The Camaro Club (UK)

Morning Gents/Ladies, under a year ago i bought a nut and bolt restored '67 Camaro RS.
It has a '66 396 block from a 66 Chevelle and a 4 speed gearbox. A Lunatic voodoo cam has been installed along with a Holley Street fighter carb. The work had been done in the U.S and the car then imported. I bought the car with 100 miles on the clock. I've been driving the car carefully on low rev runs around town and on a few 80 mile or so runs. i always thought the engine had a rather loud tapping sound, but not being a mechanic i thought it might have been part of the running in period.
In total the car has done 700 odd miles and last week cruising along the M2 i noticed the tone of the engine suddenly changed and pulled over and the engine died. The temperature had suddenly shot up so while i waited for the recovery truck i let it cool down and started it to see if it had ceased. The engine turned over but with a big clanging sound. I thought it may have been the big end bearing straight away.
Took it to my mechanic this week and we pulled the rocker covers off and found that the heads where being starved of oil, a few of the rockers had cracked and a few of the rods had bent.
After a very short discussion i decided to pull the engine out and strip the whole thing to investigate further.
After taking the sump off we found a fist full of metal at the bottom and three of the crank bearings had been destroyed and the rest are well on their way. The bottom end bearings had 020 marked on them.
The crank shaft is scored so that has to be machined, which had already been done according to the stack of receipts i have and a couple of the con rods are a bit stiff. how far can the Crank be machined?
Upon further inspection we notices that the cam bearing at the back of the engine where the distributer rod connects with the cam was not properly aligned. Both the bearing and the Cam have oil grooves in place.
We haven't check the condition of the oil pump yet but i believe this had been replaced when the engine was rebuilt.
All the moving parts with the exception of the crank are new in appearance as per receipts.

Does anyone know what could have caused this engine to pop like this?

here are the engine numbers;

Block (drivers side rear) c1 385591 p, front,by fuel pump, (t02021) C130889
heads, drivers side 3872702. Also GM 2 A236 codes appear.
Passenger side 3872702 along with GM b16

Inside the chain housing the markings 'pass hi perf 3' appear and inside the fly wheel housing, 'hi perf truck pass A' appear.

oil pump markings are as follow, 03207 on the bottom, u8a5 & m77 and gl appear on the top.

Any help on this would be appreciated as we can't see what would have caused it.

thanks.

Rob

I'm no engine builder but had a couple go pop. I know that on my 383 I was firmly instructed the oil should be changed after initial 50 or so mile run in, then again at around 500 miles, so not sure if that contributes.
The oil starvation may be just be a badly assembled engine or with the wrong bits, so the oil pick up's in the wrong place, or clearances wrong, bad machining, bad alignment.

Sounds like the engine needs a proper rebuild, with parts, and the block will need maching with all that metal flying around it..

_________________
“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”

I have come across a lot of engines built in the US that have failed, I'm not sure why this is but it is bloody annoying and very expensive.

The only advice I can give is to get the block cleaned and flushed then checked for alinement (especially as the cam bearings have moved) or other damage and then if your happy rebuilt by someone that knows BBC's and what to look for when building them.

It does sound like there was a problem with the motor from the start though.