Guess I'll fess up. I actually did an oil change and an engine bay wash that day. I sprayed the engine down with Purple Power or such and let it soak a bit while I did the oil change. Once I was done, I started the engine to get it warming up to dry out while I was rinsing things down. Just as I hit the alternator with the hose, the engine died. Thought maybe it was an electrical issue, but I was able to restart it just fine and I kept on. It died again shortly after. Repeat 2-3 times, but it would still restart every time but was now requiring me to rev it up to like 1500 RPM for it to keep running. I figured the longer I could keep it running, the quicker whatever was glitching the electrical would dry out once it warmed up...

Until it got to the point it would die while I was on the throttle, and eventually it wouldn't even turn over though I could hear the starter straining without the engine turning. That's when I realized I had forgotten one crucial step between the oil change and the engine bay wash: I never put the new oil in...

So I immediately put the oil in, let it cool a bit, and tried to start it. It did start, but there was a knock. I drove it to HG and they diagnosed it as rod knock, engine was terminal. Called Jenkins, their master tech said he had seen VGs survive similar mishaps, so I drove out the same day. He listened to it for a few seconds and agreed it was toast.

So that's how I killed my engine after just 1 year and 20K on it...

The Jenkins tech said the new engine was about as tight as he had ever encountered and should last almost forever if taken care of.

Also, when I was and Jenkins and called HG to cancel the new engine I had them order, the HG guy said it was too late, engine was already on a truck from California. Jenkins guy said no way, nothing ships before 3:00 PST and HG was lying. I called HG on the lie and they admitted it wasn't a done deal yet. HG was just a shitshow all around.