I sent a link to this thread to Brandon at Fast Motorsports as I felt he deserved to look it over… Here were his responses…
Motor is not out of the car yet so cause of that the failure is unknown to anyone including the owner of the car
Simply put on spray if your car was knocking it would have popped long ago.
Since we are talking about your car now your tune before was basically stock. The fuel injector size and PE table were changed that was it. Your maf, ve, timing and raf all were stone stock. Your car wouldn’t idle, had nasty cold starts, would surge, would buck, and would stall.
Spun a rod bearing just like many of the awd trucks do. For reference here are just a few threads if your interested
http://www.tbssowners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48438&highlight=spun+rod+bearing
http://www.tbssowners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45951&highlight=spun+rod+bearing
http://www.tbssowners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47425&highlight=spun+rod+bearing
http://www.tbssowners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35926&highlight=spun+rod+bearing
http://www.tbssowners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23872&highlight=spun+rod+bearing
http://www.tbssowners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23995&highlight=oil+starvation
http://performancetrucks.net/forums/showthread.php?t=434245
Hello, nice to meet you to sir. For your information and everyone on this board in 9 years of tuning this would only be the 3rd engine failure I have seen outside of the tbss rod bearing failures. If you include those then it would be a total of 6. First engine failure was from a drilled nitrous jet being used. Second failure was from a motor being hydro locked in the flooding we had around here a few years back. Third now the unknown issue currently with Ryan’s car.
An ls motor is very efficient compared to a small block or lt motor. They don’t need a ton of timing to make power. So if by going from lets say 21 degrees to 25 degrees and you only pick up 3hp its not worth having that timing in there. Most of all reading spark plugs will tell you what you need to put at the motor. When we all were on the dyno I was checking plugs from both sides of the motor looking for the fuel ring and the timing mark all which were well in line.
I would like to point out as well since Andrew does not have a timing controller on the car that the tune had to store the advance for the amount of spray he would be running. So even though it’s in the 21-23 degree range in the tune it needs to be that way for the spray. If it had a timing controller it would have been 3-4 degrees higher. Also, as any tuner in the lsx world will admit to the power loss from those 3-4 degrees of timing would be 5-7hp max if you are close to MBT.
Those are the exact tables straight from my laptop from Andrew’s car. NA fueling was commanded at 12.69:1 and timing was 21-23 at wot. Pulls were made as lean as 13.0:1 and rich as 12.3:1 to see where best power was made. Also NA the timing was taking up to 26 degrees and only 3 more HP was found. Since he has a larger cam that has more pumping losses they tend to like a touch more fuel and a little less timing.
Those are images from Ryan’s tune. Fueling was commanded at 12.71:1 and timing was set to 26-28 at WOT. Since the car had a smaller cam they do like a leaner mix and some more timing to make best power. From 23 to 26 degrees of timing I saw an increase of 15hp. I went up to 30 degrees of timing and only saw only 3hp. Also the timing mark was too far down the ground strap for my liking. Fuel mixtures from 12.5:1-13.0:1 were tried and the best was right in the middle.
It is well documented that the rod bearing failures in the tbss world are from oil starvation issues from the front sump oil pan. Even with adding an extra quart of oil to the sump I have documented oil pressure dropping from 45psi all the way down to 9psi at 3500rpm in first gear and not starting to recover until 4000rpm in second gear then by the shift point of 2-3 that it regains full pressure in the 55psi range. That is a ton of abnormal abuse the bearings are seeing from the lack of oil. It’s not a matter of if you will spin a bearing but a matter of when with those trucks.
I do agree it is very odd that 2 motors had major issues so close to each other but one failure is a known issue and the second is still yet to be determined. So as weird as they are they are unrelated.
I would like to thank you for pointing out nobody is perfect in this world and it’s very easy for people to start pointing fingers. Failures happen from time to time. It’s a matter of figuring out exactly what happened. Could it be tune related? Yes. Could it be a parts failure? Yes. Normally though if it was tune related it would have happened a little sooner than 6 months later even if the car isn’t driving much. The weather from when those two cars were tuned was on the cooler side in April and also since both were mass air flow systems even if the car did now start consuming more air that above 4000rpm the maf curve would handle the fueling adjustments since it is reading the literal amount of air going into the motor. A motor has a trend of airflow consumption so it’s not going to make a drastic change from one condition to the next.
Also, let’s look at this all logically for a second. A tuner such as myself would not leave a car running in a way that it would cause damage. It is my job to make sure that car is running well and will continue to run well. So it is in my best interest to make sure that the work I have done is correct. I, myself, along with every other tuner and shop across this country has had a problem here and there, just how the world works. However, it is interesting that as parts are used and begin to become worn that’s it’s always the tuners fault until proven otherwise.