@@ZEPRATGERNODT Imagine if you saved up 10 years for a build like this and all 8 rods fail at once lol... Bruh.. after crying for a couple hours Id probably consider ending it all! lol.(kidding obviously)
This is the most likely explanation based on my experience as a machinist. Have seen this type of break due to flaws in the metal and also incorrectly labeled material. Have had to throw out many parts due to suppliers sending the incorrect or low quality material.
yeah no doubt. The shearing at the piston and the break marks on the chunks that were rod definitely show it to be a metallurgical issue. No hate on the manufacturer, they probably wouldn't have even known it was an issue until they all said nope in unison, glad most of the motor is saveable though, you definitely build motor that can survive severe unscheduled abuse steve
I'm so glad cleetus sent me here. Steve is a mechanical genius. I learn so much every single video. I really respect the way you explain each and every thing to us. Thanks for the info and the video itself.
When I first saw all 8 rods broken my reaction was a metallurgy failure, not possible to fracture 8 rods in the same spot without it being a defect in base metal! I’ve seen stretched rods from ultra high rpm, split from end to end from overpressure and you never see all the rods broken even in a catastrophic failure in top fuel! It just doesn’t happen, I am sorry you have to go through this Steve but the rest of us out here would figure human error like did I forget to torque the rods! Just not possible! Thank you for being so transparent, gives me faith. I split a head open on my fresh built ford diesel Thursday, a brand new head failed. Asking myself a million questions, I’ll have it apart this week, betting on a casting line split,,,, I hope!
Those Connecting rods look like they literally shattered like Glass. I agree with you, it's bewildering. I would love to see what the metallurgy test comes back looking like. Amazing video, Thank You Steve.
@@jidean2012 even still…. To have them all go at once is really odd. Work hardening failures usually have a certain amount of randomness, this is as if they all had a timer built in to them. I’m not sure you could deliberately design 8 aluminum structures to fail at so nearly the same number of cycles, especially when the cycles have the slight cylinder-to-cylinder variations in pressure you find in a running engine.
@@jidean2012 This cannot be explained by strain hardening. For strain hardening you need to apply a significant amount of cold deformation to the metal or alloy, which means a change in the length of the rods. But this engine ran at full tilt right up the moment it let go, and it showed no drop in power before it happened. Rod stretch doesn't fit here, and the debris shows no signs of bend rods either. My list of suspects: Wrong choice of material, and/or wrong design, and/or poor material quality (too much non-metallic inclusions in the metal) and/or wrong choice of heat treatment, or incorrect application of heat treatment. Or perhaps a material mix-up, where the wrong material was taken from stock for production.
@@stevelacker358 Sure you can. Consistent stress, the material is all exactly the same. The shape of the grains in the metal at the failure. The location of the failure. No heat in any of the bearings. This is very common is aluminum rod engines.
Idd love to see a video of how you do the repairs to the engine block itself. I think seeing the welding and machine work would be cool. Also that engine is pure functional art
I spent several years working in a Texas shop that puts out some of the baddest dirt car engines money can buy and have seen the insanity of probably every kind of engine failure imaginable. Except for this one.....the amount of destruction along side the lack of destruction has got my brain working overtime. Without actually having broken parts in hand I would say that the only way 8 rods break simultaneously without killing the crank would have to be a flawed set of rods
I agree with your theory - simply because I don't see any way on that motor that a failure in on cylinder or pair of cylinder would cause another cylinder to break (with almost no damage to the block). If it was 'tune' related, I would think the piston or heads would show the damage first. So if it was the rods and they all let go at almost the exact RPM - that is something for the rod-manufacturer to sort out. Of course my highest boost car is 16 psi so.....
I love how far you go to prove people wrong that haven’t got ALL the facts, and don’t know what they’re talking about!!! Keyboard mechanics are the worst. People will talk straight out of their 💩hole to try and prove themselves to be right and you to be wrong. You would be the VERY LAST person I would try to tell that it was done wrong. Keep up the awesome work!! Love seeing the builds!!
I like the comments about blown head gaskets when it has closed decks. Or the comment about the rods stretching. Morons man. Steve teaches Critical thinking
Been a mechanic for 35 years and built countless motors and transmissions. You are the only person i listen to about motor info. Truly appreciated!!!!!
When I was on the FSAE team, we ran into our wheel centers breaking in high G corners. Our root cause analysis showed that it was the anodizing that was at the heart of the problem. Upon further research, we found that 7075-T6 is extremely sensitive to crack propagation, and putting a super hard layer on the outside, like anodizing, exacerbates the problem, because the aluminum has a very low young's modulus as compared to the anodizing layer, causing hair line cracks as the part went under high stress condition because the aluminum wants to "flex" but the anodizing cant flex as much. It may be worth looking into what type aluminum the rods where made out of and what coating was done on it, but it could be as simple as a crack propagation issue. Not to mention, it would explain why all rods broke around the same time.
@@JamesPF2D at 32.06 he mentions "black anodizing" . He'll find out when the metallurgy comes back if it is a material or processing issue. Should probably just stick with tried and true brands that have been used forever at that hp level. Being the first one to use something at a never tried before hp level... expensive beta test failure.
That's a great video! Having said that, I'm also an engineer, and I've also got the "If everybody understood this, we wouldn't be arguing. Here's how this works..." thing; and I've spent so much time trying on the Internet over the last 21-22 years, explaining things to people at all levels of knowledge, and largely beating my head against the wall doing so. People used to listen and learn, or at the very least, understand what you're talking about and just have a different hypothesis. Seems like these days, there are SOOOO many people at the far upper left of the Dunning-Kruger graph, and seemingly permanently stuck there, that it's almost just not worth our time. I still get enough people to understand concepts that I haven't given up and still explain things, but there are and more people who are seemingly just unreachable.
I find that sometimes people's ego will cause them to just want to prove their "theory", and they will have no desire to actually use critical thinking and be open to ideas/suggestions from people with way more knowledge than them. When training people like that, I'll tend to just let them fail over and over in hopes they will figure it out, since they will only accept something if it was "their idea", and be completely resistant to any information that comes from an outside source.
