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Watch This C8 Corvette Seize Its V8 Engine, Dealer Finds Metal Shavings in It

YouTube vloggers do lots of things for views, but this time around, we're talking about a true horror story. Jake Spiczka of MidwestRide had an unpleasant surprise in his Stingray at a little over 1,800 miles, and as the headline implies, the engine seized up for no apparent reason.
2020 Corvette blown engine 39 photos
Photo: MidwestRide on YouTube
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You can see the C8 taking a turn for the worse in the first of the following two videos at the 6:43 mark. The two men in the car - Jake's buddies - are baffled by the incident, more so because the instrument cluster was reading zero PSI of oil pressure. The wheels locked up as well, which is why the midship sports car had to be transported to a Chevy dealer on a flatbed.

With the Ray Ray up on the lift, a service technician took out the oil filter to inspect any residue that shouldn’t be there. Metal shavings were found, translating to some sort of failure inside the small-block V8.

Data logs from the black box were downloaded and forwarded to Detroit for analysis, and General Motors also requested the engine to be sent to them for a thorough inspection. The cause of the seizure hasn’t been singled out at the time of reporting. Believed to be the second LT2 to have seized up so far, the small-block motor has been replaced by an all-new unit.

It’s incredibly rare to see a C8 without the LT2 and DCT in it, a hollow car with no suck-squeeze-bang-blow or means to put that power down to the rear wheels. All lines except for the coolant lines were replaced according to Corvette Blogger. The fuse box is also new, as is the starter.

When the C7 was new, Car & Driver had a similar problem with the LT1 in the front-engined Corvette. At only 6,000 miles, a rod bearing failed because of metal particles breaking loose from the oil filter. This wasn’t the only incident, and even the supercharged LT4 in the Z06 had some issues.

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About the author: Mircea Panait
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After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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