I have a question. I am in the process of rebuilding the engine in my 97' Neon, because it broke a rod (#1). I went to the local salvage yard an bought a used block with crank/pistons. The one I bought has the same damage that the one I took out does, #1 rod snapped. Is there something I should know about this? Is this just a freakie coincidence, or are these engines bad for this problem? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
(I bought the salvage one for piston rod/parts)

 

Wish I could help, but nothing specific comes to mind.

I'll ask some Dodge guys if they know of any defects.

Do you know what caused your rod failure?

 

Thanks for replying. The guy at the machine shop said Neons are bad for breaking the #1 rod when engine sucks up water (hurricane,flood) into the intake, and the water will sit on top of the #1 piston. When you try to crank it after, since the water has no where to go, during compression, it will weaken or break the rod. Since the old Neon was in hurricane Fran (I live in Wilmington Nc), seems to make sense I guess. He said something about top fuel dragsters having the same problem, but a different cause. Anyway, going to put it all together with different piston and cross the fingers!
Hope this info will help someone else. TERZI

 

Yeah, it's called "hydraulicing" the cylinder. You can't compress a liquid, so when the top fuel dragsters dump tons of fuel it gets so that there's so much fuel you get the same situation as water, but at 300 mph and 8,000 hp blowing apart .

Are you sure the water damage was limited to #1... have you gone completely through your old engine to make sure it's up to a rebuild? Did the broken rod ding up anything else?

If it's a "sucking up water into the intake" problem, then it's a air intake design flaw, not an engine design flaw. No engine can handle water within the cylinders.

One major problem with pulling old pistons and rings outta a salvage yard is the fact that the old piston and rings will be "molded" to fit the old cylinder. Over time the cylinders will oblong slightly, so typically the piston and rings will match making it hard to get a good seal in a different cylinder.

I'm not saying our current situation won't fix the problem, it's just... be aware that you should buy new rings minimum so to maximize your chances of a good seal. If it were a 200,000 mile V8 I might be a little more worried about oblong cylinders, but on a 4 banger you should be fine (knock on wood).