The 2006 STi Motor that Blew Bits @ the EQ T-Hill Track Day! ...huh?
#76
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Car Info: 2005 LGT wagon
jhammer:
Can you give details about the moments leading up to the failure?
What turn, engine rpm, throttle position, etc?
My guess is that the engine suffered a momentary lack of lubrication due to high heat, and spit out a rod.
Can you give details about the moments leading up to the failure?
What turn, engine rpm, throttle position, etc?
My guess is that the engine suffered a momentary lack of lubrication due to high heat, and spit out a rod.
#79
Registered User
iTrader: (6)
It was definitely a hell of a day out there. We were seeing track temps get up to 120F and could barely do 2 laps in any of our cars before water and oil temps started rising extremely rapidly. One of our own cars hit 285F oil temps for a brief period of time but managed to survive. I believe if it was running a 30 or 40 weight oil, it wouldn't have faired so well either. Under these kinds of conditions, its all about the right parts (oil cooler, radiator), the right fluids (heavier oil, proper coolant mixture), proper engine tolerances, a good safe tune, and of course driver vigilance to keep an eye on everything and cool down when necessary. Even the bone stock rental Corvette was seeing some extremely high oil temps and required periodic cool down laps. There was also a 2.5RS (non-turbo) that let go half way through the day with what appears to be a head gasket failure.
JHammer's car has seen 15 track days since we tuned it with no issues until now. This time, however, the extreme conditions and use caused a serious, atypical failure that no tune could have caused or prevented. Knowing that the car would see a lot of track time, he tune was left quite conservative. He also took the necessary precautions running 100 octane to prevent knock and cool things down a bit, but the car lacked an oil cooler and definitely saw some high temps. I've never personally seen a subie motor blow a hole in the block before, so it'll be interesting to see exactly what happened. Most likely a bearing or side clearance was set on the tight side of the stock spec from the factory and the expansion from the extreme heat caused it to seize, sending a rod through the block case. This is of course a guess at this point, but its the most likely explanation for this type of failure.
04caliwrx's car spun a bearing on his relatively new engine from another builder. I checked his ECU after the fact and there were no signs of recorder knock events. From what he communicated to me, he was never instructed on what weight oil to run and he had no idea what the clearances were set to in his engine and what oil was appropriate for it. Running oil that's too thin to begin with for a specific engine, and then throwing a ton of heat at it will generally thin the oil out significantly and cause a huge drop in oil pressure. Bearings tend not to like tons of heat and low oil pressure and won't put up with it for long. I don't know the specific of his engine tolerances, so I won't try to make any other assumptions about what happened until we pull it apart.
Its always easy to blame parts, tunes, whatever, but remember that these are not normal conditions and situations and proper precautions MUST be taken. There are many thousands of moving parts under the hood and any one of them can fail from extreme conditions and cause other serious failures. Most of the cars at this track day were running our tunes and had zero issues. We had customers out there ranging from simple stage 2 setups with quality tunes, all the way to our own fully built engines with large turbo setups and they all made it out just fine. Its certainly sad to see this sort of thing happen to anyone, but its not at all fair to point fingers at any particular part of the car/setup before knowing all the details of the situation.
Again, this sort of thing is always sad to see, but we will take good care of these cars and customers and they will be back on the road better than ever and much more ready and prepared for their next track day adventure
.
Thanks
-- Ed
JHammer's car has seen 15 track days since we tuned it with no issues until now. This time, however, the extreme conditions and use caused a serious, atypical failure that no tune could have caused or prevented. Knowing that the car would see a lot of track time, he tune was left quite conservative. He also took the necessary precautions running 100 octane to prevent knock and cool things down a bit, but the car lacked an oil cooler and definitely saw some high temps. I've never personally seen a subie motor blow a hole in the block before, so it'll be interesting to see exactly what happened. Most likely a bearing or side clearance was set on the tight side of the stock spec from the factory and the expansion from the extreme heat caused it to seize, sending a rod through the block case. This is of course a guess at this point, but its the most likely explanation for this type of failure.
