It finally happened...
 

My engine is gone, I have to get a new one and so far I have no idea what went wrong; oil pressure went to nill, and the intake cam walked into the head. I'm going to try to get pics in a week or two, and a definite cause of failure. My eyes are on the oil pump. I'm building it back with a new Daryl Cox pump (I think), and possibly aftermarket cams, then the stock thermostat and stock crank pullies are going back in.

wow dude, that sucks. Hopefully you can figure out what went wrong. Kind of od that an oil pump would just quit like that.

sorry dude, but well it lasted quite a bit :P, a friend of mine broke his 3 weeks after getting his new SRT-4

That's messed up. My friend's M3's clutch and differential gave in after going at 172mph (according to the speedo, but there is a debate that 2001M3 can get to that speed).

That's strange indeed... I never thought that high speed runs could ruïn the clutch. I allways thought that the brutality of high revving the engine and then dumping the clutch fast was far stronger.

That makes no sense at all. How many miles were on it???

^^ Seems odd to me too .. was he riding the clutch at that time? Most probably would have been some other cause or defective material that coincidentally gave way at that time - cant be due to high speed runs. :bah:

Sorry to hear about your predicament Mr. Cool. Hope you get your car back on the road soon. :(

Update, I've ordered and received almost the entire engine, just the cams, a valve, and the valve springs are somewhere in transit...

The cause is still not certain, but it looks like the oil pump failed. Why I don't know. The turbo was also completely destroyed; the shaft has a 1/4" of play in it, the compressor went into the compressor housing, and the inside of the core is all shavings.

That leaves the question, did the bearings go, and the shaft being eaten up sent shavings to the oil pump, which killed it, or was the turbo collateral damage, an externality?

Simple fix....

N/A pushrod V8.. ;)

You know you want one :P

That's ok. I'll watch Motown Muscle IV until all I can hear is a pushrod V8.

Oh that and I can't afford to sell this thing :(

well from what you are saying my opinion (since I haven't actually seen the engine) would be that the turbo might have been collateral damage from an oil starvation problem. I've seen a GTI that had the turbo do the same thing due to oil starvation. Have you had a look at the impellers/gears on the oil pump? are they all chewed up? if so then maybe the turbo crapped out as you said and killed the pump but I would think it would have done alot more damage to the engine like in the intake and head...

I don't think his turbo crapped first. Turbos mainly fail because of oil starvation due to sludge forming in the lines.

is it possible the stresses of the turbo overstressed something in the bottom end?

well I was leaning heavily towards my first assumption.

I would think the bottom end would be able to take a decent amount of beating from the turbo (if by that you meant the boost) since it is afterall a Mitsubishi engine. I have seen many cars take a crap from oil starvation though mostly in older higher mileage engines.

It's possible the stresses the car ran took out the bottom end, but right now the engine's still in the car, so it hasn't been totally disassembled. I think it should've been fine, but truth be told I don't know. I was running only 340whp, the pistons are good for 400, the rest for even more, though in tuning I had some issues. About a two years ago a shop did the fuel system and Emanage installs, and screwed it up.

On the dyno my tuner didn't know this, and tried 15 psi. It ran 15.4:1 at 5200 rpm, and had the worst knock I've ever heard, even though it was a full tank of 100. After that the car's been tuned well, but you never know, it probably did some damage.

I'm going to have the oil pump taken out of the old engine, because I need to know the cause of failure so I can avoid it with this new engine. The intake is fine, so far as I know, so you're probably right that the turbo was an externality. I'm having the turbo rebuilt right now, so if AGP finds anything I'll probably get a call.

Oil starvation was probably the cause of engine failure but I want to know whether or not it was a blocked line, the pump, or what. My engine had 33k on it.

I'm probably not pitching the old engine so I'll look into finding the cause. I'm actually really curious to know what happened. I'd be mad, but you play you pay. I'll have pics if I get to the shop, but I don't guarantee it, since all the parts are just about in, and I still have three or four weeks until the end of the quarter.

BUMP: I got the car back tonight, and it's in my sig. Brand new engine and clutch, and rebuilt turbo. It's good to have it again!