Quote:
Future Goals
Right now I'm not exactly sure where I want to take this build. It's been a fantastic HDPE/DD, and over the last 5 events the only money I've spent has been on gas, oil, and one set of rear pads.
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My engine read that and decided to punish me for my arrogance. After 169,925 miles, it appears that my rod bearings have disintegrated. I was at my first track weekend of the season and Saturday was VIR North. After equipping a 3.73 wavetrac LSD in the offseason, the car was hooked up and more stable than ever in the corners. I PR’d my north course lap time by 3+ seconds, but there was no way to know how much of that was accountable to the LSD.
I was stoked to conduct the real test on VIR Full the next day, but the morning session had other plans. On my first flying lap, I felt the motor hiccup while going through the climbing esses. I made it through the brake zone at roller coaster and got back on the power, only for nothing to happen. Quickly realizing something was wrong, I limped into the pits and drove around. I suspected an electrical problem as my car battery was weak that morning, but a faint knocking sound was present. A friend placed a screwdriver to the oil pan, and without hearing anything we assumed it was an alternator issue.
I left the car to instruct for the rest of the day, making plans to jump and head home afterwards. Well 5pm rolled around, and after jumping it was clear the sound had gotten a whole lot worse. At this point I wanted to get away from the track before the gates closed to diagnose in a nearby parking lot. I made it to Mille’s pizza around a mile away, before turning off the car and calling AAA.
MISTAKE #1. I forgot that Millie’s is just over the North Carolina border, and by just I mean j-u-s-t. When you call AAA, only some of their operators are licensed to operate across multiple state lines. This means it takes significantly longer to get help. I think no problem, I can jump start the car and get it back into VA before calling again.
MISTAKE #2. Shit. We don’t have jumper cables. In the paddock we were relying on courteous neighbors and borrowing theirs. Problem is it’s now 7:00pm and people have cleared out. My buddy rushes back and borrows jumpers from the last crew in the paddock. He gets back, and the car won’t crank. Not even a little.
We bite the bullet, and decide my buddy will run the jumpers back so that crew can leave, and then he’ll drive into town, grab a battery plus jumpers, and see if we can get the car started.
An hour later he gets back, and again the jumpers do nothing. I swap in the battery, and boom she fires right up. I’m still optimistic at this point that I’m only dealing with a bad alternator. I limp the car into town and park at an Advance.
MISTAKE #3. I’m no pro mechanic, which made me blindly believe all the posts I read online about failing accessories sounding like rod knock. What I should have done is checked like they told me to by taking off the accessory belt. If you run the motor without the accessory belt, it isolates the problem to the engine. This procedure takes all of 15 minutes to do, but I was too lazy in the paddock. So at 9pm in that advance parking lot, I took the belt off and the knock sound did not go away. Checked the oil filter, all kinds of glitter in each of the folds.
Feeling like an idiot, I once again called AAA who this time gave me an ETA of an hour. My buddy and I pull out our camping chairs and wait until 10:30pm, upon which they call and say no one can make it until the next morning. AWESOME.
I write a quick note on the glass, hop in my buddies car and we drive the 2.5 hours back home. I think to myself, let me leave my ringer on just in case someone tries to reach me. At 1am I get a call from a tow truck driver who has my car, and at 4am it’s dropped off on my street. We push it in the driveway where it’s sitting now.
It’s been around a month and I’ve had time to gather a few quotes. A straight engine replacement is 20 hours of labor, and with maintenance items, oil pan baffle, clutch, flywheel, and swapping over headers + intake it balloons to 35. At $150 an hour that looks like $5k in labor alone.
I’m not built like that, and after watching a couple Youtube videos I’ve decided I can perform the swap myself. I’ll pick up a junkyard motor for around $1k, and after some FCP euro credits my total should be around $3800. This includes me sneaking in a few timely upgrades such as a new clutch, lightweight flywheel, and front control arms with monoballs.
Unfortunately for progress, I had a shoulder and chest surgery last week which will prevent me from getting started until June at the earliest. Good news is that gives me plenty of time to fund the work!