04caliwrx's car spun a bearing on his relatively new engine from another builder. I checked his ECU after the fact and there were no signs of recorder knock events. From what he communicated to me, he was never instructed on what weight oil to run and he had no idea what the clearances were set to in his engine and what oil was appropriate for it. Running oil that's too thin to begin with for a specific engine, and then throwing a ton of heat at it will generally thin the oil out significantly and cause a huge drop in oil pressure. Bearings tend not to like tons of heat and low oil pressure and won't put up with it for long. I don't know the specific of his engine tolerances, so I won't try to make any other assumptions about what happened until we pull it apart.
Its always easy to blame parts, tunes, whatever, but remember that these are not normal conditions and situations and proper precautions MUST be taken. There are many thousands of moving parts under the hood and any one of them can fail from extreme conditions and cause other serious failures. Most of the cars at this track day were running our tunes and had zero issues. We had customers out there ranging from simple stage 2 setups with quality tunes, all the way to our own fully built engines with large turbo setups and they all made it out just fine. Its certainly sad to see this sort of thing happen to anyone, but its not at all fair to point fingers at any particular part of the car/setup before knowing all the details of the situation.
Again, this sort of thing is always sad to see, but we will take good care of these cars and customers and they will be back on the road better than ever and much more ready and prepared for their next track day adventure
![Smilie](https://www.i-club.com/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif)
Thanks
-- Ed
![Frown](https://www.i-club.com/forums/images/smilies/frown.gif)
I still had a kick *** time! and thank you for everything you did!
Again i'm not mad at anyone, it's just what happens at the track sometimes, I will now have a oil cooler and a oil temp gauge on my car. lession learned.
#83
To follow up on some of the questions:
1. I wasn't logging anything but the coolant temperature. Max was 232F, which some have mentioned may have been too hot after all.
2. I had the oil changed Monday. I put in Motul 5w40 on the advice of another shop (that shall remain nameless). Before that I had used Mobil1 10w30 exclusively.
3. No upgrades had been done to the cooling system. It had just been flushed about 3,000 miles ago.
4. I'm definitely not interested in assigning blame to anyone. Frankly I think sometimes these things just happen. Many, including myself, have had good results and reliability with Ed's tunes. I don't think this was related to tuning, anyways.
5. Conditions before it blew: last session before lunch (so it was pretty warm), ran a couple hot laps, noticed temps around 230, so I did a cool down lap and observed temps coming back down under 200. Was entering turn 3 on a second cool down lap, 4th gear, decelerating around 4,500 rpms and noticed a strange buzzing from the engine. Maintenance throttle around turn 3, expensive noises on slight throttle application going into turn 4, car dies up at the crows nest, I pop the clutch on the downhill side, make it a few feet before a huge explosion of oil smoke out the back around turn 6 at which point it's game over and I coast off to the side.
Other than that, car was strong. The first session of the day however, I do remember a bit of hesitation above 6,000 rpm. This was before I added in any 100 octane. So it's possible I was knocking earlier on.
Thanks!
Jonathan
1. I wasn't logging anything but the coolant temperature. Max was 232F, which some have mentioned may have been too hot after all.
2. I had the oil changed Monday. I put in Motul 5w40 on the advice of another shop (that shall remain nameless). Before that I had used Mobil1 10w30 exclusively.
3. No upgrades had been done to the cooling system. It had just been flushed about 3,000 miles ago.
4. I'm definitely not interested in assigning blame to anyone. Frankly I think sometimes these things just happen. Many, including myself, have had good results and reliability with Ed's tunes. I don't think this was related to tuning, anyways.
5. Conditions before it blew: last session before lunch (so it was pretty warm), ran a couple hot laps, noticed temps around 230, so I did a cool down lap and observed temps coming back down under 200. Was entering turn 3 on a second cool down lap, 4th gear, decelerating around 4,500 rpms and noticed a strange buzzing from the engine. Maintenance throttle around turn 3, expensive noises on slight throttle application going into turn 4, car dies up at the crows nest, I pop the clutch on the downhill side, make it a few feet before a huge explosion of oil smoke out the back around turn 6 at which point it's game over and I coast off to the side.
Other than that, car was strong. The first session of the day however, I do remember a bit of hesitation above 6,000 rpm. This was before I added in any 100 octane. So it's possible I was knocking earlier on.
Thanks!
Jonathan
#84
Why are EQ tearing down the block when AutoHQ built it?
I would have thought you should be asking the builders of the motor (AHQ) to find out why it seized. They might not want to deal with it if another shop has opened up the motor.
With a Motor as pricey as this I'm guessing you also got guages...what were they saying?
