So, I think we solved the mystery of the : “zero-oil pressure followed by shards of Metal in the oil” question!

I posted earlier about my new remanufactured motor that on it's second weekend lost all oil pressure and then filled the oil pan with aluminum shavings. Here is the conclusion of that event! (I am just doing this from memory, but have some notes on it as well, if we need more detail)

I went out at Thunderbolt this past weekend and first ran the test day:
First lap, things seemed OK, short shifting…warm up the fluids and tires…run up to redline as I cross finish line to begin the second lap. I’m thinking..”great! must have been a small issue, and we are good to go!”…then, On Lap 2, I note that the car won’t go to redline. It pulls to 5100-5200 RPM and starts to make some ugly noises and the car starts vibrating as it sticks at that RPM. I shift into the next gear and there is a loss of power. I baby it, pull into the pits and they make some adjustments to some wire connectors and they pop in new spark plug wires. Session #1 down.

Next session:
Zip out on the first lap, driving pretty easy and all seems well again. On Lap 2 again, I start pushing a little, and the car won’t go to redline. Then it starts misfiring badly. I pull into the pits and the #2 plug wire was not fully engaged….they pop it on and out I go. Problem solved!! (or is it?) Like the first session, the car will only pull to about 4900 RPM now. It runs pretty strong up to that RPM and then the angry noises start again, with the vibrations and the chugging. In the octopus, there is a section where you hold 3rd gear near redline for a few seconds. The engine would just go to 4900 and be very unhappy…so I pull in again. They still keep thinking it is electrical. But everything checks out OK on the electrical side…

Next session: (first qualifying session).
I go out, and now it won’t run to redline at all (not even when the engine is pretty cool) It is sounding worse. Downshifting into the higher RPM range sounds off. I pull into the pits again and describe the problem. They say to just go put out two more laps. I only make 1. In the Octopus again, in the area where you hold 3rd gear, KABOOM! Engine blows up.


So, anyway, they say the engine is toast.

Of course they try the old “someone thought they heard you miss a shift on that last lap” routine. I couldn’t help to laugh a little at that. Especially since this issue has been going on for 2 race weekends, and started when the oil pressure hit zero and the engine oil looked like it was full of glitter. Immediately after the oil pressure loss, we emptied the oil out and it looked like the night sky: black as midnight with lots of sparkles in it!! LOL!

Every since that moment, the engine has been having all sorts of running issues. Mind you, I did ask for a dyno run before this weekend, and it ran pretty strong up to about 5K… But then again, the major issues seem to start after the first lap and got progressively worse as time went on. I doubt a dyno run was able to recreate that scenario. My question is "where did all that aluminum glitter come from?" My guess is that it came from the heads. When the oil starved, the engine chugged due to friction, and the cams ate into the aluminum. The inspection of the oil confirmed that. So, I wasted about $3K messing with it and it blows anyway!

So now, it is back to SCCA to see what can be done. I don’t want another GEN2. These motors are held together with spit. I’d rather see if I can get some credit towards a GEN3 conversion and put this behind me. Ironically, I had the car for 3 seasons with a tired old motor and never had an issue!

I take exception to your comment in the last paragraph about "held together with spit. I, along with many others, have thousands of hours on these things...without issues. Yeah, they get tired, lsoe power, but metal in oil and actually blowing up is pretty rare. The team at Ents. with Shannon at the helm on engine rebuilds does a great job. Have no idea what caused your issues, but many of us have enjoyed years of racing on their work.
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steve kramer wrote:I take exception to your comment in the last paragraph about "held together with spit. I, along with many others, have thousands of hours on these things...without issues. Yeah, they get tired, lsoe power, but metal in oil and actually blowing up is pretty rare. The team at Ents. with Shannon at the helm on engine rebuilds does a great job. Have no idea what caused your issues, but many of us have enjoyed years of racing on their work.
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I apologize for the miswording! I don't mean to disparage the GEN2. And I don't want the thread to hinge on a GEN2 vs GEN3 debate...

What I meant was "they are NOW held together with spit".....and let me explain....

What I mean by that is that when you remanufacture engines...the same ones......over and over and over, with no new parts being made....the parts are not the same. The engines are not the same....the problems amplify. You are taking whatever is sitting around and may be 1 day away from failure, and putting it in an engine that you charge $5K for. It ain't gonna work for long.....

My last engine was a never-die workhorse. So, your point is correct!

It is my understanding that it went something like 8 seasons. It had all the "known issues", but they were just little $300 repairs... It finally blew up because a small hose popped off the oil filter canister and I was between 2 cars at the end of a straight. By the time I could get to the grass, the engine was already eating itself!

