well after leaving my dead motor at my parents house for months, i finally decided to take it apart with my day off today...

a few months ago i ran through some high water here in Houston (yes it floods like a bitch here sometimes) and it seems the equation: High Water + Injen Cold Air Intake + Skunk2 Coilovers = Broken Rod on #1 Cylinder. So mystery solved. Jeff Haas didnt bother to take apart the engine, instead they just gave me a "new" one from a wrecked protege that had about 7,000 miles on it.

oh well, i did buy the engine from my insurance company, so now i have a spare head, block, camshafts, crankshaft, and intake manfold... hmmmmmm.

this concludes the broken engine #1 story and hopefully clears any confusion for all those that thought i had blown my motor on nitrous.

 

OHH the possiablitys..........

hey patio...what level boost are you running btw... im thinking about gettting a NX direct port kit my self......

 

Sorry to hear about your engine blowing...But that's the reason why i suggest to most people not to get the CAI...especailly when it doesn't have the AEM bypass valve...but good for you atleast you got a new engine and will be ready to race before summer!!

 

im running a 75 shot, wet. i highly recommend it for non-mp3 protege's cars. been running great and, like i always say, I've never had an nitrous related problems

I still have the CAI on, but i avoid driving when its pouring outside now.

 

Just curious.... so you are saying that the nitrous had nothing to do with the broken rod... but the water did? doesnt sound right?

 

water doesnt compress piston goes up, water doesnt combust, piston cant go up any further due to compression, something had to give, rod breaks.

I have been running nitrous on the new motor and havent had any problems at all also

 

How often do you use nitrous?.... you know... a bottle a month....week... night .... hour.... or just one use

 

This would lead me to believe that the rods could be the weakest link in our bottom end woes. As so far most people have been speculating that the cast pistons were culprit

 

Patio's broken rod doesn't indicate *anything* about the strength of the rods vs. the pistons under normal conditions. When an engine dies due to hydrolock, it is almost always because of a broken rod, wristpin, crank or piston *ring*, roughly in that order. The pistons themselves will ALMOST NEVER fail. Think about it this way: when the piston travels upwards and hits a wall of water, the load is evenly distributed across the face of the piston, but the *full* load goes through the wristpin, the rod and the crank. Since the rod is usually at a slight angle to the piston when this happens, it usually bends or breaks.

Under normal conditions, pistons usually fail because of detonation loads. Detonation or preignition creates a huge force in one tiny area of the piston (rather than all the way across the face like hydrolock) and blows a hole there.

 

i use to use it every weekend for a good couplemonths, then i got a gf and now we put spray on her car too, so usually we switch out cars every weekend, but at least monthly i spray, i've been spraying since june

 

Good point...I guess I should have consulted my brain before posting I should probably lay off the cheese before bed too!

But I have seen pistons loose skirts and wreck wrist pin journals from ending up in the drink. Thankfully it wasn't mine

 

Got any pics?? Curious to see the destruction!

 

My best friend lost the skirts on his 302 mustang engine and wrecked the wrist pins. The block was screwed and the only parts from the bottom end we kept were the rods and crank. He's put them into another block and added new forged pistons. This time hes got spray...and hes' gonna stay away from big puddles

 

Actually according to Mazdaspeed development the rods are the weak link in the motor. According to them the stock rods will buckle at the 225whp mark....but Terry has been at this level for a while now with no problems.

 

Does this mean that your insurance company bought you a new engine?

How'd you pull that off with your CAI and nitrous? Did you register CAI and nitrous with the insurance company as well?