Blew up my LT5, Let the grieving begin.

[Torchred96]

Dumbest thing I've ever done to an engine. Well, I did it. Having done all the work to the upper half of my engine and ordering a chip from Marc to take care of all the mods that I did, I let the engine get away from the other night. It's a hard KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK....oh no!!!

How did I do it? Well, I think (I may be wrong here) that there were 3 main factors that contributed to the meltdown. 1: A loud radio. 2: A broken tach, and the 3rd was, if I'm not mistaken, no rev limiter or fuel cutoff allowing the engine to overspeed before my senses kicked in to shift. I never really knew when to shift this car, just relied on my instincts to tell me it wasn't pulling as hard. That rev grumbling that you feel when the car starts to vibrate is addictive!!!, and it's hard to let off.

Noticing it was down on power, but still not hearing the knock because of some good old time rock n roll, I drove it home about 3 miles from where I think I over rev'd. Pulling into the garage and turning down the radio, I heard the knock. Not the misfire type knock that I had before the injectors and ignition repairs, but a serious clunk that sounds a lot like something let go internally. (it wasn't the water pump unfortunately)

I think what happened also is the fact that I run it hard quite often and use the seat of my pants as a tach. I think I got used to the revs and continued to push the limits, thinking possibly that it would shut down, before self destructing. In the past, I remember hitting the rev limiter many many times on my old hot cammed lt4 and never blew it up. I'm actually not sure, but i think this engine is limited by air and fuel and not anything else. I certainly never had a rev limiter kick in....it just kept climbing until it let go.

So, I'm forced to make a decision. Buy another motor, another car, or fix this one. Keep in mind I still owe about $6500 on this car.. I'm a pretty good wrech turner but I've always stopped short of attempting to rebuild mostly due to the compounding of problems that could go wrong with tolerances and lack of machine work where I live.


I've put a lot of money and time into this car and I really do like it. I wouldn't feel the same in an c6. It's just not my generation that first made me fall in love with the corvette in 1983. What to do... Sorry about the long post, I guess I'm grieving.

thanks
Sam