First off, I know I did a stupid thing. I went against my better judgement and reused an oil pump from a blown motor. I'm not sure how much it had to do with my situation. When that motor blew (threw #2 rod) it was running a stub shaft BSE kit. I can't imagine that the gears took any physical damage.

So, here's the story. I bought a car with a blown motor. Picked up a low mileage block and resized it for ACLs and used ARP hardware. Assembly went very well. Cleaned and inspected the old front cover and oil pump. Everything seemed fine. Installed a GSC race balance shaft kit.

Well, after months of slowly building due to a poor financial situation, I finally got to crank the car. It had a lovely ticking noise. I was again stupid and I took the car around the block. Drove fine but had this ticking noise. Taking off from a stop sign, less than 1000rpm, the engine seized. Crank wouldn't spin. I towed the car back to my house. Drained the oil. Clean and minimal shavings, probably just normal break-in. Pulled the timing belt. Crank still wouldn't move but the oil pump moved freely. Dropped the pan and found this:

Attachment 334644

The GSC piece came off the gear and made it between #3 rod and the girdle. Shaft broke off and is bent and floating around. Not sure if I just didn't torque it well or what... I thought I torqued everything to spec. Maybe I goofed up here.

My first thought was "Oh crap, this engine is dead and I have to spend the next year saving up enough to buy and assemble another one".

My second thought was "I can buy a used cradle, pull everything, have the crank and rods checked for damage, and have the mains recut using the new cradle"

My third thought was to drop the cradle, get the broken parts out, reassemble the bottom end, put the old stub shaft back on (unless I can find that the bearing for the race shaft didn't take any damage) and run it until it blows.

It's not my daily driver. I'm planning to just use it for an occasional driver and autox car. Not competitive, just fun.

If I go with number 3, I'll just plan on finding another block and building a 2.3 to eventually replace it.

Thoughts? Go easy on me, it's been a stressful week.

 

Disregard. Rod is deformed where it smacked and it's going to interfere with the crank.

 

If it were me, I'd save up the $$ and take it to a reputable 4g63 engine builder. I'm all for do-it-yourself, but what just happened to you is the same reason I am willing to do everything myself EXCEPT moving parts on the motor/trans on these cars. If it was something with a disposable (cost-wise) motor, like a honda or something I would have no issues, but when you get so much $$ tied up in them, I think paying a few hundred dollars for an expert who has put together 10's or 100's of these motors, the peace of mind is more than worth it.