it's got a bit of a rod knock, but it should go another 20k mi
The Porsche 944 is a bit of a dice roll for Lemons racing. On one hand, it’s got a lot of the stuff that makes for a successful endurance car–good handling, strong brakes, enough power to stay out of its own way–but on the other, it’s relatively complex and potentially expensive and/or difficult to fix.
If you burn up the clutch in your Mustang, you can practically collect the change from your ashtray, make a trip to AutoZone, and have the car back on track before the session ends. If you suffer the same fate in your 944, you’re checking your credit limit, airmailing parts from Baden-Württemberg, and spending the weeks waiting for parts by disassembling the entire car just to get to the clutch.
That may be a slight exaggeration. Still, one Lemons team was fearful enough of Porsche-wrenching hell that they swapped a trusty Ford 302 V8 into their homemade wide-body 1987 Porsche 944, thus creating the formidable “Fordsche.”
Unfortunately for Team Fordsche, while Ford small-blocks are cheaper than Porsche engines, they aren’t always more reliable. After a few hours of racing, the team experienced one of the most comprehensive engine meltdowns ever witnessed in the series. It was a bit difficult to determine the exact sequence of the failure, but at some point the end of the crankshaft, still attached to the flywheel, exited the crankcase, taking much of the block and bellhousing with it. (The engine carnage also revealed the fancy rockers that the crew snuck by the Lemons judges, although their impact on the car’s overall performance was, well, unrealized.)
Would Team Fordsche have been better off sticking with factory hardware? Impossible to say. At the very least, it’s hard to imagine the Porsche engine exploding into quite so many pieces.
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it's got a bit of a rod knock, but it should go another 20k mi
That is an awesome bit of motor-mayhem. Had to have been fun to be there when it happened.
That is very catastrophic. I know the blocks can crack, but it usually looks a bit different. I would be curious to see if the balancer, crank, and flywheel match. I also wonder if the balancer lost its balance or slipped. Of course fuel related detonation and high RPM are also factors. To add a bit of randomness, some blocks were definitely better than others. I know they were progressively lightened during the 1980s and early 1990s. Towards the end of 302 production, I can imagine that a lot of the molds were probably on their last legs.
That had to be bad luck. That engine was campaigned by Ford in the '60's. Even LeMans.
Holy crap. I've seen stock 302 blocks that split down the middle due to going above the 500HP limit, but I've never seen something that comprehensively broken
Ummmm.....Wow. Hope there was a warranty from the JY. I have never seen a crank just snap like that.
The Monster Miata I bought a couple of years ago suffered something similar. (It's why I was able to buy a completed swap V-8 Miata for $2,000) The 5.0 crank broke just ahead of the last two rods who then beat their way out of the block. Not quite as hard on the bellhousing but it broke off the input shaft of the transmission.
PO's "mechanic" then pulled the fancy heads and custom oil pan and slapped them on a new JY block pulled from an Explorer. Unfortunately he "repaired" the oil pan with JB Weld and black RTV. Some of that came loose and made its way into an oil journal. (this happened 6 months after I sold the thing) The stopped up oil journal caused the engine to lock up while the current owner was just cruising along a country road. Last I'd heard it has been rebuilt yet again and is a happy car.
jharry3 said:That had to be bad luck. That engine was campaigned by Ford in the '60's. Even LeMans.
The blocks were lightened and therefore weakened all through out the run, especially during the timeframe that block likely came from.
Also competition prepped engines from the factory and one pulled from a yard with some fancy parts slapped on it are not equivalent.
The crank may have been dropped at some point and the failure finally happened due to the abuse that racing generates versus just plodding along to the store or work.
I'd also be curious to know if the bellhousing adapter to the Porsche torque tube was properly built with tight enough tolerences? That is a LONG shaft and Porsche went through a lot of work to ensure the front of shaft was supported properly.
In reply to Stefan (Forum Supporter) :
Yeah, that would be my first guess, the trans adapter was made out of wood? lol One of the most successful lemons cars ran a 5.0 from an 85 mustang.
Endurance racing is running until it breaks and then try to run it even more.
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