Stories of blown engines? I had a ‘75 Chevelle Malibu with the 250 straight 6 cylinder. That year and engine was noted for wearing camshaft lobes prematurely, and my dad and I swapped one out once (without removing the engine, which was interesting).
Took it for a long drive and started to hear a bad knock. Yup, lobes wearing again. Instead of doing the smart thing like either (1) stopping or (2) pulling the plug wire at least for the offending cylinder I added really heavy oil to hopefully ‘thicken’ things up for the drive home. Was in a convoy with a bunch of friends.
Over a few miles the knocking got worse, then started to really hammer, like a fist pounding a table. Blue smoke started to pour out and I saw I had a big hill coming up. To see if I could make the hill I hit the gas and to no surprise threw a rod and made an orange-sized hole in the block.
Ended up getting more from the local junkyard than the car was really worth.
