Unexplained ENGINE FAILURE on the '01

[HoustonGT]

Well, I hope Thanksgiving was good fo all of you because let's just say mine consisted of oil and metal....
I let my very close friend borrow the Cobra in the morning to make a quick trip to his house and back before everyone gathered for the Thanksgiving feast. Caught a ride with my sister to my aunt's house and told him to met us there and about 5 minutes out he calls me and asks if its normal for my car to smoke occassionally and smell like oil....NO ITS NOT . Well he tries to baby it the rest of the way and as he pulls up in front of her house i see faint smoke from under the hood of the car and coming out of the driver's side fender , so he immediately shuts the car off and pops the hood.

As I open the hood, the first thing i notice is the pool of oil under the car and the trail of it on the road of where he made the turn. Then as i panic i notice something worse....The driver's side valve cover is cracked COMPLETELY in half right above the driver's side cam gear. My heart sinks and i dont know whats wrong, but later we notice that the bolt that holds the cam gear in place is missing and notice scarring on the valve cover peice that broke off and on some parts of the timing over. There are little peices that look like copper shavings down by the chain and in a few other spots but i dont know if thats parts of the bolt. My guess is after it broke off the chain caught it, and shot it up against the valve cover breaking it clean in half.
Does anyone know what would cause the bolt to shear off in half like that? I see no real other damage and plan to pull the timing cover and remaining valve cover off tomorrow.
Could i be lucky enough to where it bolt hit and then fell to the bottom and is simply laying in the oil pan? As of right now the bolt has to be replaced and so does the valve cover, but the extent of the damage is unknown for that.
I plan on contacting Ford and Svt to let them know of the situation since this car has never been taken apart and a damn bolt should not break in half especially in a hand-assembled motor in hopes that they can do something about it.

Here are some pre-limenary pictures:

 

[AntiHeightPunk]

none o dem pics werked
did ur boy ream on it?
oil levels?

 

[paintless302]

man id woop that friends ass if i was you..... yea the car started smokin as i drove on the freeway around 80mph prob like 2500rpm. i slowed down thinking someone else in front of my was burnin oil.. but alas, it was mikes car. From the beginning to end the car was probably driven a good 2 miles after the damage happened.

the only reason i drove the car and didnt just shut it off was because this has happened before in mikes car when the tranny oil was spilling out on to the headers and i thought this was the same issue. here are some pics we snapped with the phone.

 

[HoustonGT]

Oil level was good. Always changed the oil on time and checked it often too. Was changed just about 3 weeks ago and funny thing is there were no issues at all with the car. It just ran a [email protected] on November 15th.

 

[sur_real1]

Whoa, wow... I've never seen that happen before.

 

[paintless302]

none o dem pics werked
did ur boy ream on it?
oil levels?

no i didnt 'ream on it'. we have driven each others cars plenty of times and know the time, money, and tears that are put into them. i would never abuse mikes car just like he would never do the same if/when he drives my fox. i might of gotten on it a few times during the trip but i wasnt driving it like i wanted to go home on a trailer, a was def out of it when the damage happened on the freeway.

 

[SlowSVT]

Was the gear still turning the cam? I guess it must have because the car would hardly run plus all the bent valves that buys you.

Perhaps the cam drive sprocket bolt was over torqued causing stress fractures which would eventually propagate thru the bolt until it broke off. Even properly torqued bolts have been known to break due to a stress fracture starting somewhere (the root of the threads make for a nice stress riser). Look at the sheered-off end of the bolt. If it looks like a bunch of smooth tiny concentric rings on the outside like a cut tree stump with the center torn away then it started as a stress fracture.

If the end of the bolt looks like it was torn away that would be a sudden failure which usually requires an "event" for that to occur.

I wonder if any of those metal filing made their way to your oil pump since the car was driven a distance before it was shut down. I would be very suspicious of damage elsewhere that will come back to haunt you :cuss:

Funny how a car like a Cobra always seems to break when you lend it to a friend :nonono: Bad Karma or maybe something else. Hope it doesn't turn out too expensive.

