Hot Rods Ever see a piston spin sideways in a cylinder bore?

At 201 MPH on the salt this big block chevy let go... The piston spun sideways in the bore tearing off the skirts, and splitting the piston in half. It's almost a perfect sphere. The rod was bent all to hell and the wrist pin bore oblonged. That's the top of the piston facing left.
I've seen lots of gernaded engines, but this was a new one for me.

 

What type of piston?

 

Yup, been there, seen that....on a single cylinder ATV engine in my case

 

Nope never seen one do that before, I hope they hang it up above a fireplace or something, talk about a conversation piece.

 

seen a piston in a semi diesel do that...

 

Not sure what brand piston but it was a big block chevy engine the rod was stock

 

We were drag racing down in Phoenix one time, the driver reported the engine rattled after he crossed the finish line. He thought it broke a piston. We did a leak down test to find the bad hole. Pulled the head, the piston was sideways, I screwed a sheetmetal screw in the top of it and pulled it up out of the hole with a pair of vice grips. Broke the rod into just below the wrist pin.

 

Looks like an old TRW/Speedpro type piston from whats left.

I had a customer bring in a 460 Ford for rebuild. The piston was like that. Plus the rod was folded over double and wadded up alongside the piston.

"Shut er off when I heard the noise!"

 

That is creepy looking. I would kind of like to see the cylinder it came out of or what is left of it. At 201 MPH that could have been scary. I blew up my first engine at 115 MPH and it threw a rod locking up the whole rear end. I was 16 and boy was that a ride.

 

Here's one for ya's!!!.... How about a train that let one loose, goes flying through the air and inbed's it's self into a wall at someone's house??? No kidding! check out the pictures!

 

Wow i have never seen that unless the rod was broken! How much piston to cylinder clearance did you have?

 

now thats some kinda cool

 

mama always said stay away from trains , planes and other guys wives , i wouldnt want any of them coming thru my wall , thats wild

 

Holy Shit!

 

Yeah!! Glad nobody got hurt from that one... The train company paid in full for all the repair work...

 

Knock on wood I've never scattered a motor before.
A friend has a 71 Camaro with BBC drag car and two stage 250 shot of NO2. While running for his NHRA license (it's a 9.50 car) he lost the motor on the top end and still coasted to a 10.20..............when he tore the motor down number 4 piston had now found a home on top of number 6 piston. Surprisingly nothing came outside of the block, but the inside was mess.

 

Beautiful...so did you throw another one in and run?

 

semi diesel!!!! its only diesel half the time ?? lol

 

Scary when you think about it, huh??

 

Sure, if it is a two-stroke diesel. Otherwise it is a quarterly diesel.

 

thats a first for me.... however i did see an engine that had a piston upside down in the bore on a blown alky dragster.... imagine how THAT happened.

 

My x-uncle had an old Dodge pickup with a flathead that had done that, and have seen it in an old Super H tractor.

 

Seen that. Also seen Hypers turn to powder and fill the intake. Had a bag of the debris on the bench for a long time, finally threw out cleaning up one day. Broke cranks in half. Had one fill pan with alky burn hole in piston. Literaly exploded and had to beat around bolts on VC's, time cover and pan to get apart. Made helluva cool fire. Whole sides of block come out and knock starters off. Stuff gets routine in racing after a long time and ya don't even keep stuff after awhile. But that train engine explosion was spectacular.

 

Haven't seen that before, but torn down a couple late model ford diesels and have found pistons missing, biggest chunk we found was about 1/2" across...

 

You guys collecting other folks broken parts so you don't have to make your own?

 

unless its your house! those are big ass pistons!

 

Another offering to the gods of speed...........?

 

Big Daddy Don would've...

 

Seen a pontiac 400 with a siezed piston pin that was almost there
And my 351 Cleveland did that and cracked the cylinder

 

Dang, talk about incoming! Hopefully nobody got hurt over that one.