I've been there and I'm not even an engineer. I'll never forget getting ganged up on and ridiculed in a discussion. Simply trying my best to explain that an airplane needs less (ground) speed to take off, when taking off with a head-wind. Yes, it's crowded at the peak of "Mount Stupid"!
Watched the engine build up video again and the “new” rods have a double rectangular recess machined out of the main beam versus a single recess in the “old” rods. The recesses are also two different sizes. This could be easily result in a stress concentration at the mid point of the beam (between the two machined out recesses. Add in that a T6 heat treatment actually reduces the fracture toughness of 7075, and you’ve got a recipe for a catastrophic fracture failure under cyclical loading. The fact that all 8 failed is a strong indicator of a design flaw that didn’t play nice with the grain structure of the aluminum.
I seen the rod. aluminum holds up on fuel cars .but one run and throw away this guy punished this engine so many times with big boost .. rod failure 100%
@@breckhedrick8692 Ever come across component lifecycle prediction / analysis? Guy builds engines for a living, and just mindlessly runing the part till failure? I belive the rods have predicted lifespan and it was not correct or material for the analysis was different than the rods in the engine.
@@benburnett8109 clearly your clueless on how racing works...maybe so he can blow it up like proline or he can blow it up TKM, or Box , or a Texas speed or like a top fuel car or he can blow it up like any other engine in the world they all blow up or your not pushing limits or trying to go faster.. this one didn't blow up until 4,000 plus horsepower and 8600 rpm on a completely brand new never tested rod and now he knows they can't be used in applications this powerful until they are changed enough that's why he tested them in his own engine dipshit .. you see how many hemis and 481xs blew up this year that proline had to fix? No you didn't because you're clueless I forgot and you don't know what racing entails at this level..
It’s awesome when you see a engine builder that is so passionate about his craft to look at every little thing and make sense of it thanks for walking a saw through it it is pretty awesome
After taking metallurgy classes from our technical center when I worked for Alcoa, it definitely looks like a material failure. I bet if the grain structure was analyzed their would be a definitive answer on that. We saw pictures of examples of aluminum failures and some looked like that. Failures could be related to bad alloy with impurities that caused internal grain issues, poor forging process, etc. I’d really like to know what happened to them. If I still worked at Alcoa I’d try to reach out to our tech center to have them analyzed, but sadly I don’t.
The fracture breaks make me believe it was treated or aged to add strength, but lose flex. So it didn't bend it just broke. These rods are just to brittle for what SM is doing.
That's my thought as well. I would be curious to know the pounds force each cylinder is pushing down with on the power stroke. I guarantee the number is well above the strength of those rods, especially since they were not a full solid beam rod (They were solid beam but had machined pockets for weight savings, but also makes them weaker.). Just take a look at top fuel engines. They make so much power they will actually compress a connecting rod and make it shorter, and they use solid beam rods, but they don't shatter.
@@davidwickboldt712 I agree. The manufacturer boasts something like 200+ runs in a 2000hp bracket car with a 'proprietary' alloy. As hard as they are, probably great fatigue characteristics. Just not interested in bending, that's for sure. lol
I commented similarly and then I saw your comment. Great minds think alike ? lol I absolutely agree with you about grain structure especially after many heat cycles.... or impurities as you eluded to. Thanks 👍👍
Your showing us this is teaching all of us what can happen and hopefully how to fix. Your the best engine builder in the Buisness in my opinion Thanks for doing these videos.
I'd really like to see how you save that block, can you do an upload on that process because to my complete novice mind it looks shagged. Loving your content mate. Cheers from Queensland Australia 😎✊
Watching part 1 and 2 of this video clearly states metal fatigue in my opinion. No fault of you or your supplier...curious to know how the manufacturer tested these rods. A learning curve for all involved. Move forward and upwards, best of luck.
I'm opining they were powdered metal rods, hot isostatically pressed, then forged... Edit to add: I enjoy a good technical discussion! Though some disagree with me, that is good. What comes into play here is the Mode II fracture toughness (KIIC) of the composite. When under BOTH great stress and great strain, the type of material I describe has shown cases where it "blows up"... i.e. brittle fractures in all planes. Isotropic fracture. We can easily achieve 98ksi in a properly alloyed PM/forged part. These may also be on the edge of a metal/matrix rod. It will be interesting when Steve shares the lab results.
@@MX304 well it’s a fast fracture of some kind. Unlikely due to material. It’s probably something caused a massive sudden overload. Definitely not a fatigue failure.
journal is how it is spelled. This is obviously a "torque to yield" rod bolt issue. They used the wrong torque spec across the board. The idea that the rods were all machined from the same piece of metal is the DUMBEST IDEA YET TO APPEAR IN DRAG RACING.
@@seahorse5677 But the idea that the same flaw existed thru the entire raw stock is the dumbest idea since the first idea that the rods would fail due to a consistent flaw thru the bar stock. This is a misuse of material and a conncting rod bolt failure. It is far more likely that the wrong torque to yield spec was used than the core material had a flaw that went thru the entire length of the material. This is second grade engineering at best. Not a hard problem to figure out. Did you also know that global warming is a fallacy??? Same principal applies.
I have been watching for a while and your explanations for this are thorough but understandable! The amount of carnage and minimal destruction to the parts is amazing engineering at work!
Thanks Steve for the in-depth explanation. I’m still sticking to my theory of excessive heat treatment which has made the material brittle. I’d certainly like to get one of those pistons please. Thanks mate. Support from Victor Harbor South Australia 🇦🇺
How amazing the rods literally hit the point of material failure. I'm curious what total cylinder pressures were now the manufacturer of the rods knows! (Expensive learning) Thanks for the breakdown videos! Steve my wife and I don't ever miss one
Same here man! I was telling him, he's essentially another Alan Johnson (in the comments section) :) Just an incredible engine builder, the staff, their engineering the whole nine yards. Such a great Channel! Lol, actually I kind of excited if I we DO miss a because then it's like hey! Another video to watch, woohoo!
