BANG! [56k no]

Back at the end of April, my dad and I went to an open track event at Thunderhill Raceway Park in Willows, CA. He brought is 1965 Shelby, which I'm pretty sure a good number of you have seen pictures of. Anyway, everything was great on Saturday. However, in one of the late Sunday sessions, we (I was riding shotgun) were exiting turn 7 (quick left hander) and the back end decided it was faster than the front, and whipped around. We slid through the grass, desperately hoping for there to be no burms or anything that might upset the car onto its roof. Thankfully there were none.

The odd thing was that there was very little sound when it happened. My dad also described the clutch as feeling funny when he shifted just prior to the incident. After coming to a stop, the starter turned over, but it didn't really... do... anything. We got a pull tow back to the paddock, packed up, and headed home.

Now, over a month later, we finally are starting to rip apart that small block Ford to see what happened.


Hey something's wrong here.


Above: water pump pulley. Below: crank pulley and balancer. Yeah, something's definitely amiss.


Now generally, generally, this is not what you want to have happen when you pull an engine.


Say, that flywheel sure is at a rakish angle!


Hey those jerks only sold part of the bellhousing! I want my money back!


Engine came out this morning. Yeah, that's serious.


Pretty shitty, I must say. Look at how the oilpan is rippled at the top.


That flywheel looks even worse with the bell housing removed.


Flywheel removed.


Block with one of the heads off. My dad told me, at this point, he just started laughing.


Fucking


Obliteration.


Hey internals what's up


I'm still impressed.


You can't really see it, but there's substantially more bend in that scatter shield than is acceptable.

The weirdest thing is that when it went, it hardly made ANY sound. Just a muffled "thump," as I recall. Honestly I thought a tire went down or something, because there was no loud bang usually associated with terminal engine failure. My dad is actually pretty okay with it, though. He told me that the engine is easily replaceable. Costs money, but in the end it's okay. It's much cheaper than replacing a '65 GT350...

I'll update this thread as we get stuff done.