Dennis the reason i was using the Fel-Pro blue was that the Comp was not radically high on this motor.. somewhere between 13.5-13.8 CR..And yes the # 1 cylinder had a valve hit the piston, that was caused when a lash caps got loose on me and thats what i was pulling the head to work on when i found the rest of this..I dont see the gasket leak you spoke of.....CHRIS, thanks for the email you sent me and sorry to hear that you too had an issues with the K-1 Rods.. as i said before i usually do alot of reasearch on items before i buy them and felt pretty comfy with buying these rods.. HEY B1MAXX-- yes these rods were clearenced at the rod bolt area i post a few pics of the one we did and then when sent to the machine shop ,they finished them up and balanced everything... GREGSDART... you will be getting a package in the mail in a few das.. thanks again...

side view

can you post some pics of the piston and rod that failed? what did the bearings look like?

those are nice rods !! never seen an issue with them my self as well,
as for the leak , i was looking at the carbon (black ) soot , on the rear of the gasket , may may not be what i see just looked funny compaired the the front
also , the center pistons alfull clean , ?? have you discovered why ,, or did they get cleaned up ??
i could be wrong was it #v 5 rod bearing there looks like it got hot on the crank?
never like to see this as i have several times allready, but but i do use for future education, if it was an oiling issue?? how do we , fix it and where was the issue located , and a cure, so we dont repeat
i ask because we all need to know exspecialy if it an issue we all can look at an repaire before any more carnage
thanks

I doubt that rod clearancing was the cause. When you get the rod out, if it failed in another area, then you know the clearancing wasn't a factor, IMO.

How many passes on the motor?

With all do repsect Billy, I highly doubt it was simply a "bad K1 rod". Hey, anything is possible I guess, but I'd be looking elsewhere.

First off, unless you ( or the builder, not sure who did what in your build) can assure you:

1) The rod bolts were first cycled properly
2) The bores were checked before and AFTER cycling.
3) The rod bolt lengths were recorded before stretching AND after strecthing. ( not sure if you used torque and angle,torque or stretch)
4) Bores were checked for any chamfer or honing related impingments
5)Proper lube was used
6) Did you have a gasket leak and dosme hydro locking?
7) Did the valves hit the pistons FIRST, and beat out bearing to the point of failure?

I will go on record to say that myself and quite a few other shops that share information have used hundreds of sets of K1 rods without issue, and in higher horsepower and higher RPM applictions, without ever an issue. When we see ANYONES rod or bearing failure, it is 99.9% of the time some other problem, or an installation error.Could a rod "just" fail? I suppose. Do they? Not really.The internet unfortunatly breeds a "mob" mentallity when things fail, and then a pile on effect takes place, often without qualified diagnosis, and the result is, " I got a bad brand XYZ" part. Most of the time, it is not the part.

I think you really need to look at some other issues that may have caused this. That could involve many things such as already stated, oil starvation, improper set up/assembly and so forth. I did not do the work, so like everyone else, we are making assumptions based on your supplied information. I am simply stating, that in 25+ years of doing this, at many different levels, I would be shocked to see a K1, or any of the similar products just "fail". If the bearing spun, you very simply lost crush, or starved the bering to the point of friction tearing up the bearing sufrace, then the spinning begins. I would still spend some time investigating that area.I see this stuff all the time, nd can tell you, there is almost always reason.( often more information surfaces AFTER the fact...lol)

Regardless, very sorry to hear, it really stinks for anyone. Step back, catch your breath and start looking at some of the things that you perhaps havent considered( or dont want to...lol)

Best of luck to you.

All the Soot came from the #1 cylinder where i had lost the exhaust valve and yes by the time i took the pics i had wiped the face of the gasket and pistons down to see what damage was there..QuickTree, i havent pulled the motor out yet , but will post pics once i get it down and opend up.. only about 12 passes on the motor..going outside to look and see if the cam was wiped out too.. after i saw the piston and block, i closed up my shop and walked away before i set a BIG fire Out there....

Well Todd.. i didnt say the K-1 rods failed.. if you REread my fisrt few post you will see where i think it was a bearing falure, not a rod failure, the issue i have with the rod is that it took out the side of my block....lol...i can assure you that the man(cousin Tony) who screwed this motor together is one of those guys who irratates me to death with the "Details" of motor building..he checks,rechecks and double checks everything.. drives my crazy everytime we build a motor.. but in the past 25+ years of motor building, this is the first one that has has ANY ISSUES.. never even lost a bearing,pushrods or anything else until this motor..the reason for thr K-1 comments was another member here had sent me an email telling me that he had the same thing happen to his motor and wanted to know what happened to see if there was any common factors... So, looks like i will be looking to have someone repair my indy block in the near future..anyone knows who does the best work when it comes to repair of Alum block... Indy,I know...

You may or may not have over-reved the engine.

But, look at the exhaust valve marks in the piston. Bet the bearing was getting a hard lick too due to the hammering taking place at the piston with the valve beating into the pistons.

Think about this the exhaust valve and piston are running towards each other. Really hard lick. The bearing takes a lot of abuse from this. Finally the rod breaks and you got a bigger mess.

At least you are running an alluminum block. It can be fixed pretty quickly.

Finding out why you have collisions going on in your engine may take a while longer.

Leon

Valve hitting piston removing oil film.
Bearing gets damaged resulting in broken rod.
Just a guess until motor is disassembled.

Man, that is just plain bad luck. Hopefully, there will be something that shows up in the autopsy, that gives you confidence of the core fault. I have to say, sometimes stuff just happens. Tough to accept, though. Bummer.

I just re-read that and saw what you posted. I originally thought you were blaming the rod.

I am glad your engines guy drives you nuts, that what we do... ...he will have his input, thats for sure.

Like mentioned, its aluminum, and cn be easily fixed. At least there is a little bit of sunshine in this...still hope you get it handled and just move forward.

Yea, im guessing that the lash cap jamming the valve into the piston helped the bearing failure and then the rod to break.. but, either way i have about 4K in repairs and new items to get back running..going to go ahead and have the block bored to 4.5 to make 604ci this time(if My 4.75 crank is still usable)..

SORRY TO HEAR THIS MAN.... Good luck bouncing back these lash caps things make me nervous now

Reason I ask was an "old timer" who doesent do this stuff anymore always said any grinding on a rod should go with it, not across it, to minimize chance of stress riser. Just wondering. Guess will see once you get the bottom end opened up.