@@fast97z24 I completley understand where you are coming from because they have been so straightforward. However if he gave the manufacturer there would be people giving hate mail for essentially doing nothing wrong.
Excellent! Pistons look gr8 considering what they went through. That last few seconds of life must have been pretty rough. Stoked to see the results of the metallurgy!
Love your willingness to take the time to share this with us! Much appreciated! Seems pretty logical that this involved some rod material that was not what it was supposed to be.
This is going to be a super interesting series of video's connected to this blow up, your positive attitude towards the whole thing is very impressive, I hope all the evidence of the failures leads you to the correct reason for this event, as a race engine builder myself I would say that if the rods were weak for some reason and they were all equally weak then when equally loaded beyond a failure point then yes they can be expected to all fail together especially as when the initial failure took place a storm of debris shot through the engine from that 1st rod to fail, that must have created a shock wave that precipitated the complete failure as with each rod letting go the shock just kept getting bigger and the debris storm kept getting denser and more violent. Can I suggest that in future use steel or titanium rods. My 2 cents
Uncle Tony's Garage (UA-cam) commented that in the early 90's When motors were going from wet sump to dry sump these types of failures were common, and it was found to be a resonance that the wet sump oiling tended to suppress. Some Pro-stock history lessons may reveal causes.
UTG made the most sense out of all the comments to explain why it all went south at once. It is amazing how resonance can all of a sudden cause interest things to happen. Hit that sweet spot and in this case boom on a impressive scale.
Great episode Steve. I really love the in depth looks like this. I've never seen an engine expire like this and its awesome how you are showing everyone everything. You are doing the whole car community a service by putting this info out.
would like to thank you Steve for all the info.. i am learning a lot from these videos..hence i will be a better consumer engine buyer.. i hope to one day have one of your motors in my truck.. it would make me proud to rep you and your company and your standards. the simplifying of the issues for us non techie types and layman people is fantastic..again thank you and be safe.. love and respect..
I think it's really great that an engine builder such as yourself would actually take the time to show us and explain to us an engine failure that came from in house, regardless of it was material failure or build failure you're very courageous to film it regardless of the outcome. In my humble opinion I believe the harmonics of the RPM you were running combined with the brittle nature of the rods created a harmonic resonance that just basically blew them all apart at the same time
This is a good episode. Amazing that the top looks so good with the crank going full metal shredder for a few seconds. If you were doing this for a customer would you recommend salvaging most of the original engine or sell them a new short block?
I would potentially kill to learn engine building from you. I love every video you post about working on them. Keep motivating the world to go fast man you're amazing.
Steve, I love the videos! Honesty I like watching your videos over anything on UA-cam. I also like that you make long videos and that you really go deep and explain what’s going on. Don’t listen to any of the haters, you know your stuff. Keep up the great work and I look forward to more videos!
I just discovered you through clitoris mcfarlane and I really enjoy your content you're articulate you're smart and you explain things so everybody can understand it I really appreciate that and the fact that you care enough to try and teach people what's going on is just the greatest your positive attitude and your kind heart all show what kind of person you are so thank you thank you thank you
Steve, i would love a video talking about and showing some of the advancements that have been made throughout your career by you and others. Obviously these cars are the best they have ever been due to people like you pushing the envelope in the tech. A look back would make a cool video or even series i think a lot of us would enjoy. I love listening to guys like you because you share what you know for free and you have probably forgotten more than i know. Excited for the giveaway. I would love to have one of those pistons on my shelf!
Steve, you are a true master in your innate ability to teach the theory of operation of one of these beasts. As an engineer, I appreciate the adage that “you can’t argue with math”. So appreciate your transparency and willingness to teach us all. I’d frame one of your pistons and put it up in my shop.
Love the knowledge you have and the thinking! I am a Building General Contractor and always try to think out side the box every time I build something and how points are going to be loaded and needing points to load them. Love the videos and keep them up! P.S. also a gear head!
Steve, I’ve been around the block more than a few times, but your videos are so illustrative and educational I have learned more and more. Thank you for taking time to produce these. Look forward to each on. Stay well.
really interesting video, reminds me of reading about GMs development when they went drag racing with the Ecotec, they published the development programme data and had all four stock rods fail at once on the dyno when they reached their limit
It is such a privilege to hear someone with such a positive attitude not blaming everyone else for problems, realizing accidents happen, such as a poorly made main stud. Also it's GREAT to hear a christian on youtube. I know you are by your attitude, your language and a heart for others. Way to go Steve and GOD bless!!!!!!!
Loving this content. I enjoy learning how stuff is engineered. Why things are done specifically. Most only show the good. Steve you are teaching people invaluable information, and like you said critical thinking. You have a deep desire to teach, and personally I have an extreme desire to learn. Thank you so much for showing us, The Good The bad and The ugly. J Swap Jason.
Steve, we learn more from failures and mistakes than anything else. But it takes brave and humble people like yourself to share these experiences in such detail that allow us to learn so much! You are not just a brilliant engine builder, you are also a First class teacher who shares his knowledge in such a way that we can all understand what you are talking about and what is going on. Please keep up the good work and keep the videos coming, as I'm always looking for the next one. Hence I've subscribed and shared your work!👍😎
We’re always watching and my son Justin is learning from you brother.. He’s becoming a great engine builder and study’s 24-7 and alway’s learning better way’s and trying néw thing’s and guy’s like you are people he look’s up to and respect’s in the engine business So Hat’s Off and Thank you from SKULL GARAGE high in the mountain’s of N.C.
Actually, these rods are awesome! They shattered instead of damaging the whole engine. They are great for their limitation and the engine is still fixable. Thanks Steve for the great info
30:15 That is one of the money shots. I needed to see at least one unmolested fracture line. There was one other rod end I wanted to see as well, but that is good enough. Still like to rough out the stress calculation. Machining will have a greater influence on the failure mode than anodizing, but neither of them will outrank material selection.
