Guys, I just went and had my oil changed today and the tech working on my car showed me the drain plug. It has a magnetic drain plug and the were a couple slivers of metal, some really fine metal shavings and a small spring that looks almost like a spaghetti noodle that is made of a very fine wire stuck to the drain plug. It's a 2008 C6 with 58k on it. It has a cam, long tubes and x-pipe. As far as I know, that's all thats been done to the car. Can somebody please tell me what this could be? I have attached a couple of pictures of it. Please give me your thoughts. I'm really worried.

 

Be really worried, since the silver ones look like the retainers out of the lifters.




If I had to take a stab in the dark, would dare to guess that someone did not check valve spring clearances, the springs coils bound up to bend some push rods, and instead of the lifter being under pre-load, they where not enough rebound with oil pressure to blow the retainers out of the lifters.


As for the dark ones that appear to be thicker in diamiter, they look like piston pin locks that came loose from the pistons instead (or may just be parts of the lifter retainers if the same type wire).

 

Not good.

 

It seamed like the metal was really thin. Pretty much flat like paper. Would this make the car run bad? It runs great.

 

the spring looks like what is in a timing cover seal around the crank

 

Until it breaks.

The tiny spring is from a valve seal. They don't fall off by themselves.
If you're lucky, it's only a broken valve spring that started the process, which now has progressed to a lifter.

Stop driving the car now, unless you want to swap whole engines, since this one could go bad in a heartbeat.

My guess it that you recently bought the car and the previous owner had a cam installed. You need to get more info on the cam and valve springs and how long since the install. Valve spring life depends on the cam and how hard it was run.

Since you had someone else do an oil change, I'll assume you're not real familiar about how stuff works. So get a rental car or something else to drive until you find a performance shop where you can get the car towed and checked. If it was me, I wouldn't even touch the starter button without pulling the valve covers first to see the extent of damage.

Sorry this happened to you, but don't disregard this and continue driving the car. Also, since you own a modded high performance car, you need to learn all you can about the required maintenance. This forum is a great place to learn and ask questions, but it's not the only place and some of the info here is not the best either. I'm hoping the best of luck for you.

 

You've essentially pulled the pin on a hand grenade.

Proceed with great caution.

Sorry for your misfortune.

 

Have to concur with everyone, you've got bad things happening in the engine. Don't run it again until a competent technician checks it out. Sorry.

 

I agree. The spring is def for a seal of some sort. perhaps a valve seal also. it's not very big

 

Guys, I want to take a second to thank everybody for your input. It turns out that everybody was right. The spring was from the valve guide seal and the metal was from the lifter. The car is going to Lethal Performance in San Antonio, TX this week to get fixed. They are a great group of guys and are very knowledgeable. They came outside lifted the hood diagnosed the problem and gave me an estimate that was a lot lower than I expected. I showed them the stuff in the oil pan and they knew exactly what it was right away. If you live in the area or need a really reputable shop, I would definitely check them out, they have built some really nice cars. Thanks again for everyone's input.

 

Glad that we could help and happy you didn't kill the engine. Stick around here and have fun while learning.