Engine Comes Apart

[metalhead79]

Have there been many/any failures of E30/E85/WMI tuned engines or has it all been 91/93 tunes?

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[JSCOTT0812]

Almost exactly what mine looked like last August when it let go. Glad to hear you got her taken care of though!

 

[Blyman93]

Well there's the difference- I floor it a handful of times DAILY. Prob 50+ pulls to 120 by now

 

[Maggneto]

Very glad to hear it was covered by Ford. Can you tell us who tuned the car? Did you recently fill up with gas prior to the event? What Gas station did you use?

I would rather not mention the Tuner or the Dealer, just thankful they worked with me. As far a the fuel, I have a Chevron/Texaco Card so I use their 93 and had just filled up.

That's OK dude, I have a strong suspicion I already know who tuned it.

Does anyone else think bad gas has a role here? The second instance of a failure after filling up with gas in the past couple of days. Thoughts on how bad gas contributes to this catastrophic event when a tune is present?

 

[Marvinmadman]

Higher timing than stock and the computer can't adjust fast enough for the bad gas?

 

[PJB]

I am glad to add to the forum on what has occurred to my car, it is good to see the feedback and hope whatever I can contribute can help anyone. Blyman93 that is good stuff, maybe if I would have stood deep in the throttle more the BOOM never would have happened, I love it. I would say I'm a fairly conservative driver, but I will do a little street racing periodically.

 

[Ebm]

.

Well there's the difference- I floor it a handful of times DAILY. Prob 50+ pulls to 120 by now

I do the same as well. It's fun and prolongs the build up of carbon.

 

[perfweld]

That's OK dude, I have a strong suspicion I already know who tuned it.

Does anyone else think bad gas has a role here? The second instance of a failure after filling up with gas in the past couple of days. Thoughts on how bad gas contributes to this catastrophic event when a tune is present?

From what I have seen over time all the engines break at light throttle, so we can assume 10 - 30 % pedal given by the driver. To make the car feel peppy the tuner adds boost and timing at low engine speed. If the tune was only given boost and timing under WOT, it would still feel stock at light throttle, and the customers might be disappointed. Every tuner is gonna be different, some might add more timing and boost and allow the throttle body to open more at light pedal, some might be more conservative and know that by being aggressive your asking for the engine to knock. The tune at WOT is much simpler to build then actual driving conditions, and in real world driving conditions is where these engines are breaking.
It amazes me what can be done via the factory PCM. I had one tune that was to aggressive for my liking ( I drive like a grandpa unless actually racing ) , it was way to snappy just driving the car around, and at the track on the burnout, I could not control the RPM, it was to easy to hit the rev limiter. I told Jon what I felt and boom, he sent a tune that was less aggressive at light throttle, but still an animal at WOT. My whole point above goes back to knock, it all comes down to having to aggressive of a tune for the given octane. The tune may not knock at WOT, but is knocking in other throttle positions, and we all know the end result.

 

[kart3l]

That's OK dude, I have a strong suspicion I already know who tuned it.

Does anyone else think bad gas has a role here? The second instance of a failure after filling up with gas in the past couple of days. Thoughts on how bad gas contributes to this catastrophic event when a tune is present?

I have a stock Ecoboost and mine has rough idle after I fill the tank up as well!

Sometimes it goes down to ~700 RPM, vibrates a little - but it gets better a few seconds later. Is this what you guys are describing? I almost always have this after I fill up all the way.

I was thinking it was the fuel pump.

 

[Ebm]

.

I have a stock Ecoboost and mine has rough idle after I fill the tank up as well!

Sometimes it goes down to ~700 RPM, vibrates a little - but it gets better a few seconds later. Is this what you guys are describing? I almost always have this after I fill up all the way.

I was thinking it was the fuel pump.

Sounds like your car is just trying to adjust to the octane of the gas you just used.

 

[Livernois Motorsports]

Glad to hear it was covered, and thanks for the details that you did go into.
Best of luck on the new powerplant and hope that nothing else grabs you!

 

[PJB]

From what I have seen over time all the engines break at light throttle, so we can assume 10 - 30 % pedal given by the driver. To make the car feel peppy the tuner adds boost and timing at low engine speed. If the tune was only given boost and timing under WOT, it would still feel stock at light throttle, and the customers might be disappointed. Every tuner is gonna be different, some might add more timing and boost and allow the throttle body to open more at light pedal, some might be more conservative and know that by being aggressive your asking for the engine to knock. The tune at WOT is much simpler to build then actual driving conditions, and in real world driving conditions is where these engines are breaking.
It amazes me what can be done via the factory PCM. I had one tune that was to aggressive for my liking ( I drive like a grandpa unless actually racing ) , it was way to snappy just driving the car around, and at the track on the burnout, I could not control the RPM, it was to easy to hit the rev limiter. I told Jon what I felt and boom, he sent a tune that was less aggressive at light throttle, but still an animal at WOT. My whole point above goes back to knock, it all comes down to having to aggressive of a tune for the given octane. The tune may not knock at WOT, but is knocking in other throttle positions, and we all know the end result.

This makes a lot of sense, I am not one to bang on it every time I drive anymore since I have gotten a little older. Kinda like in my old carburetor days of street rodding when you had to keep them cleaned out or would it load up regularly and start stumbling.

 

[yomamma219]

That's the thing with troubleshooting and why so many people are bad a it. Human nature is to find problem "buckets" and we like to classify everything into the buckets that we know rather than look for the true root cause. People hear about a problem and suddenly everyone has it no matter if their symptoms are completely different, even imagined problems. First it was all the Spain motors, then all manuals and LSPI. When in truth, if we could get a true root cause analysis which is a bit difficult after the fact, we'd probably find there were many issues including tuner related problems.

Unfortunately its such a common human issue it psychologists have given it a name: Availability Heuristic.

OP: I would be very interested to see what the pistons or even full breakdown of your engine looked like? the only pictures I saw were of the outside which doesn't seem to show much. For all we know it could have even been something small that broke off and rattled around causing more and more damage to the larger components.

 

[PJB]

I would as well, a lot of speculation until it is completely apart, even on my opinions. I'm sure once it is shipped backed to Ford, they will come to a conclusion, and may possibly already know from other's similar to mine that they have not made public findings about. Hopefully if they do know what has caused some of these failures they are correcting them.

 

[Turbong]

Unfortunately its such a common human issue it psychologists have given it a name: Availability Heuristic.

OP: I would be very interested to see what the pistons or even full breakdown of your engine looked like? the only pictures I saw were of the outside which doesn't seem to show much. For all we know it could have even been something small that broke off and rattled around causing more and more damage to the larger components.

That's why AI will prevail at all professions, we will not be able to compete with true AI that will be able to crunch every possible scenario in nano seconds.

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