@@palleppalsson Depending on the alloy they can. That fracture is not indicative of sheer, but rather compressive, possibly tensile. Tough to estimate on a video with such short glimpses. It most certainly did not possess enough ductile qualities for that application. Might be a seven series alloy.
Great info there Steve. I think it could be equated to how tempered glass breaks. Tough as nails, but when it breaks it just explodes. I think the same applied to these rods. Got stressed and instant failure. All a metallurgical issue, as noted by others. Would love to see a lab failure analysis report on those rods. I hope you get that done. Or the rod supplier...
Yes, except "explodes" is very poor terminology, temerered glass has significant residual stress as does heat treated metal, in the case of the glass when it has a microscopic defect this causes a stress riser, If additional stress is added say by heat the stress at the defect multiplies beyond the tensile strength of the glass and it fails catastrophically spraying glass everywhere as the residual stress or energy dissipates but it does not explode as the energy does not increase. It is highly likely the rod material does have microscopic defects but these are normal for all metals and unlikely to cause instantaneous catastrophic failure, they are more likely to cause fatigue cracking over time and not equaly over the 8 rods, but a heat treat process that induced excessive residual stress in a batch of rods would be a prime suspect for the 8 rods failing instantaneously within 1 or 2 crank rotations of one another with the aplied loads much lower then design. 👍✌️
A friend of mine worked for Alcoa In Tennessee he said he seen high number aluminum such as 7061 or greater shatter right after a pour.He said it came from the mix of stuff added to the aluminum made super brittle and slightly cooling shattered it like tempered glass
Just amazing. One of those one in a life time freak things. I do lean towards something wrong with the rods alloy too. Thanks for sharing your ups and downs. Keeping it real. And one of those pistons would make a awesome 60th Bday gift for me lol.
Excellent in depth analysis of the engine failure and you show great professionalism when dealing with this less than ideal outcome. Love the videos and keep them coming 😁👍👌
Steve , I love the work that you do ! I have been watching you for years and some day I'm going to own my own SMX. These rods look Die-Cast aluminum . I suggest you get a batch of those rods and yours and have X-Ray's done on them to compare them . Billet rods should stretch not shatter . Try putting one in a press and see if it bends or breaks.
Never seen an engine with so much damage (8 rods let go at “once”!) and yet have crank rod journals look so dam good! Think about it, all the rods BROKE off the crank journals at speed and yet the crank/block doesn’t look terrible! Absolutely amazing, again had to see it to believe it… thanks for sharing!
Good video glad to see you keeping a great attitude. Love all the people giving this man advice when he is the building these bad ass engines I'm sure he already knows haha
You've got such a positive attitude. Truly an inspiration for all of us.
Agreed. It also helps when you have a few bucks in your pocket and NOT scraping payday to payday.
Not having your last dollar in the engine helps Just good fun then!
@@ZEPRATGERNODT Imagine if you saved up 10 years for a build like this and all 8 rods fail at once lol... Bruh.. after crying for a couple hours Id probably consider ending it all! lol.(kidding obviously)
@@JonHop1 there are those situations where you want to cry because you're so made and all you can do is laugh cause WTH.
I was just going to say that. I'm looking at a mess and he just nonchalant oh it's not to bad.. lol
I still think it's a metallurgy issue. Those rods where more than likely cut out of the same slug. That's why they all broke in the same area.
This is the most likely explanation based on my experience as a machinist. Have seen this type of break due to flaws in the metal and also incorrectly labeled material. Have had to throw out many parts due to suppliers sending the incorrect or low quality material.
Wait, was anyone thinking otherwise? It's the only logical conclusion.
@@Avboden im still not convinced by the math 😁 😈
Yes definitely bad metal
yeah no doubt. The shearing at the piston and the break marks on the chunks that were rod definitely show it to be a metallurgical issue. No hate on the manufacturer, they probably wouldn't have even known it was an issue until they all said nope in unison, glad most of the motor is saveable though, you definitely build motor that can survive severe unscheduled abuse steve
I'm so glad cleetus sent me here. Steve is a mechanical genius. I learn so much every single video. I really respect the way you explain each and every thing to us. Thanks for the info and the video itself.
When I first saw all 8 rods broken my reaction was a metallurgy failure, not possible to fracture 8 rods in the same spot without it being a defect in base metal! I’ve seen stretched rods from ultra high rpm, split from end to end from overpressure and you never see all the rods broken even in a catastrophic failure in top fuel! It just doesn’t happen, I am sorry you have to go through this Steve but the rest of us out here would figure human error like did I forget to torque the rods! Just not possible! Thank you for being so transparent, gives me faith. I split a head open on my fresh built ford diesel Thursday, a brand new head failed. Asking myself a million questions, I’ll have it apart this week, betting on a casting line split,,,, I hope!
Those Connecting rods look like they literally shattered like Glass. I agree with you, it's bewildering. I would love to see what the metallurgy test comes back looking like. Amazing video, Thank You Steve.
Looks like the aluminum strain hardened and the rods shattered.
@@jidean2012 even still…. To have them all go at once is really odd. Work hardening failures usually have a certain amount of randomness, this is as if they all had a timer built in to them. I’m not sure you could deliberately design 8 aluminum structures to fail at so nearly the same number of cycles, especially when the cycles have the slight cylinder-to-cylinder variations in pressure you find in a running engine.
@@jidean2012 This cannot be explained by strain hardening.
For strain hardening you need to apply a significant amount of cold deformation to the metal or alloy, which means a change in the length of the rods. But this engine ran at full tilt right up the moment it let go, and it showed no drop in power before it happened. Rod stretch doesn't fit here, and the debris shows no signs of bend rods either.
My list of suspects: Wrong choice of material, and/or wrong design, and/or poor material quality (too much non-metallic inclusions in the metal) and/or wrong choice of heat treatment, or incorrect application of heat treatment. Or perhaps a material mix-up, where the wrong material was taken from stock for production.
@@stevelacker358 Sure you can.
Consistent stress, the material is all exactly the same. The shape of the grains in the metal at the failure. The location of the failure. No heat in any of the bearings. This is very common is aluminum rod engines.
