Anant90 said:
a quick doubt... if there is insufficient oil to begin with, won't the engine get overheated and start knocking? or maybe just blow out? and if this does happen it would happen long before any mechanical damage won't it?
"Knocking" usually indicates impending rod failure due to a bottom-end bearing failure. It can give you plenty of warning, such as a couple of weeks, or it might occur mere seconds before catastrophic failure. That's what happened to my Roadrunner about a year after I bought it, while I was on vacation. For some reason or another, 440's don't particularly like to adequately oil the #4 rod bearing. So there I was happily tootling along... the bearing spun out, leading to the piston immediately collapsing, which of course took the bore with it. Naturally, the bore was messed up enough that honing would have been inadequate, so a 30 overbore was necessary. Since the pistons and rods had to be replaced, I figured that I might as well do it up properly. So... it went into the shop in its original 400hp trim, and came out with 600. I since then added Blackjack headers and an Edelbrock CH4B intake to kick in an extra 50. Unfortunately, the cam is totally mismatched. Next step, if I ever get a chance to do it, will be a Mini-Express or Street Hemi grind. That should up the hp to around 800.
Anyhow, back to the point. In my experience, there are 3 types of con rod failure. One is of the type that I just outlined. The second is cap bolt failure, the result of which depends upon what position and in what direction the rod is moving at the time. If it's heading upward, it goes through the block. If downward bound, it exits via the pan. The latter is far preferable. The 3rd possibility that I'm aware of is "rod stretch", wherein the elasticity of the rod is such that at high rpm's it can elongate enough to introduce the piston to the valves in a less-than-friendly fashion.
edit: Just saw your post, Mike. I hadn't thought of pinging damaging the rods, but it certainly makes sense. I've seen it blow holes in pistons, but never extrapolated that to the rods.