Blown motor on stillen sc
 

Well, I had to put down my z in the pastures last week. It was a sad day. 4000 miles on sc/oil cooler, off the shelf tune.. Just stopped running while going up a hill 20mph. No warning, no boom, no smoke, no leak, no CE light, nothing...
Afr guage running safe

Took it into the shop and found two cylinders blown. Engine had no oil and coolent.

Appearantly the oil cooler stopped working at some point and two of six overheated.

I never ran the car hard, never tracked...THE FUNNY THING IS OIL TEMP NEVER WENT OVER THE NORMAL RANGE?!

Was gonna cost too much to fix it, so I made a decision to sell it for salvage.

I have to say, not very happy with what happened with the stillen set up...

Anyone else with similar experience?

Blown motor on stillen sc
 

How does an oil cooler stop working? It's just lines, a core and a sandwich plate. If the car has oil in it, the cooler should work. Did you regularly check oil and coolant?

Putting a new block in and selling a working car is a better call than selling it for salvage. Maybe sell the stillen kit and buy a new short block?

was there oil on the ground? The only way an oil cooler can be the reason is because it was punctured and it spilled all your oil somewhere.

Appearantly the fuse to the pump blew. There is no indicator light to warn u when that happens.
Thought about putting in a junk stock engine, but too much money... Sold the car as is for 10k...its a shame

No oil on the ground... That's the strange thing. No smoke like I was burning oil. Had changed oil 2k miles ago

Blown motor on stillen sc
 

Fuse to what pump? There's not a pump on any oil cooler I've ever seen and the oil pump for the motor is not electric.

How often were you checking the oil?

You could have sold the kit for enough to replace the motor.

Sorry to hear.

So no oil on ground, no leaks and no oil in motor after it blew?

And what fuse blew?

Sorry, checked with the shop guys, it was the intercooler fuse that blew. Regardless, not sure how the engine burned the oil that fast. Last oil check was 2k miles ago.

Thought about selling the kit, but its time for me to move on

You went 2000 miles on a car with aftermarket forced induction without checking the oil?

Life gets busy. $hit happens

Intercooler fuse? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the intercooler is merely a heat exchanger. Are you saying that a pump fuse blew? I'm unfamiliar with the Stillen SC kit, but I can only conjecture that the water pump that circulates water through the intercooler blew its fuse and stopped working. Would that be correct? I don't understand how that would lead to a loss of lubrication though.

I don't check my oil that often. I change it more frequently than recommended and call it good as long as temps are good. I think I'll be checking a little more often however, if anything to get myself into the habit of doing so. F.I. is my goal, so good habits are gonna save my car I have a feeling...

That fuse could have blown months ago. You would never know it.

That's th:tup:e way I understand it. Pump fail then overheated.
Only thing I don't understand is that engine blew before any guages indicated anything was wrong.
I should have checked oil more frequently but again, no sign of leak anywhere.

You can hear the IC water pump going after you turn on the ignition before actually starting the engine.

That's exactly how I would check to make sure the pump was in fact working.

The pump not working still does not contribute to the fact you had oil starvation. That's the real problem.

That's what I don't understand. Granted I should have checked oil level sooner, but no low oil indicator light, no overheat, no warning, no drip on the ground, no black smoke...just stopped.

It's not an oil level indicator, it's just for oil pressure. The oil light is only going to come on at less than 5 or so psi. Even if you saw it, the motor would have been toast.

Man that really sucks. How on earth that happened is beyond me. I am unfamiliar with the Stillen kit as well, so I can't offer a good theory on it. It's really odd that you didn't have any oil though.

Sorry about your Z bro.


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Mysterious blown motors .....I have the answer to why ......

Wife thinks husband is spending too much time/money on his 370z ...wife sabotages husbands car ...motor blows ...wife blame performance upgrades ...husband is confused/sad/angry and in his grief sell left over car for salvage .....Monday morning wife starts sending links to SUV's for sale ...... Sad sad day ....everyone take a moment to remember all the lost Z cars

Sorry to here about the Z car ....don't salvage it look at it as a opportunity to build it stronger and better

;) you might be right... She always wondered why I have a car that I cant drive six months out of the year, cuz of weather. Time to lick my wounds and move on though...started to look for another two seater with a stick shift.

:iagree: also the Stillen manual also recommends that you do visual inspections from time to time to make sure that the coolant is circulating through the reservoir by placing the ignition to the "On" position and opening the water pump reservoir to verify circulation.

Sorry to hear about what happened. ...hope u end up getting something that makes u happy man.

Correct me if im wrong, but I believe the oil pump went out..

I think the title of this is now deceiving. This was NOT due to the sc kit. This has nothing to do with the fact his pump was not running. There is another thread on here about a guy that has had his pump disconnected for god knows how long and he just this weekend hooked it up. His car is fine. He is driving it because by having an a2w system not working will not somehow drink or drain your motor oil.

There are guys running superchargers that don't even cool the charge putting down over 400whp.

This problem would have happened even had you not had a kit on your car.

If the oil pump went out, wouldn't the oil still physically be in the car, just not circulating? OP is saying the oil was flat out gone.


Agreed. This is just a failure to maintain the car. If the oil had been checked along the way, you would have seen oil consumption and you could have addressed that before the motor grenaded. The stillen kit has popped motors, but this isn't one of them.

Agreed, I can confirm that the intercooler pump not running had zero effect on engine oil consumption (not that it really needs to be confirmed :) )

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this is what happens when someone just spends money and has no idea how to maintain or run a car properly.

am I wrong to just go with that this is result of neglect/ignorance?

:facepalm:

I find it hard to believe that not a single gauge was not showing any high temp or problem with no coolant and no oil unless it was a sudden loss of both fluids at the same time. I'm guessing a hose burst or fell off to cause the problem.

if checking oil every couple thousand miles isn't a big concern do you think he watches the gauges?.......

Man...kick the guy while he's down...will you? I do watch the gauges religiously. No low pressure oil warning no high temps. I usually check oil levels every other week. Last interval longer, as I said life gets busy and $hit happens. Last check, no issues with intercooler pump or oil. I wouldn't think the engine would burn oil that quickly?
My guess is a leak somewhere somehow and I didn't notice it..

But your whole point of creating this thread was to blame the kit. When in fact the only thing to blame is maintenance from a shotty install and negligence.

Did you sell the car for 10K with the sc kit still on it?

You could have bought a used engine for 1-2k.... My head is still spinning you let the car go for so cheap.

This. The sale of the stillen kit would have been enough to get the car running again and have some left over. Someone got a hell of a deal.

The OP may have just been ready to get rid of it. I almost sold my Z as is for $10k just to get it out of my face when the motor blew. Luckily I came to my senses lol.

Low mile used engine: 3-4k
Labor to install, back to stock: 2k
Recoup the cost with selling sc parts: maybe 2k
Post salvage reliability: unknown
Potential to sell with salvage engine: zero
My time spent thinking about it: priceless
Decision to get out of it for another ride: no brainer

New ride to be delivered next week...
I am so much happier

What's your next car going to be OP?

Unmolested 2013 gtr...low mileage. I will miss grinding thru the gears, but time for me to move on...

Nice! Good luck on your GTR adventures bro. Don't be afraid to come back to the Z side of the world if you ever start to miss us lol.

Thanks man..will always miss my z..