@@Hydrazine1000 Absolutely. Think of how fast that piston is moving. The rod is stretching like a rubber band. He lost all of them because of the RPM.
you can see the years of experience in every little area of the engine....this guy's got skillZ
Skillz that could not keep a basic engine together?
Idd love to see a video of how you do the repairs to the engine block itself. I think seeing the welding and machine work would be cool. Also that engine is pure functional art
100% rod problem
They didn’t bend, they shattered!!
Your on point, Steve
I spent several years working in a Texas shop that puts out some of the baddest dirt car engines money can buy and have seen the insanity of probably every kind of engine failure imaginable. Except for this one.....the amount of destruction along side the lack of destruction has got my brain working overtime. Without actually having broken parts in hand I would say that the only way 8 rods break simultaneously without killing the crank would have to be a flawed set of rods
I agree, I thinknit comes down to the metallurgy of the rods. One started to go, vibration killed the rest VERY quickly.
That would also be my guess also. That it is material and grain structure and design.
I agree with your theory - simply because I don't see any way on that motor that a failure in on cylinder or pair of cylinder would cause another cylinder to break (with almost no damage to the block). If it was 'tune' related, I would think the piston or heads would show the damage first.
So if it was the rods and they all let go at almost the exact RPM - that is something for the rod-manufacturer to sort out. Of course my highest boost car is 16 psi so.....
Whos rods are they?
@@mikegordon3436 FFWD Racing Rods
I love how far you go to prove people wrong that haven’t got ALL the facts, and don’t know what they’re talking about!!! Keyboard mechanics are the worst. People will talk straight out of their 💩hole to try and prove themselves to be right and you to be wrong. You would be the VERY LAST person I would try to tell that it was done wrong. Keep up the awesome work!! Love seeing the builds!!
Steve is ruining the internet with facts and logic. Keyboard mechanics are gonna have to go elsewhere!
I like the comments about blown head gaskets when it has closed decks.
Or the comment about the rods stretching.
Morons man.
Steve teaches Critical thinking
Been a mechanic for 35 years and built countless motors and transmissions. You are the only person i listen to about motor info. Truly appreciated!!!!!
When I was on the FSAE team, we ran into our wheel centers breaking in high G corners. Our root cause analysis showed that it was the anodizing that was at the heart of the problem. Upon further research, we found that 7075-T6 is extremely sensitive to crack propagation, and putting a super hard layer on the outside, like anodizing, exacerbates the problem, because the aluminum has a very low young's modulus as compared to the anodizing layer, causing hair line cracks as the part went under high stress condition because the aluminum wants to "flex" but the anodizing cant flex as much.
It may be worth looking into what type aluminum the rods where made out of and what coating was done on it, but it could be as simple as a crack propagation issue. Not to mention, it would explain why all rods broke around the same time.
Thats cool to know!
Very very cool to know that.
They're not anodized, the black coating is a paint 👌
@@JamesPF2D at 32.06 he mentions "black anodizing" . He'll find out when the metallurgy comes back if it is a material or processing issue. Should probably just stick with tried and true brands that have been used forever at that hp level. Being the first one to use something at a never tried before hp level... expensive beta test failure.
@@zz7qvl well I'm pretty sure Steve is incorrect then, the black coating is the vader coating that the company sell and is for oil shedding..
That's a great video! Having said that, I'm also an engineer, and I've also got the "If everybody understood this, we wouldn't be arguing. Here's how this works..." thing; and I've spent so much time trying on the Internet over the last 21-22 years, explaining things to people at all levels of knowledge, and largely beating my head against the wall doing so. People used to listen and learn, or at the very least, understand what you're talking about and just have a different hypothesis. Seems like these days, there are SOOOO many people at the far upper left of the Dunning-Kruger graph, and seemingly permanently stuck there, that it's almost just not worth our time. I still get enough people to understand concepts that I haven't given up and still explain things, but there are and more people who are seemingly just unreachable.
Same here...Amen to that.
I find that sometimes people's ego will cause them to just want to prove their "theory", and they will have no desire to actually use critical thinking and be open to ideas/suggestions from people with way more knowledge than them. When training people like that, I'll tend to just let them fail over and over in hopes they will figure it out, since they will only accept something if it was "their idea", and be completely resistant to any information that comes from an outside source.
@@rpm427sc it's true... More often than not, dealing with car stuff, they attach their ego to their wallet, or rather, what they spent their money on.
I've been there and I'm not even an engineer. I'll never forget getting ganged up on and ridiculed in a discussion.
Simply trying my best to explain that an airplane needs less (ground) speed to take off, when taking off with a head-wind. Yes, it's crowded at the peak of "Mount Stupid"!
@@Sn0w1981 Well we got flat earthers now wich wasnt a thing 30 years ago.
Watched the engine build up video again and the “new” rods have a double rectangular recess machined out of the main beam versus a single recess in the “old” rods. The recesses are also two different sizes. This could be easily result in a stress concentration at the mid point of the beam (between the two machined out recesses. Add in that a T6 heat treatment actually reduces the fracture toughness of 7075, and you’ve got a recipe for a catastrophic fracture failure under cyclical loading. The fact that all 8 failed is a strong indicator of a design flaw that didn’t play nice with the grain structure of the aluminum.
That's exactly what I was thinking and likely what happened
I seen the rod. aluminum holds up on fuel cars .but one run and throw away this guy punished this engine so many times with big boost .. rod failure 100%
100% agree but he's gonna dazzle ya with bullshit to protect the rod manufacturer.. but bet he never uses that rod again in that application..
@@breckhedrick8692 Ever come across component lifecycle prediction / analysis? Guy builds engines for a living, and just mindlessly runing the part till failure? I belive the rods have predicted lifespan and it was not correct or material for the analysis was different than the rods in the engine.
@@MJPilote those 1/4 mile guys do go certain number of passes prior to rebuild..
Love love love your videos! I always learn something when watching your videos. Keep em coming!
I love all your content! Your design is perfect and love it all!
Steve I'm really impressed on how transparent you're on everything! When I can afford an engine from you I will!