I would have thought you should be asking the builders of the motor (AHQ) to find out why it seized. They might not want to deal with it if another shop has opened up the motor.
With a Motor as pricey as this I'm guessing you also got guages...what were they saying?
#89
Registered User
iTrader: (12)
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Palo Alto
Posts: 3,150
Car Info: GT35R, Meth
To follow up on some of the questions:
1. I wasn't logging anything but the coolant temperature. Max was 232F, which some have mentioned may have been too hot after all.
2. I had the oil changed Monday. I put in Motul 5w40 on the advice of another shop (that shall remain nameless). Before that I had used Mobil1 10w30 exclusively.
3. No upgrades had been done to the cooling system. It had just been flushed about 3,000 miles ago.
4. I'm definitely not interested in assigning blame to anyone. Frankly I think sometimes these things just happen. Many, including myself, have had good results and reliability with Ed's tunes. I don't think this was related to tuning, anyways.
5. Conditions before it blew: last session before lunch (so it was pretty warm), ran a couple hot laps, noticed temps around 230, so I did a cool down lap and observed temps coming back down under 200. Was entering turn 3 on a second cool down lap, 4th gear, decelerating around 4,500 rpms and noticed a strange buzzing from the engine. Maintenance throttle around turn 3, expensive noises on slight throttle application going into turn 4, car dies up at the crows nest, I pop the clutch on the downhill side, make it a few feet before a huge explosion of oil smoke out the back around turn 6 at which point it's game over and I coast off to the side.
Other than that, car was strong. The first session of the day however, I do remember a bit of hesitation above 6,000 rpm. This was before I added in any 100 octane. So it's possible I was knocking earlier on.
Thanks!
Jonathan
1. I wasn't logging anything but the coolant temperature. Max was 232F, which some have mentioned may have been too hot after all.
2. I had the oil changed Monday. I put in Motul 5w40 on the advice of another shop (that shall remain nameless). Before that I had used Mobil1 10w30 exclusively.
3. No upgrades had been done to the cooling system. It had just been flushed about 3,000 miles ago.
4. I'm definitely not interested in assigning blame to anyone. Frankly I think sometimes these things just happen. Many, including myself, have had good results and reliability with Ed's tunes. I don't think this was related to tuning, anyways.
5. Conditions before it blew: last session before lunch (so it was pretty warm), ran a couple hot laps, noticed temps around 230, so I did a cool down lap and observed temps coming back down under 200. Was entering turn 3 on a second cool down lap, 4th gear, decelerating around 4,500 rpms and noticed a strange buzzing from the engine. Maintenance throttle around turn 3, expensive noises on slight throttle application going into turn 4, car dies up at the crows nest, I pop the clutch on the downhill side, make it a few feet before a huge explosion of oil smoke out the back around turn 6 at which point it's game over and I coast off to the side.
Other than that, car was strong. The first session of the day however, I do remember a bit of hesitation above 6,000 rpm. This was before I added in any 100 octane. So it's possible I was knocking earlier on.
Thanks!
Jonathan
Hey Jonathan, it's Ambert (the guy who rented the vette). Dunno if you checked out the other picture thread, it looks like 5 or 6 cars arrived to help Matt after you and I left LOL.
We should have stayed for the party, sucks I had to return the car
#90
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iTrader: (12)
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Palo Alto
Posts: 3,150
Car Info: GT35R, Meth
The oil I was using was 15/50 and It had about 180 miles on the oil before the track day. I also don't put the blame on anyone, I do blame the heat, and me not spending the money on a oil cooler for the car. lession learned ![Frown](https://www.i-club.com/forums/images/smilies/frown.gif)
I still had a kick *** time! and thank you for everything you did!
Again i'm not mad at anyone, it's just what happens at the track sometimes, I will now have a oil cooler and a oil temp gauge on my car. lession learned.
![Frown](https://www.i-club.com/forums/images/smilies/frown.gif)
I still had a kick *** time! and thank you for everything you did!
Again i'm not mad at anyone, it's just what happens at the track sometimes, I will now have a oil cooler and a oil temp gauge on my car. lession learned.
Yeah I was surprised that almost nobody had oil coolers and oil temp gauges at the track, since that is like #1 needed gauge for track driving, lol.
Again makes me glad I didn't take my car since I couldn't get the oil cooler shipped in time