a Dart piece, may be relatively unscathed…we hope. The oil filter had some big chuncks of aluminum in it which creeped us out.
We’re going to help tear the rest of the motor down on Friday night and we’ll update you on the bottom end next week. The plan at this point is to pull the whole thing apart, have the block checked, and if it is deemed OK, replace the parts that need to be replaced and hit the track. If it is FUBAR city, there may be more cubic inches coming to a blog near you.
Here’s the top end wreckage:
I know how your pop feels, Brian. I had a KB piston turn to dust because of bad job pressing the pin in a couple months ago. Unfortunately, I wasn’t as lucky on the block, my 408 small block was toast. I had to have the radiator fluched to get the small pieces of aluminum out of it. The biggest piece I found was about the size of my little finger.
Uggh! I did that a few years back.
Fix it Faster.
Ouch. I’m always amazed how the piston hangs together under that beating, particularly when the compression is up so high, as well as how it doesn’t grind the engine to a halt in a hurry.
Wow thats a tight quinch,when you can read the pistons part number on the head.
Brian – please pass my condolences on to your Pop – total major bummer – especially right at the start of the season! Sure hope the block is not toast – looks like the pieces got into several pistons – that’s a bummer…. perhaps it’s time for a larger bore and a few more cubes?
Certainly a pin in the checkbook!
Geesh Bob,
I’d wondered what happened to you when I didn’t see any point registered for Sunday. The last i saw you was when you were stopped by my pit in case you needed a jump box.
In any case, good luck getting the Never Enough Nova back to working order… it does some of the nicest wheelies at the track!
Lance