Why? so it can blow up like this one?
@@benburnett8109 there’s always 1.
@@benburnett8109 clearly your clueless on how racing works...maybe so he can blow it up like proline or he can blow it up TKM, or Box , or a Texas speed or like a top fuel car or he can blow it up like any other engine in the world they all blow up or your not pushing limits or trying to go faster.. this one didn't blow up until 4,000 plus horsepower and 8600 rpm on a completely brand new never tested rod and now he knows they can't be used in applications this powerful until they are changed enough that's why he tested them in his own engine dipshit .. you see how many hemis and 481xs blew up this year that proline had to fix? No you didn't because you're clueless I forgot and you don't know what racing entails at this level..
@@benburnett8109 dude that's Fing RUDE!
@@benburnett8109 where’s the 4000 hp engine you designed and built yourself?
It’s awesome when you see a engine builder that is so passionate about his craft to look at every little thing and make sense of it thanks for walking a saw through it it is pretty awesome
I love the lessons man
Keep them coming,pleas
Love the in depth you go to in the videos
After taking metallurgy classes from our technical center when I worked for Alcoa, it definitely looks like a material failure. I bet if the grain structure was analyzed their would be a definitive answer on that. We saw pictures of examples of aluminum failures and some looked like that. Failures could be related to bad alloy with impurities that caused internal grain issues, poor forging process, etc. I’d really like to know what happened to them. If I still worked at Alcoa I’d try to reach out to our tech center to have them analyzed, but sadly I don’t.
It didnt come from Lake Charles Alcoa. I'm just sayin'. Gotta support Local!
The fracture breaks make me believe it was treated or aged to add strength, but lose flex. So it didn't bend it just broke. These rods are just to brittle for what SM is doing.
That's my thought as well. I would be curious to know the pounds force each cylinder is pushing down with on the power stroke. I guarantee the number is well above the strength of those rods, especially since they were not a full solid beam rod (They were solid beam but had machined pockets for weight savings, but also makes them weaker.). Just take a look at top fuel engines. They make so much power they will actually compress a connecting rod and make it shorter, and they use solid beam rods, but they don't shatter.
@@davidwickboldt712 I agree. The manufacturer boasts something like 200+ runs in a 2000hp bracket car with a 'proprietary' alloy. As hard as they are, probably great fatigue characteristics. Just not interested in bending, that's for sure. lol
I commented similarly and then I saw your comment.
Great minds think alike ?
lol I absolutely agree with you about grain structure especially after many heat cycles.... or impurities as you eluded to. Thanks 👍👍
Your showing us this is teaching all of us what can happen and hopefully how to fix. Your the best engine builder in the Buisness in my opinion Thanks for doing these videos.
Couldn’t wait for this !!!! Love you dude!!
Amazing attitude!!! Truly an inspiration!!!! Love the videos keep them coming!!!
I love how big the oil returns are in this engine.
HOW ABOUT THE BURST AREAS FOR THE RODS !
I'd really like to see how you save that block, can you do an upload on that process because to my complete novice mind it looks shagged. Loving your content mate. Cheers from Queensland Australia 😎✊
Seconded. Looks peened and pitted to heck and back.
Aluminium is easy to weld
Love the videos Steve! I would be crying pulling this apart, you are just cool as always and use it as a teaching experience. Love it!
Thanks for the update!
Watching part 1 and 2 of this video clearly states metal fatigue in my opinion.
No fault of you or your supplier...curious to know how the manufacturer tested these rods.
A learning curve for all involved. Move forward and upwards, best of luck.
Embrittlement - incorrect tempering. Fatigue would show up in one or a few pieces. But all 8 from the same batch, the metal was just too brittle.
I'm opining they were powdered metal rods, hot isostatically pressed, then forged...
Edit to add: I enjoy a good technical discussion! Though some disagree with me, that is good. What comes into play here is the Mode II fracture toughness (KIIC) of the composite. When under BOTH great stress and great strain, the type of material I describe has shown cases where it "blows up"... i.e. brittle fractures in all planes. Isotropic fracture. We can easily achieve 98ksi in a properly alloyed PM/forged part. These may also be on the edge of a metal/matrix rod. It will be interesting when Steve shares the lab results.
No way fatigue would have them all fail at the same time. Not how fatigue works.
@@totalyep Not fatigue, just incorrect material.
@@MX304 well it’s a fast fracture of some kind. Unlikely due to material. It’s probably something caused a massive sudden overload. Definitely not a fatigue failure.
I believe this is a metallurgy problem in the rods.
Those gernals are in great shape for what has taken place.
All the best Steve!
journal is how it is spelled. This is obviously a "torque to yield" rod bolt issue. They used the wrong torque spec across the board. The idea that the rods were all machined from the same piece of metal is the DUMBEST IDEA YET TO APPEAR IN DRAG RACING.
@@benburnett8109 The manufacturer of these rods has confirmed that all of these rods were machined from the same single slab of bar stock
@@seahorse5677 But the idea that the same flaw existed thru the entire raw stock is the dumbest idea since the first idea that the rods would fail due to a consistent flaw thru the bar stock. This is a misuse of material and a conncting rod bolt failure. It is far more likely that the wrong torque to yield spec was used than the core material had a flaw that went thru the entire length of the material. This is second grade engineering at best. Not a hard problem to figure out. Did you also know that global warming is a fallacy??? Same principal applies.
Love how you take the time to help others learn all these different things, always fun to watch and find out something new
I have been watching for a while and your explanations for this are thorough but understandable! The amount of carnage and minimal destruction to the parts is amazing engineering at work!
Thanks Steve for the in-depth explanation. I’m still sticking to my theory of excessive heat treatment which has made the material brittle.
I’d certainly like to get one of those pistons please. Thanks mate. Support from Victor Harbor South Australia 🇦🇺
How amazing the rods literally hit the point of material failure. I'm curious what total cylinder pressures were now the manufacturer of the rods knows! (Expensive learning)
Thanks for the breakdown videos! Steve my wife and I don't ever miss one
Same here man! I was telling him, he's essentially another Alan Johnson (in the comments section) :)
Just an incredible engine builder, the staff, their engineering the whole nine yards. Such a great Channel! Lol, actually I kind of excited if I we DO miss a because then it's like hey! Another video to watch, woohoo!
