Took this from the Club S12 forums. What do you think?
These pics are not of my motor, however, these are pics of Seth’s, a good friend of mines saturns motor. basically blew the block in half…
What Happened…Machine shop didnt bore enough for the forged pistons, so when the pistons heated up they all seized to the walls simultaneously. this happened at dragway 42 in ohio. ran a 14.7…but up until it blew he was about half car behind an evo VIII that pulled a 12.8. It was a well built n/a setup with a 75 hp direct port…pressure was a cunt hair under 1000lbs.
this was a freak accident that should have been avoided. machine shop did not check clearances on the piston walls before returning the block back. They did not cover the damage or offer any type of reimbursement. oh and yes that is the “lost foam” style cast block as well. it was a 93 bottom end, 98 head (larger ports,) 55mm tb, ross forged pistons on stock rods (will take over 250 whp) and a bunch of other bolt ons. great way to lose 3 grand in a few minutes :evil:
Enjoy
If that happened to me I would make DAMN sure whoever it was that did a half ass fridays job on my block would be responsible for their actions…
but then again im about 125 lbs so that would only go so far and I’d prolly walk out empty handed :finga:
this dude should SUE. seriously they didn’t do the job right and now the person who paid someone to do it won’t take responsibility. Give em a nice kick in the junk.
Thats what you get for building a Saturn… Piece of GM crap. I’ve always hated working on GM’s. Imports are so much easyer.
It’s also hard to say for sure if that explosion was the machine shops fault. Would have to take a much better look at the parts. I would think that there would have been signs much earlyer that this was going to happen before it actually happened. (If you know what I mean)
looks pretty bad but i can’t see how it could happen like that on all 4 pistons. usually cylinder temps would be slightly different and you would notice something like that happening.
be hahahaha
looks like a good old fashioned ECOTEC engine
Tell that to Lisa Kubo. I hate drag racing, but her Saturn makes 1200+ HP on the stock ecotec block. Apparently the stock ecotec crank can handle 450 Hp as well.
I guess all the broken down new generation cavies and sunfires I see on the road make 500 HP then.
Thats fuckin nuts! It cracked the main bearing caps and everything! Just goes to show, you need to be careful who works on your car now-days… I work on my own stuff because I don’t trust anyone else.
He can sue all he wants, but I guarantee if he can’t prove anything, he’s up shit creek. The shop isn’t just going to bend over and admit they did it. If it blew at the track, that means he was baggin on it, and the shop will just use that against the client, and the case will be thrown out. You can’t just look at the engine and go, “yup, looks like thats the shops fault, and oh, that scratch there, thats from this, and that crack there is from this”. Just won’t happen like that, as unfortunate as it sounds.
I guess a true smartass is a smartass in everything. 