But things are getting thin now. If you have a conversation with a CSR over an issue, you will hear.."the B-wire always snaps....oh, the tube inlet always fills with oil and clogs...those coolant seams always split right there...yep, your engine did the X-failure thing....these engines tend to...."
and on and on and on. What they are now is a witches' brew of quirks. It is inevitable when you have a 30 year old engine and no internal refinements in the last 20 years. Add to that parts that may have been in a pinto in 1972, and have been remanufactured 5 times, and you have trouble!

The GEN3 should address this. Partly because there will be more supply of good parts for the GEN2 and less demand. SCCA made a good call on mixing the classes and moving gradually to the new motors. But if half a dozen people decide to NOT turn their GEN2 motors in for "Core exchange", they'd probably fold the motor division of SCCA Enterprise! Where would the parts come from!?!

On behalf of Shannon Snow, SCCA Enterprises Engine Dept.

John, in response to your public comments, I would like to clear up some misinformation. A remanufactured engine doesn’t contain used internal core parts that are replaceable. The core parts we use are the large parts like the block, head, crankshaft and camshaft. Pistons, piston rings, bearings, valves, valve guides, valve springs, and oil pumps are still available and are replaced on each remanufactured engine as well as “complete rebuilds.” A “top end” rebuild, as the name suggests, is a rebuilding of the cylinder head, which includes; new valves, valve guides, valve seats, valve stem seals, and springs.

You are correct that over time and many rebuilds certain things become unusable. For instance, if a cylinder head is milled too many times it gets thrown out, or if the camshaft to bearing journal clearance becomes too large, or if a block has been bored and sleeved and re-sleeved too many times and the deck is too short. We still have plenty of good cores in stock to service the Gen2 program for the foreseeable future. We invested quite a bit on having bearing inserts installed core cylinder heads. We still keep rebuild parts on the shelf.

The failure of your Reman isn’t the norm now. We still take pride in our Gen2 rebuilding procedure, and stand behind our work, as I told you in an email. We tried to diagnose it over the phone and with the help of a well-qualified CSR, and we got it wrong. Will we say, “Tough, that’s a risk you take with a race car?” absolutely not! That is a private discussion that we will have once we have the engine in our possession and figure out what happened in your specific case. And we understand moving to a GEN3 is a move toward the future of the class that makes sense for you at this point.

Disparaging the GEN2 program doesn’t help anyone wanting to stay in that class, we had close to 40 GEN2’s at the runoffs with 0 engine failures. We also encourage racers to buy up used engines as opposed to rebuilding theirs as an economic advantage to them. It’s not because we do not want to rebuild them, because quite frankly that takes money away from us, but it is to offer them an option they may not have thought of.

Shannon Snow

Mike D wrote:On behalf of Shannon Snow, SCCA Enterprises Engine Dept.

The failure of your Reman isn’t the norm now. We still take pride in our Gen2 rebuilding procedure, and stand behind our work, as I told you in an email. We tried to diagnose it over the phone and with the help of a well-qualified CSR, and we got it wrong. Will we say, “Tough, that’s a risk you take with a race car?” absolutely not! That is a private discussion that we will have once we have the engine in our possession and figure out what happened in your specific case. And we understand moving to a GEN3 is a move toward the future of the class that makes sense for you at this point.

Shannon Snow

... and this is a major reason why this class not only survives but thrives, sometimes even in the face of macro-economic challenges. Nowhere else in the racing world will you get this kind of response from an engine builder (at least that's my intuition).

Thank you the reply Mr. Davies-Snow

Well, I've not had any engine failures or mysterious issues with my Gen 2 engine. And after seeing the Enterprises response to this post, I'm confident that I'd be in good hands if I did. Glad to be in this class!

The internet being what it is, where those that are unhappy with anything are vocal and outnumber those that are satisfied and quiet. I suspect that we would have heard here about a lot more issues than we have . I believe Enterprise runs a very tight ship when it comes to customer relations and much prefers to deal with everything in house to make sure they have satisfied customers. Over the years I have had a few minor issues and one major one. They were always resolved in house. I know of no other racing business that stands behind their product more than Enterprise even though it's a rather informal "trust us" sort of agreement, rather than a written guarantee.

Bill Parenteau wrote:I believe Enterprise runs a very tight ship when it comes to customer relations and much prefers to deal with everything in house to make sure they have satisfied customers. Over the years I have had a few minor issues and one major one. They were always resolved in house. I know of no other racing business that stands behind their product more than Enterprise even though it's a rather informal "trust us" sort of agreement, rather than a written guarantee.

Plus one. I'm trying to think of any other race engine sales and service operation that has to serve and satisfy a customer base as large as ours (with two different engines, no less).

ditto Steve, Denny, Bill, Bob & Kurt.

Not sure of your engine history or if this is even remotely applicable, but FWIW, after
an engine meltdown and rebuild due to driver oversight, the rebuild failed due a delaminated
oil line. Hope this is helpful.