Who was the manufacturer so I can support them.
@@fast97z24 I completley understand where you are coming from because they have been so straightforward. However if he gave the manufacturer there would be people giving hate mail for essentially doing nothing wrong.
Awesome explanation and content. Thank you for taking the time to bring us along.
Thanks for explaining everything
Excellent! Pistons look gr8 considering what they went through. That last few seconds of life must have been pretty rough. Stoked to see the results of the metallurgy!
I can't believe how little damage there is for that failure!! Thanks for sharing.
Love your willingness to take the time to share this with us! Much appreciated! Seems pretty logical that this involved some rod material that was not what it was supposed to be.
I've learned so much from watching your videos. I appreciate you taking the time to make these videos.
Your the best at taking the time to explain…damage control speaks highly of the quality of parts you use..
This is going to be a super interesting series of video's connected to this blow up, your positive attitude towards the whole thing is very impressive, I hope all the evidence of the failures leads you to the correct reason for this event, as a race engine builder myself I would say that if the rods were weak for some reason and they were all equally weak then when equally loaded beyond a failure point then yes they can be expected to all fail together especially as when the initial failure took place a storm of debris shot through the engine from that 1st rod to fail, that must have created a shock wave that precipitated the complete failure as with each rod letting go the shock just kept getting bigger and the debris storm kept getting denser and more violent. Can I suggest that in future use steel or titanium rods. My 2 cents
AGREE ! apart from using steel or titanium rods,not at this power level.
People hopefully do not you give you this much grief. You are the king 🤴 of engines.!
This is the best contemt I've seen so far. Thanks for a great video.
Thanks Steve, your info is priceless
Uncle Tony's Garage (UA-cam) commented that in the early 90's When motors were going from wet sump to dry sump these types of failures were common, and it was found to be a resonance that the wet sump oiling tended to suppress. Some Pro-stock history lessons may reveal causes.
UTG made the most sense out of all the comments to explain why it all went south at once. It is amazing how resonance can all of a sudden cause interest things to happen. Hit that sweet spot and in this case boom on a impressive scale.
Saw that too . . . Though I think he was referencing the top fuel engines. Fascinating stuff all around.
I just started watching your channel, and some awesome content thus far. The minimal damage to that engine for the rods exploding is amazing
Thanks for sharing your great info.
Excellent video and analysis. Thanks for taking the time.
Love the series, sorry for the loss. Keep the videos coming, love learning. Thanks!
Much respect and thank you Steve for taking the time.
thank you for taking the time to explain👍
Just the best videos with in depth description!
That's crazy. Rebuild, stronger, faster. Great job, Steve
Great episode Steve. I really love the in depth looks like this. I've never seen an engine expire like this and its awesome how you are showing everyone everything. You are doing the whole car community a service by putting this info out.
Great video Steve, really nice to learn with you!
Videos are awesome as always steve. I appreciate the knowledge and explanation of things. It helps me understand it a lot better
Amazing to see that the engine/block contained all that energy. Incredible
love the channel and the true teardown of this motor, your not hiding anything or making excuses. Cant wait to find out what you think happened.
The amount of knowledge you possess and share is amazing. Thank You.
I really love this type of videos. These videos are really educating. I learn a lot about engines and how they work with this type of videos.
Never really noticed how big those intake exhaust ports are. you could rent each one as an apartment in Japan.
would like to thank you Steve for all the info.. i am learning a lot from these videos..hence i will be a better consumer engine buyer.. i hope to one day have one of your motors in my truck.. it would make me proud to rep you and your company and your standards. the simplifying of the issues for us non techie types and layman people is fantastic..again thank you and be safe.. love and respect..
That is crazy to see what happened Steve. I really enjoy watching you work and analyze what happened.
Beautiful engine ... big fan of your work.
I think it's really great that an engine builder such as yourself would actually take the time to show us and explain to us an engine failure that came from in house, regardless of it was material failure or build failure you're very courageous to film it regardless of the outcome. In my humble opinion I believe the harmonics of the RPM you were running combined with the brittle nature of the rods created a harmonic resonance that just basically blew them all apart at the same time
This is a good episode. Amazing that the top looks so good with the crank going full metal shredder for a few seconds. If you were doing this for a customer would you recommend salvaging most of the original engine or sell them a new short block?
Good info as always Steve.
I would potentially kill to learn engine building from you. I love every video you post about working on them. Keep motivating the world to go fast man you're amazing.
Steve, I love the videos! Honesty I like watching your videos over anything on UA-cam. I also like that you make long videos and that you really go deep and explain what’s going on. Don’t listen to any of the haters, you know your stuff. Keep up the great work and I look forward to more videos!
I just discovered you through clitoris mcfarlane and I really enjoy your content you're articulate you're smart and you explain things so everybody can understand it I really appreciate that and the fact that you care enough to try and teach people what's going on is just the greatest your positive attitude and your kind heart all show what kind of person you are so thank you thank you thank you
You sir are a legend showing all the info and breaking it down for every one to learn and get there gears turning and learning
I loved the math, you answered my question to the decimal point!
Steve, i would love a video talking about and showing some of the advancements that have been made throughout your career by you and others. Obviously these cars are the best they have ever been due to people like you pushing the envelope in the tech. A look back would make a cool video or even series i think a lot of us would enjoy. I love listening to guys like you because you share what you know for free and you have probably forgotten more than i know.
Excited for the giveaway. I would love to have one of those pistons on my shelf!
Steve, you are a true master in your innate ability to teach the theory of operation of one of these beasts. As an engineer, I appreciate the adage that “you can’t argue with math”. So appreciate your transparency and willingness to teach us all. I’d frame one of your pistons and put it up in my shop.
