My 08 STI seems to have suffered some form of catastrophic engine failure! Wooho! I was driving home on Skyline when the engine started running like only half of the engine was firing and the other half was all fuel no air. As soon as I clutched in it died, and I was able to coast to a side street (that was quite lucky, as there are not many side streets on Skyline).

Trying to restart created all kinds of bad sounds including what sounds like something the valve train making lots of clanking noise, and very strange compression sounds. Thankfully Kristin was right behind me in the Volvo, and my brother-in-law Eric was able to come give me a hand.

We drove to our house (about a mile down the road) and loaded up my Yukon and my enclosed trailer. As luck would have it the side road I was on was sloped downward away from Skyline, so we were able to push the car and get enough speed to make in up the ramps and in the trailer.

This motor is about 5 years old, built by me in the shop. Cosworth heads and Cosworths cams, Weisco pistons and Crower rods, etc. It has been a fantastic motor taking 30+psi of boost over that 5 years, no oil consumption, and great power on E85. I switched from the EFR7670 to an EFR8374 about a year ago, and I would guess it was around 550whp.

If I had to guess right now, it sounds like I could perhaps have broken a camshaft. There have been occasional reports of cosworth cams breaking, and these are from that early era. The sounds while rotating has a sounds like part of the valves are not being actuated. Any other guesses?!

Once I get the car rolled out of the trailer and into the shop I’ll dig into it and see how it looks.

Either way, clearly time for an IAG Stage 4 closed deck block.