2002 San gt40 heads gone bad

[tommyb]

Has anyone had this happen ?
Dropped a valve seat and melted 2 iridium plugs
engine probably has 2k hours never missed a beat in 18years what has caused so much soot?
bores seem ok will wait to hear engineers report before we go full rebore and build

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[NautiqueJeff]

Moving this to the Maintenance section, since this post does not meet the guidelines for posting in the DIY section.

[tommyb]

ok sorry

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[jpwhit]

Probably was running too lean. Carbon build up doesn't look abnormal to me.

[NautiqueTim]

Why are you running iridium plugs?

[tommyb]

Iridium plugs were i read were the best plugs to get
do you think that may have caused that failure?

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[charlesml3]

Highly unlikely it was the spark plugs that caused this. Are you saying it melted plugs in two different cylinders?

[tommyb]

Yes thats right. No8 plug was loose that, we thought was the problem in the 1st place
the heads are having new valve seats put in
I will do a plug swap when its back together to see whats going on I guess.



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[core-rider]

Other than the valve seat in 8, and 6 looks to have excess oil burn possibly... 4 & 2 look fairly normal for that amount of use. Which cylinders did the plugs burn up on? Do you have pics of the plugs?

[bturner]

At 2000 hours I'm going to go with the failure was due to natural causes. Sort of like when someone passes at 90+ years of age. Sure you can drill down into what the specific cause of death was but lets face it, it was old age.

Nothing lasts for every and fatigue will get every mechanical device at some point, some just last longer than others. Could there have been contributing factors that made the engine fail as it did? Sure, maybe it got hot a couple times when you picked up some weeds which weakened the valve seat or ran it a bit low on oil which cause some of the rings to wear a bit more but at the end of the day 2000 hours is nothing to be ashamed of in the slightest.

I commend you on keeping this one together for what would appear to be quite a long and useful life. Would love to hear and see highlights of the rebuild, it is after all winter here and we all have plenty of time for a story.....