Hello, John Talley here with Partzilla.com. Today we're gonna spend a
little bit of time answering the age-old question: why does an engine blow up? Well,
ninety percent of the time it's because you didn't maintain it properly. That
is the number one killer. Now when you talk about maintenance, we're referring
to three main categories for your engine. It's going to be your intake system,
which is your air filter, your lubrication system, which is going to be
your oil and oil filter, and then you've got your coolant system, which handles
the temperature of the engine for the most part. Now if you don't take care of
all three of those together, chances are you're gonna end up having a
catastrophic failure eventually. It's gonna happen. What usually happens? Well,
you leave your oil in there just a little too long, it starts to break down,
the bearings aren't getting lubricated, the valves aren't moving like they're
supposed to, getting abnormal cam wear, making all
the bad signs of not having the right amount of lubrication.
Well inevitably, those were items start to bind up and that cuts down on your
clearances and then eventually you're gonna lock down the engine. Either your
bearings are going to spin, or that valves gonna hang up and get hit by the
piston, and then all kind of chaos ensues. So what is the best way to combat that?
Well it's really simple: follow your maintenance schedule. Don't
cut any corners, follow it all the way through. Change your oil like you're
supposed to and then make very sure that you keep your oil filter cleaned and/or
replaced if necessary. The other key maintenance part that you
have to stay on top of is to make sure your air filter is good to go.
That is your lungs for your machine. If it gets stopped up, it's not going to
breathe properly. Worse yet, if it's a foam filter and it starts to break down?
Well guess what? Then it's going to let all this particulate in that it was
designed to keep out. What are they going to do when they get inside of your
engine? That's what they call dusting a motor. Well, you've got all these
abrasive materials flying around inside of your combustion chamber, which do not
ignite, but what they do do is actually score into your pistons, your rings and
your cylinder walls. And when that happens, you lose compression and guess
what? Your engine is going to stop functioning like it's supposed to.
Spend a moment talking about coolant, that is largely ignored. You have your
machine several years and you don't even think about changing it. That is a
serious mistake, because believe it or not, coolant does break down over time
and then it can become more acidic and actually eat through the passageways
it's designed to protect. And when it does that, it enters into parts of the
engine that it was never designed to be. It starts messing with your oil, possibly
your fuel and your combustion chamber, and guess what? Your engine's gonna let go.
Now let's take the maintenance out of the equation for a moment, because that's
not always the case. I said that was 90%, what about the other 10%? What can cause
an engine to cut loose? That other 10%? It is usually aimed more toward your
performance aspect of an engine. And what usually goes wrong there? Well you're
trying to draw a little bit too much out of that motor, pushing your air fuel a
little bit too much toward the lean side, or maybe turn it over a little too many
rpms and then the collision happens and then chaos ensues. It's a term they use
in the sports car industry called a money shift. A money shift happens when
you're in fifth year or top gear and let's say you're gonna bring it down
into fourth as you're coming into a turn. Well, you bring it into fourth, let out
your clutch, and all kind of chaos ensues because you didn't shift into fourth, you
shift it into second. And that sent your rev counter all the way over and then
broke the rear-end loose. You want to see what that looks like? Take a look at this
little short clip.
And yes, if you're curious, that was me and my car. What happens during a money
shift? Well you've got a piston going through it's regular travel up and down
inside of your cylinder. You've got the valves typically that are
above it that are moving inside their valve guides with a cam on top
typically. And the spring, which is actually bringing it back. And when you
money shift, you've exceeded the RPMs at which that spring can retract that valve.
So what happens? The valve has not pulled all the way back, piston comes up, catches
the edge of the valve, bends it, and then if you're lucky it stops at that point.
And if you're unlucky, it bends it to the point the next time your piston comes up,
it actually destroys the piston and drives it up through the head. And on the
performance side, there's so much that can go wrong because you're trying to
extract maximum power, maximum RPMs, maximum torque out of an engine. Probably
beyond what it was initially designed to handle. What can go wrong? Well you may be
a little off on your programming as far as your air fuel map goes. Gets a little
too lean, then you burn a hole in top of your piston. Worse than that, it overheats,
blows a head gasket. Even worse than that, overheats, piston actually seizes up
inside of the cylinder, breaks your connecting rod, and then drives the
connecting rod out the side of the engine braking your engine cases. It
happens, trust me. I've seen it and it's never pretty. So if you're going to be
modifying your engine, take some advice: go with a package that's designed to
work unless you want to go through the pain of the learning curve as to where
each of those items can happen and you end up lunching an engine. Fair warning.
But for 90% of us out there just using our machines as they were intended to do
from the manufacturer? All you've got to do is maintain it. And listen, if you need
any parts to help maintain yours, why don't you come see us at partzilla.com
and we can get you taken care of.
If you have any questions or comments, leave them in the section below
and I'll do my best to answer them.
We just want to say thanks for shopping here with us at Partzilla, and we will see you in the next video.
Y'all have a great day.