 

[SlowSVT]

no i didnt 'ream on it'. we have driven each others cars plenty of times and know the time, money, and tears that are put into them. i would never abuse mikes car just like he would never do the same if/when he drives my fox. i might of gotten on it a few times during the trip but i wasnt driving it like i wanted to go home on a trailer, a was def out of it when the damage happened on the freeway.

I would have a hard time believing the driver could be responsible for a sheered cam bolt. Now if the input shaft or axle snapped we would have words. I hate using other peoples stuff just for this reason.

I blame the Chinese guy melting old computer chassis and turning them into OEM engine fasteners for the Ford Motor Company :nono:

 

[Un4GivN]

There's been several cam bolt failures on here in the past few months.

 

[olgreydog7]

Damn, you have an 01. I was just getting ready to sell you some ARP cam bolts, but they don't fit 01s.

At the very least, I'd say pull your motor, pull the heads and cams, check your valves, clean everything, pull the oil pan and clean it, replace the oil pump and the oil cooler if you find shavings in the oil pan. You'll never get them all out otherwise. You could/should even do a bottom end on the motor. Pop the caps and swap out all the bearings. Or, if you are like me, use it as an excuse to get a shortblock. I've heard that Houston Performance has built good motors, but I've never had one built, that's just what I've heard from a couple guys on the Corral.

I doubt Ford will do anything. Sometimes parts fail, even with good QA sometimes it just happens. Plus, it's a 7 year old car, maybe if it was new they would, but not now. Unless you have some crazy extended warranty.

 

[Nazman]

Broken cam bolt. They are quite of them failures out there, me being one of them. It was the exahust cam bolt that failed.

I tell you that you have pretty much all 32v bent, and your chains, timing wheel, oil pump, tensioners and may be even the cranksnout could be destroyed.

Mine happend at 7000RPMs so, I dont know how yours happend.

Keep us posted.

Naz

 

[Black*Death]

I would have a hard time believing the driver could be responsible for a sheered cam bolt. Now if the input shaft or axle snapped we would have words. I hate using other peoples stuff just for this reason.

I blame the Chinese guy melting old computer chassis and turning them into OEM engine fasteners for the Ford Motor Company :nono:

LOL Chinese stuff! Either breaks or poisons you

 

[JohnnysCobra]

Mine happend at 7000RPMs so, I dont know how yours happend.

Naz

I bet that sucked!

 

[V6&V8SHO]

What causes a cam bolt to go?

 

[realitygt]

Broken cam bolt. They are quite of them failures out there, me being one of them. It was the exahust cam bolt that failed.

I tell you that you have pretty much all 32v bent, and your chains, timing wheel, oil pump, tensioners and may be even the cranksnout could be destroyed.

Mine happend at 7000RPMs so, I dont know how yours happend.

Keep us posted.

Naz

i don't think it would have ran if all those things were wrong with it.

did just the head of the bolt come off and the gear stayed bolted to the cam? cause that's what it looks like

 

[HoustonGT]

i don't think it would have ran if all those things were wrong with it.

did just the head of the bolt come off and the gear stayed bolted to the cam? cause that's what it looks like

Yea pretty much. The gear is still solidly in place and the chain has plenty of tension in it. Seems like everything seems fine for now but im gonna have to tear everything apart to make sure that it really is because i dont plan on blowing the motor a few days after getting the car back up and running.

 

[brkntrxn]

This is at least the third cam bolt to break around here in the last couple of months.

 

[kcpgt2002]

I can bet oyu money he was beating on it and shifted into lets say 2nd rather than 4th. (Happened to a buddy of mine)
I hope you friend has deep pockets

 

[realitygt]

so was paintless302 the friend?

 

[olgreydog7]

This is at least the third cam bolt to break around here in the last couple of months.

Don't count mine, I was torquing it when it happened

This really sucks, who pays for it? I felt horrible cause the tranny on my room mates 911 crapped out while I was driving it. It needed a rebuild anyway, but I still felt terrible.