I am typing this on my phone in an independent Mercedes tech shop in Austin right now.

The last few days I have spent driving from San Diego on my way to New Orleans. Yesterday in the middle of nowhere, West Texas, I was cruising down the road and did a gentle 1/2 throttle pull in 5th. After a few seconds, I was met with a reduction in power and some white smoke. Freak out a little, pull over and try to diagnose. No hoses disconnected and everything looks OK... Except for the clouds of white smoke.

I make some calls to the Houston Crew and within the hour I magically have contacts in Austin. I limp the car in last night and call Patrick, the independent Mercedes tech whose shop I am now occupying. We start the tear-down of the stuff on the engine. Oil in the y pipe, etc. on to the compression test. Cylinder 2 is toast. Bore scope shows massive scoring to cyl wall. I'm so sad. I still don't know how this happened as I had a very conservative tune on it and was running rich up top. My plan was to install a Dashdaq when I got to new Orleans, too

Since I am on my cross country drive and I will not even be home until December, I still don't know what I'm going to do. I love the car and want to keep it. I know I'm looking at an engine swap, which will not be cheap or easy. I don't even know if I can do it in Houston or have it shipped back to my shop in San Diego.

I guess it's off to get a rental car and then transfer all 6 months worth of my stuff from broken car to rental. Then it's off to Houston for some grieving then on to new Orleans.

Big thanks for the tight-knit community so far. Shardul and Brooke have been extremely helpful in getting me some contacts, diagnosing, looking up codes, and taking me through this ordeal. Don't know where I'd be without nice people.

I'm on the road and will check in when I can.

 

Damn brotha very sorry to hear this! Shardule is awesome and I'm glad he was able to help you. Good luck in whatever you choose to do with the car! I feel for you!

The place I got my trans from said they have 3 engines. Let me know if you want me to check them out.

 

Thanks RBJ
DR you may want to get the info for the engines

 

schity news.....keep your chin up DR.

 

I'll be the first to ask, what mods and tuner?

PS no one get their panties in a bunch, not placing blame by asking.

 

Oh wow...so sad bro. Can you post up exactly what you've done to the vehicle? Sucks so bad...

 

Sorry this happened to you man, just know if you need any of my engine parts from my part out thread, hit me up.

 

Sorry for your misfortune. Best of luck.

 

Sorry to hear about the bad news. Esp on a long road trip!!

 

Thanks, guys. Mods were LT headers, 180 crank pulley, upper pulley, TTMOTORSPORTS fuel rail and injectors, heat exchanger, OE Tune.

From what we could tell from the bore scope, it looks like rings. Walls were scored up, metal particles on the piston. Piston didn't look burnt and it didn't look like it dropped a valve. Tune was very conservative and was really running rich up top. I've had numerous runs down the drag strip with this setup with no problems. Not really anything or one to blame, but the modding game itself.

Elliot, if You could please, ask and get a price on an engine.

Craig, thanks for the offer, man. Just to be clear, you have everything minus the crankshaft, right? PM me a price, if you dont mind. I can reuse my supercharger and all that good stuff. I'll have to get with my mechanic and see which option he would be down for.


I just rented a Ford Exploder. Cool screens, but holy freaking blind spots! This thing is a bus!

 

Sorry to hear buddy! Hope you can get your beast up and running again soon!

 

I'll be doing a compression test on my car next week (advise others to do the same). Guys are dropping like flies, WTF is going on? Thats 2 cars in the past 2 months blowing under similar circumstances (Munich).

 

DR, sorry to Hear...I'll be looking into fuel filter and fuel pump as well

Could also be a bad batch of gas...

 

Will do brotha.

 

Damn.

RIP another E55...

How many miles on car?

 

Condolances DR...and the timing couldn't be worse for you bro. Good luck...

 

Damn man, that majorly sucks. Esp. during a big trip. You have a point OP, I don't know what i would do without the kind people here either, Shardul, Outrun, Abrim, E55bullet, ALL good guys, who've helped me before. Good luck with the rebuild/replace game, can get really frustrating

 

I thought the fuel rail and injectors can prevent this issue. I guess I will just play safe.

 

Hey man sorry to hear about this. Been through this too, 2 times! I would get the walls bored out and go with larger rings for "easy fix". If you need any help on any tech stuff just ask. GL

*edit* BTW how many miles are on your car?

 

Holy crap, I fear having major down time here at home, I can't imagine in the middle of a cross country road trip. I wish you the best getting the Beast back on the road.

 

Could the stock ring gaps be too tight for all the extra heat we create with the mods? The ends butting together can lead to problems like these.

 

Its interesting you were at 1/2 throttle when it happened. So we know you were very safe at WOT up top, but I wonder what happens at part throttle, if it was lean and if tuners take part throttle into account?

 

Are you still on the stock 74mm throttle body and when you say you did a half throttle pull, do you know if the blower was engaged?

 

Dennis, sorry to hear about your car. Good thing you're near Houston, the Houston crew have a lot experience with these cars, they'll get you up and running in no time. Good luck with everything.

 

True, having owned a Turboed AWD Eclipse and a supercharged 306 cobra both cars having been tuned, part throttle sometimes bucks a little or has a 'outta whack' feeling to it.. Might be a difficult area for tuners?