Well we had a rough weekend with cars around here. First off Friday night while my son was making license passes in a friends door car we had a little mishap. Seems some bolts from the rocker stands decided to pull the threads and come apart. Doesn't look horrible but will need some thread repair and a couple pushrods at least.

Turn to Saturday for our 4th bracket race of the year. My son has only been racing for just over a year. This was his 11th race overall. We started him in Super Pro and he has been learning. Lots of close racing but all in all doing better overtime out. Making better decisions up top mainly. He got down to 5 cars at the last race so we were optimistic going into Saturday. Well he was doing well again, got by round one and headed to round two had a tough opponent and local racing family who has a few NHRA National championships under their belts. Anyway was a great race. Opponent was .007 on the tree my son was .001 he got up top killed .012 in ET and 4MPH and took a .010 stripe for the W. Unfortunately he thought the battery had dies as the car would not restart. So we towed it back and hooked it up. Towed him to the line just incase, as we had little time to charge between rounds. When we got him to the point we could let it run for some heat(E85)he went to start it, I knew immediately it was not a battery issue but rather a catastrophic engine issue. So we loaded up and went home. After this he tells me he ripped the throttle twice to back into his opponent and went to put it in neutral and it just shut off. So likely went book then..

Yesterday I decided to start tearing into it. Decided to pup the radiator cap and have a look. Hmmm no water. So I am now optimistic. Maybe we just lost a head gasket. So start pulling plugs. Hmmm no water coming out, try to spin it now Bueno. I had noted #6 plug was very clean, like new infact. So get the trusty bore scope camera out and have a look. What I found was not a pretty sight..Part of a piston staring back at me.
Seems it had hydrauliced #6 so the teardown proceeded.

The pictures that follow may be hard to look at and not suitable for young children. They are graphic images to be sure. . #6 made a big mess for sure. The rest of the engine looked great and almost new. Anyway for those who have heard me say you are living on borrowed time with a stock block this is what they can do..FWIW this was a stock bore stock stroke 440 with a set of stock replacement Ross pistons, 440source H beams a small roller and a set of OOTB -1 heads. Ran on E85 and in out 1875lb dragster ran 8.30's on its last pass here in Vegas at altitude and a 90 degree day..

now we need to find something to put in the car for him to keep the learning curve going.


Borescope pic, Not the bst image but the black spot is the missing piston.


This is once that head was removed




Rest of that piston in the oil pan, and a nice look at some of the missing cylinder wall



Some of the junk in the pan, was a few pounds of it all together..


Lastly the start of the issue. Thing never puffed smoke or had any issue before going boom in the lights.