Barcafut13

I own a 2010 GT that was recently in the shop for a new forged rotating assembly and other goodies for future boost. I picked her up and only had her for a month and a half when a rod blow the block. Towed it back to the machine shop that did the work and they diagnosed that it had been hydrolock. The car had not seen any water. Could it be the shops issue?

Simon1

Yoy would have to have some enormous injectors on there to hydrolock the motor.

What are the mods

Who built motor

Who tuned it

What were conditions at failure

Barcafut13

I currently have intake, throttle body, stage two comp cams with new springs, engine was bored, heads were cleaned and surfaced, Manley rods and pistons, new ford oem crank, long tubes, and steeper gears. And it was tuned using a bama handheld tuner.

Simon1

So no custom tuning?

And what were the conditions when the rod went?

I suspect tuning and then whomever built the engine bit without knowing more it's all just guesses.

Barcafut13

No custom tune, just hand held. That day I let car warm up for a while and pulling onto a highway that morning I didn't get passed more than 4K rpm and when I heard metal spinning against each other. Rod was out the block

Simon1

I can't believe you did not get a custom tune for a built motor. I've never heard of someone doing that.

I would guess that's the reason it failed. Could be wrong but IME it's a necessity.

User 92421

no warranty on performance parts

C1Forged

Rule #1: Always get a dyno/pro-tune on a full engine build

Hand held [Off The Shelf] tunes are done by a tuner using a single factory car using the external parameters of their location [altitude, temperature, humidity]. Due to the fact that no two engines, or cars are ever the same in regards to minute differences on the assembly line and break in; not to mention that environmental factors play a HUGE part in a proper tune due to air density/flow, you should NEVER use an OTS tune unless you have an intake/exhaust as your only mod, or you need something to limp your way to a tuner.

Rule #2: Always allow proper break in time for a fresh build, and research your builder

Don't have a Master Tech from your local dealership build your block. No offense to any master techs on the forum, but they're trained off of OEM procedure for OEM to OEM replacement. You need an experienced builder that does nothing but custom piece together parts for custom builds that knows all the stupid quirks you need to know. I've gone through 2 short blocks built by Master Techs with 12 and 25 years experience; the first one had an oversized piston for the bore in cyl 4, the second used a grinder to clean up the block face, and took too much off. Ended up with **** compression due to a leak between the block and the head.

Make sure whoever is building your block has multiple proven builds to back up their "experience". And make sure to go as far as talking to the owners of the builds face to face for a no bull **** review. Sometimes its as easy as talking with the shop owner in person to know that they know their stuff, or that they shouldn't be doing custom work whatsoever.

As for your scenario, you didn't mention any fueling mods, so a combination of the builder, and the tune is at fault.

Barcafut13

The shop it was taken to is a highly popular machine shop around the area and have years of experience and have several builds to prove they're good. I was never aware that a custom tune was needed

Simon1

What happened to your motor really sucks and I feel your pain. Most people who rebuild our engines are also tuners, so before you even pick your car up they have strapped it on the Dyno and tested it on the street.

This is also beneficial because if the motor goes while the shop is tuning and such they know it wasn't you who did something.

Anything beyond simple bolt on miss will should require custom tuning.