Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting what I found in my old SVT motor-

To clarify again:
I was saying that I didn't think there was a difference between the "hand assembly" of the Mustang Cobra motors at Romeo engine plant and the traditional assembly line approach for the Contour SVT engine. On the Cobra assembly line, there are two guys who follow each motor down the line.

I have no problem saying *your* hand built engines are different. But you *specifically* mentioned the Mustang Cobra motors and inferred that they were better because they are "hand built" To me it's just two guys following it down the line doing the assembly operations vs. 1 very experienced person at each station.

ill give you that one.

some new pics are up if you follow the link- also the roasted motor pics should be up tonight

OK guys, I was so impressed with this story I ran it past Terry..

"
Terence Haines wrote:

> The crank whip has more chance of affecting rod ends Vs mains,9 out of
> 10 that I've torn down usually have the adjacent main scored aswell.To
> run 4 at once is unusual,The rods have never given me any problems...I
> think the failure goes like this....crank whips....bearings start to
> pick up some of the soft bearing material....it blocks the rod oil feed
> hole in the crank...bearing starts to overheat...picks up....tears out
> 'tags' in rod & rips up inside of rod end/cap....never had a main 'spin'
> only score the bearing & crank...if it did the block would be shot as
> the main bearing 'girdle' take all the main bearing caps and is
> mated/m-c as an assy with the block.TH"

So it sounds like since adjacent mains typically have scoring, Horse's situation may be somewhat different than the norm...

like I said- we in our shop had never seen anything like this- four of the six rod bearings totoally destroyed and one partially, only one was ok- and the best part is the way the engine is currently- one totoally destroyed- two having seized on the crank about to chew themselves to peices and one about to sieze to the crank- Very unusual in that all stages of the breakdown are present here-