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AC3=blown motor

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LMallatt

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
Hey guys. I installed a new AC3 kit with SFMS a few days ago. The car worked perfect and I really enjoyed the kit. I have 200+ miles on the kit with no deto or any problems that would have suggested the problem. Then last night I was driving home from a friends house at approx 3000-3500 RPM with the boost in the low setting (opposite the orfice on the controller) and then at about 40 MPH on a slight incline, I heard an explosion and saw smoke escaping from under the hood. I proceeded to immidatly pull over and open the hood to see the motor on fire (which did melt a lot of the motor and the surrounding electrical connections). Upon furthur inspection the motor has two fist sized holes in the lower part block. Spoke to Aerocharger and they are cluelesss, do you have any idea what happened.
I will try and have pictures up soon.
P.S. Atleast one connecting rod came out and cleanly split in two sections.
Help me please figure out what happened.
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#2 ·
Oh man. I'm very sorry to hear that. A rod just let loose! You're not the first person to have this happen on a forced induction Focus.

Now is really time for a moral decision... Ford will obviously not warranty this... with the turbo installed.

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#3 ·
I dont know what happen, but i wish you good fortune. I am about to convince ford to buy me a new engine, then i am going to sell my turbo kit.
good luck man
 
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#5 ·
It won't take you long to realize, unfortunatly a bit too late, that the aerocharger kits are extremely notorious for blowing up motors. That's what happens when you release a turbo/sc setup without much R&D for a good fuel solution.

Sorry bro.

kev
 
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#7 ·
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by FocusLacy:
Didn't one let go at FX'02??? What's the total now?<hr></blockquote>

I am pretty sure that guy put new injectors and MAF on w/o getting rid of a lot of timing. Not aerochargers fault. Thats like blaming Garret if someone is using their turbo and blow the engine.
 
Discussion starter · #9 ·
I installed the kit with help from a few other people. We made sure that everything was done correctly since I DID NOT want anything bad to happen to my daily driver. I drove the car lightly and then checked all connections and made sure that the SFMS was working properly by making sure that there was fuel escaping from the 5th injector and it was. The spark plugs all looked normal. There was some deto initially and was promtly fixed by changing the orfice per the instructions from Aerocharger. I did not want to drive the car hard until I was able to take it to a chasis dyno to check the A/F ratio to make sure it was near the stock setting. Everything looked correct and there was no sign of any potential problems. I am just so frustrated buy paying $ 3200 for a turbo kit that I will NEVER reinstall and a new motor and also all the damage caused by the underhood fire. I thought this kit was supposed to be safe, but I guess not. On a side note the car was under some acceleration since I was moving up a slight incline.
Note: I ran on both high and low boost settings with no problems, and therefore thought that it would be OK to drive on low boost setting for daily driving.
 
#11 ·
V, you are correct about that one, I just found out the details. It does help the arguement that the fuel system needs to be tuned properly, but you're right about the failure not being Aerodyne's "fault".
 
Discussion starter · #13 ·
The car has just under 20,000 and was properly maintained with oil changes every 3000 miles and all fluids always checked. The coolant was in the middle of the max and min with a lightly warmed up motor. The kit has approx 200 miles on it before the incident. Essentially the car is my baby and therefore I will not stand for even a slight scratch.
 
#14 ·
How are you certain that there was no detonation? Mine has been on for about 3000 miles with severe detonation at times. No blown motor here. I did lift every time I heard it start to detonate. Maybe you didn't hear it or maybe the radio was up a little too loud. With two rods going at the same time, I doubt it was a flaw in both.
 
#16 ·
u know what i think is the problem here? I think its actually the engine itself having some faults in some of them. Look at drabert, he blew his engine up and he was at 0 boost, not even using the turbo

This guy seems to be running on low setting, which almost doesnt even require enough fuel

i relly think that there is a batch of bad rods that ford put in and people are now suffering, i would do an investigation on this

Theres no way that the turbo puts enough stress on the engine on low boost and not even flooring it

Lacy, understand there are a lot of people blowing their engines, but look at it this way, how does the AC turbo itself blow the engine up? I mean he was in low boost and was at part throttle, it seems like even with the stock fuel system, he shouldnt blow his motor up, might have some deto but not enough to blow the engine up

I really dont think it was a fuel thing, im just guessing, but i think it may be just a bad engine to begin with and thats the only thing that scares me, i might do rods with my turbo this summer just to make sure it doesnt happen to me
 
#17 ·
If I am getting this straight- at moderate RPM with supposedly no noticeable detonation, and under mild load (hillclimb)-

two rods snap?

I just think there has to be a fairly thorough "autopsy" here before we a conclude a thread title of AC3=blown motor.

The above parameters seem to indicate that the AC was not in a position of putting THAT much more stress on the motor than could be expected in ANY FI situation.
Man, this is a royal bummer, but isn't there simple, fundamental, and NOTICEABLE A/F problems that might have lead to this abrupt failure, THAT weren't present in this situation.
Leading me to think that some other problem, or inherent sample weakness was present.

again, that just suck big-time and I feel for anyone is this situation.
I am just caught in the circle where people logically explain rod stress under properly managed boost/rpm to be minor compared to high rpm loads.
So what does this case possibly tell us
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Discussion starter · #18 ·
I had the radio off and the drivers window was rolled down a good part of the way. I could hear the deto when we first put the kit on the car. Gehard (sorry if spelled wrong) sent me some extra orfices to try and aliviate the deto since I live in Cali and the max octain is 91. I know what deto sounds like and I am certain that there was none. Also I only found parts of one of the connecting rods. The others might be okay as I have not had a chance to furthur investigate. The thing that bothers me is that I was assured by Aerodyne that the kit would be safe for my car without doing any modifications. They said that I did not need to lover the compression ratio down to something like 8:1 or upgrade the fuel system beyond there own SFMS. I was just trying to make my car a quick daily driver that might have seen a few runs at the sacramento track. I have several friends who are running turbos on both cars like a 300 zx that had the turbo from the factory to a civic that runs a turbo that is an aftermaket kit like the focus one from aerocharger. I wonder if I would have had the motor rebuilt with stronger connecting rods if that would have possibly avoided this problem. Also we checked during our initial instalation inspection and there were no kinks or bends in the boost controllers tubing or the supply of vacum to the boost guage. The car showed absolutly no signs of any potential problem, for if it would have I would have parked it right then and there. I am a full time student and I had plans of doing upgrades on the clutch and adding a LSD, however this will never be.
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#20 ·
I guess my question is how do you know you weren't detonating if you never took it to the dyno to verify? Assuming you installed it correctly, without this as an identifier of detonation .. how would you know for sure if deto was present?

I am starting to believe there is some possible validity to faulty rods from Ford. I have a Ford mechanic buddy who broke his #2 rod in a NA car with no explanation of why? He by no way babied his car ... but the same end result.

IMHO the Aerocharger was not the DIRECT cause of your car to kaboom. Did it have a role to play .. sure it could have ... if you had bad rods from jump. The thing that sucks is for us that have a turbo, how will we know if we're next? (short of taking the motor apart)
 
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