The “355” From Hell…..we had the pleasure *cough cough* of this ‘work of art’ come by the engine room late last year, for diagnosis as to the failure of a sub-400km new build.

With only 380kms (and FOUR oil changes – as suggested by the engine builder, hoping the noises would go away) on the clock this poor engine was in a very poorly state. After close examination of the parts delivered, we ascertained that she’d been running on roughly a 90-10 ratio of engine oil to sand blaster garnet….yep, you read that right!

The shop who built the engine had pulled it down and couldn’t find the fault, aiming to re-charge the customer for another rebuild. As you can see from some of these photo’s, it had been eating itself away with every km put on her since first start-up (ie. the garnet residue was already inside her from the get-go as found on both inner and outer bearing shells).

With only the block and heads left to save, the remainder of the new parts were binned and she was rebuilt again….cleanly this time!

The new combo is happily purring away, first (500km) service down and we still can’t wipe the smile off the customers face!