Still not sure how/what happened. I took off my butterfly housing off of the trottle body w/o taking apart the cables. Cleaned it and reinstalled. Went to drive it wouldnt excelerate cause i forgot to put the cables back in the groved cradle so I put them back as they were. When I started it up again the engine redlined for aprox a second or two before I could turn it off. Went to inspect and everything was where it should have been. I checked, rechecked and checked again but could find nothing wrong. So I started it again without any adjustment and voila... normal start etc. The question though is what damage could have been caused by this? It sounds like my valves on either the 4th or 5 piston tick louder than they did prior to this. No other changes though. Any help is appreciated.
Still not sure how/what happened. I took off my butterfly housing off of the trottle body w/o taking apart the cables. Cleaned it and reinstalled. Went to drive it wouldnt excelerate cause i forgot to put the cables back in the groved cradle so I put them back as they were. When I started it up again the engine redlined for aprox a second or two before I could turn it off. Went to inspect and everything was where it should have been. I checked, rechecked and checked again but could find nothing wrong. So I started it again without any adjustment and voila... normal start etc. The question though is what damage could have been caused by this? It sounds like my valves on either the 4th or 5 piston tick louder than they did prior to this. No other changes though. Any help is appreciated.
Were you right at the redline or were you past it? If past, how far? Normally the first and only problem when just redlining an engine (as opposed to overspeeding it, which can lead to other things, like a thrown connecting rod) is that the valve springs won't let the valves reset fast enough, causing the valves to "float". If it was only for a second or two, then no worries. As briefly as it happened (if your valves even did float, which I've never had happen on an engine so I wouldn't know how to diagnose it), you're not looking at any damage. Our engines are very stout, so you have nothing to worry about (assuming you did just redline it and didn't overspeed it).
Example of how durable our engines and the straight 6 design overall is: buddy of mine had a 198ci slant six in his old Dart that he thought was beyond even rebuilding. He already had a 318 he was going to put into the car so he decided to have some fun with the old slant. He started up the slant and put a brick on the gas pedal. The engine ran balls to the wall insanely fast for almost a half hour before it threw a rod through the block. Pretty good huh? Our engines are just as tough. Hell probably even tougher.
Thanks for the hope Spook. It all happened so quick. I just saw red and about lost my mind. Definitely no longer than a sec or two but cannot say for sure how deep into the red. Dont think it was more than 2 clicks over or less. But again I dont know 99.9% and that has me worried. She's my dd and while driving her today I felt no difference. Any symptoms I should be looking for for damage? Anything I can do to help my valves? Maybe some adjusting?
Thanks for the hope Spook. It all happened so quick. I just saw red and about lost my mind. Definitely no longer than a sec or two but cannot say for sure how deep into the red. Dont think it was more than 2 clicks over or less. But again I dont know 99.9% and that has me worried. She's my dd and while driving her today I felt no difference. Any symptoms I should be looking for for damage? Anything I can do to help my valves? Maybe some adjusting?
Two tick marks over, I'd pretty much just put it out of my head. Just keep an ear open to any strange noises for the next couple days. Odds are there'll be nothing. If it's been a while since you've adjusted your valves and you're worried about them (if they're adjusted right your engine will sound like a big sewing machine under the hood), you're not going to do any harm by checking. I hadn't done mine for almost three years before I did them a couple days ago, and only two exhaust valves were BARELY out of adjustment. Takes alot to get 'em out of whack
Something to add: buy a stethescope next time you're at Sears. They're GREAT for troubleshooting any strange sounds you may hear from your engine as it gets more miles put on it. I've found so many things that turned out to jsut be a simple adjustment when without the stethescope I would've thought I was on my way to a huge problem.
Redline is not a magic RPM, beyond which, damage is automatically done. It is a general guidline to mostly stay below. There is buffer room built in.
As an example, take the Mazda Miata. The redline is 6500 RPM. One of the design engineers wrote that it is fine to run it to 7000 RPM, as part of a spirited commute.
I am sure that your rig is fine. It wasn't under load. It wasn't prolonged or repeated.
Think of all revs over 4,000 RPM as like 100%+ throtle. Hell even the space shuttle goes to 110% power just after take off. I have the "F" engine in my '74 FJ40 near 6,000 RPM just climbing out of a gully before. No harm no foul. Just don't make it a habit to power shift a 5,000 from every green light.
