Roush Engine Failure – Pictures

[madmaxx]

The weakest link in any engine is the valve train. As we get more radical cams to squeze the last horsepower we have to go with higher spring pressures which in turn stress the pushrods, lifters and even the camshaft and turn the engine at higher rpm's. A stock 302 mustang has about 225 open and 100lbs on the seat. That is a far cry from the 400lb plus open pressures, probably higher with some solid lifters. Stock mustangs a go in excess of 150K miles. No replacement for displacement, if you want more HP get more cubic inches.

As someone used to say if you cant go fast with 100hp you cant go fast with 500hp.

As far as manufactures READ YOUR WARRANTY and note the limitations of liability, if you retorque bolts you may very well VOID the warranty. They are very explicit as to what you can do. In fact a smart person would read the warranty BEFORE they purhased the product.

This engine is out of warranty, bitter pill to swallow with less than 3K? miles but it appears the manufacturer fulfilled their obligation. Next time rack up 20K miles on the engine prior to it going out of warranty if it is going to have issues it will show up by then. If not you got a good 20K miles out of the engine.

[rodneym]

Darren posted this issue on 11/9 and he's getting the parts via UPS one week later. Not too shabby if you ask me. I know you're not going to get Jack Roush on the phone like you would Keith Craft or Tom Lucas but still, not bad. He keeps his KMP nice and shiny but he tracks it as well. Things happen to engines built by ANY builder.

Darren, weren't you getting a Daytona from KMP or was that a rumor? What are you up to?

[madmaxx]

As I posted before the profit in these engines are comical, pick up a summit catalog and add up the parts, dart block, forged pistons, arp heads, scat rotating assembly, pistons, camshaft, timing gear, carb and these guys are making NOTHING, ZERO, why they do it is beyond me. Absolute best case scenerio on a stroked 351 using a dart block and getting 500 hp i bet the profit margin is less than $3.5K. Now the guy has to pay for his shop, his tools, his dyno, MY WARRANTY, a builder gets one warranty that needs 100% rebuild there goes his profit on the next 4 engines, oh wait, forgot about advertisement, machine work etc.

Originally Posted by rodneym

Darren posted this issue on 11/9 and he's getting the parts via UPS one week later. Not too shabby if you ask me. I know you're not going to get Jack Roush on the phone like you would Keith Craft or Tom Lucas but still, not bad. He keeps his KMP nice and shiny but he tracks it as well. Things happen to engines built by ANY builder.

Darren, weren't you getting a Daytona from KMP or was that a rumor? What are you up to?

[RodKnock]

Originally Posted by rodneym

Darren, weren't you getting a Daytona from KMP or was that a rumor? What are you up to?

I want to hear more about this new project too.

[N2VENOM]

Originally Posted by rodneym

Darren, weren't you getting a Daytona from KMP or was that a rumor? What are you up to?

My KMP LaMans fulfilled my needs for a hardtop. My next project was going to be the KMP Daytona, but decided on something a little different. David and I will be posting our plans in the next week. We are currently working out the details. My next build will be very very cool....

[rodneym]

Originally Posted by Excaliber

Fact remains, this is a DEFECT in workmanship, not a bad part, not a "stuff happens" moment, not a "bitter pill". This aint right, straight up, Roush should man up and take responsibilty, out of warranty or not. 2,000 miles? Violate warranty if you re-torque anything, and if you don't, you won't find out there is a problem?

Roush is done in my book. The thought, "a fool and his money..." comes to mind in that regard.

I don't believe you can quantify that statement. Did the builder simply not use torque specs? Did he not follow procedure? Maybe, maybe not. Very hard to tell. That's why a warranty exists. True, an indy builder will give you better service, I'll grant you that. But I've witnessed questionable service from small guys, too.
There's a local Cobra that had a HTOB give in 400 miles. Who's fault? Car exchanged hands a couple times and work was not covered by the installer.
Another Cobra with a name build had an engine that was un-tunable. Builder had specs all wrong. The local rework was covered but there's a term that came with it, "blood from a turnip". (BTW, the names have been omitted to protect the...innocent?).
Let's just say if Roush was involved in these incidents it would have been a witch hunt. I've seen builders literally coddled like invalids on these threads. Kudos to Keith and Tom and others who will cover out of warranty engines without hesitation but Roush isn't a mom and pop shop, for better and/or worse.