Love the knowledge you have and the thinking! I am a Building General Contractor and always try to think out side the box every time I build something and how points are going to be loaded and needing points to load them. Love the videos and keep them up! P.S. also a gear head!
loving the in depth , to the high horse power engine , truly amazing
Steve, I’ve been around the block more than a few times, but your videos are so illustrative and educational I have learned more and more. Thank you for taking time to produce these. Look forward to each on. Stay well.
really interesting video, reminds me of reading about GMs development when they went drag racing with the Ecotec, they published the development programme data and had all four stock rods fail at once on the dyno when they reached their limit
It is such a privilege to hear someone with such a positive attitude not blaming everyone else for problems, realizing accidents happen, such as a poorly made main stud. Also it's GREAT to hear a christian on youtube. I know you are by your attitude, your language and a heart for others. Way to go Steve and GOD bless!!!!!!!
Great video, I appreciate you sharing the details and your knowledge, so awesome!
Loving this content. I enjoy learning how stuff is engineered. Why things are done specifically. Most only show the good. Steve you are teaching people invaluable information, and like you said critical thinking. You have a deep desire to teach, and personally I have an extreme desire to learn. Thank you so much for showing us, The Good The bad and The ugly. J Swap Jason.
Uncle Tony has a interesting theory about harmonics. Used to be a big issue with aluminim rods back in the day. Either way, those things were no good.
link?
Steve, we learn more from failures and mistakes than anything else. But it takes brave and humble people like yourself to share these experiences in such detail that allow us to learn so much!
You are not just a brilliant engine builder, you are also a First class teacher who shares his knowledge in such a way that we can all understand what you are talking about and what is going on.
Please keep up the good work and keep the videos coming, as I'm always looking for the next one. Hence I've subscribed and shared your work!👍😎
I'm glad you explain things thank you peace
The amount the first piston was squashed was very impressive. Great to see minimal damage to the motor overall considering what happened!
Awesome video as always! I’m curious to see how the metallurgy comes back but it 100% is a material issue
We’re always watching and my son Justin is learning from you brother.. He’s becoming a great engine builder and study’s 24-7 and alway’s learning better way’s and trying néw thing’s and guy’s like you are people he look’s up to and respect’s in the engine business So Hat’s Off and Thank you from SKULL GARAGE high in the mountain’s of N.C.
Thank you so much for taking time to show us what a modern motor looks like, in pieces of course.
Actually, these rods are awesome! They shattered instead of damaging the whole engine. They are great for their limitation and the engine is still fixable. Thanks Steve for the great info
30:15 That is one of the money shots. I needed to see at least one unmolested fracture line. There was one other rod end I wanted to see as well, but that is good enough. Still like to rough out the stress calculation. Machining will have a greater influence on the failure mode than anodizing, but neither of them will outrank material selection.
That chunk looks like a layer sheared off. Don't think Alu supposed behave that way or?
@@palleppalsson Depending on the alloy they can. That fracture is not indicative of sheer, but rather compressive, possibly tensile. Tough to estimate on a video with such short glimpses. It most certainly did not possess enough ductile qualities for that application. Might be a seven series alloy.
Thank you for the detailed breakdown, this was very informative.,
fascinating ! Thanks for sharing.
Great info there Steve. I think it could be equated to how tempered glass breaks. Tough as nails, but when it breaks it just explodes. I think the same applied to these rods. Got stressed and instant failure. All a metallurgical issue, as noted by others. Would love to see a lab failure analysis report on those rods. I hope you get that done. Or the rod supplier...
Yes, except "explodes" is very poor terminology, temerered glass has significant residual stress as does heat treated metal, in the case of the glass when it has a microscopic defect this causes a stress riser, If additional stress is added say by heat the stress at the defect multiplies beyond the tensile strength of the glass and it fails catastrophically spraying glass everywhere as the residual stress or energy dissipates but it does not explode as the energy does not increase. It is highly likely the rod material does have microscopic defects but these are normal for all metals and unlikely to cause instantaneous catastrophic failure, they are more likely to cause fatigue cracking over time and not equaly over the 8 rods, but a heat treat process that induced excessive residual stress in a batch of rods would be a prime suspect for the 8 rods failing instantaneously within 1 or 2 crank rotations of one another with the aplied loads much lower then design. 👍✌️
A friend of mine worked for Alcoa In Tennessee he said he seen high number aluminum such as 7061 or greater shatter right after a pour.He said it came from the mix of stuff added to the aluminum made super brittle and slightly cooling shattered it like tempered glass
The way those rods blew out that seems damn probalbe.
Just amazing. One of those one in a life time freak things. I do lean towards something wrong with the rods alloy too. Thanks for sharing your ups and downs. Keeping it real. And one of those pistons would make a awesome 60th Bday gift for me lol.
Excellent in depth analysis of the engine failure and you show great professionalism when dealing with this less than ideal outcome.
Love the videos and keep them coming 😁👍👌
Steve , I love the work that you do !
I have been watching you for years and some day I'm going to own my own SMX. These rods look Die-Cast aluminum . I suggest you get a batch of those rods and yours and have X-Ray's done on them to compare them . Billet rods should stretch not shatter . Try putting one in a press and see if it bends or breaks.
Fatigue failures do crack, however. At 45 pounds of boost, 6 runs of repetition...
@@CreeperOnYourHouse I still think the grains weren't as tight as they should have been for billet. Bad aluminum will cause these problems.
No, they were definitely billet. Probably 7075 T6 and the anodizing was lightning the fuse.
I don’t think you’d see grain structure with an X-ray. Better to just examine the grain structure Uber a microscope.
@@mikehoncho5389
Yup. A lot of the time you can see the grain with the naked eye. You etch, stain and observe under magnification.
Never seen an engine with so much damage (8 rods let go at “once”!) and yet have crank rod journals look so dam good! Think about it, all the rods BROKE off the crank journals at speed and yet the crank/block doesn’t look terrible! Absolutely amazing, again had to see it to believe it… thanks for sharing!
Amazing motor Thanks for sharing and the lesson 💯
Good video glad to see you keeping a great attitude. Love all the people giving this man advice when he is the building these bad ass engines I'm sure he already knows haha