The Project Pad

Just got off the phone with him. He can't even get the spark plug out of cylinder one. He's thinking either a dropped valve or the stock AAN piston finally found it's limit. He was able to get one full session in, but on the second lap of the second session he dropped to 4 cylinders and thought it was simply ignition related....he's been having plug problems....but then he started losing oil. Turbo compressor wheel is a little chewed, but usable.

Wide Open Wednesday is August 10th Hank....plenty of time to build something else! :wink:

On a bright note, Miller refunded his whole weekend!

Well, Pretty crapastic weekend. It had so much promise.....

Ran the first session without issue. Car was fast as hell and overpowered my brakes bad. So for the second session, I swapped in some race pads and hopped back in for some more. The warm up lap was great, and the first lap at full tilt went well... That is when all hell broke loose. Mid turn, it dropped to 4 cylinders, and then smoke started to billow into the cabin, I exited the track to the nearest flag station... By this time, the car was running pretty rough, and died. I tried to restart it only to have a lack of compression.

The plugs look great on 2-5, but is not coming out. It is welded in there, or so deformed and melted, it wont come out. The EGT is in that port, the warning liight never came on. For this reason, I am seriously doubting detonation related failures. The other plugs are just too clean for me to believe that the one cylinder saw that much catastrophic failure in such a small time. My guess is eather a failed ring land or perhaps a dropped valve. We will see shortly. I could put another aan in there over the weekend, but I just about have all my 2.6L parts ready to go.

Here are the pictures..



On the way back to hte pits with my car on the truck as shown, we turn a corner into an alley. We see this...



So the guy is in a pool of blood and we are first on scene. Guy ends up being lifted to the hospital. I guess my day could be worse.... Goes to show, it is more dangerous to be at work than to be on track!!

Back on topic

Only real clue


The TURBINE shows damage from aluinum bits, but not from valves. It is still useable probably, but far from ideal. It just looks like it got the wheel clipped for flow

Oh and Reba was out at the track today watching her son race. Why couldn't I be born to a rock star that tollerated racing cup cars

wow, i am sure something good will rise from this...stroker?
Reba's kid know how to build anything?

Touche

Well I couldn't sleep not knowing the exact cause of failure so I went down to the shop and dug in. I knew my 1st impression was correct when I saw this....



I lifted the head to see this...





So there you have it. I hope that everyone reads this in the morning so they sleep alright knowing they have stock sodium filled valves tonight.... tomorrow night may be rough for a few of you...

Turbine wheel is toast. The weekend came out to about 400$ per lap...

You may see me on the side of the road with a "will weld for food" sign.....

"Will weld for food"= your new sig.

That really sucks and just goes to show that no matter what you do shit can happen!

Looking forward to the next version.

ooops!

Damn,

Sorry to see the carnage Hank.

Craig

BALLS@!

I knew you couldn't wait until next week to tear into it. Was that a completely stock AAN except for rods and bearings?

That sucks!

My bad, the turbine is toast, no questions asked

i think there is a 35r local for sale... 700ish

Man, that is brutal, sorry to see!

Sam

That is the same thing that happened to my turbo rocco... I dropped an exhaust valve too and destroyed the motor and turbine wheel.... I feel your pain

So sorry to hear/see this, do you know how many miles were on the head/valves?

SS valves from now on? Chance to go solid lifters as well.

Cheers

dernit, that stinks. :/

Hey Hank

Sorry to hear of your troubles. I'd like to think of this as an opportunity.

Hap, with some kind of thoughts near Everboost, Maguire

ouch, sorry that happened :( It's much harder to swallow this kind of failure financially when you have to take care of your family first. This guy knows for sure. On that note, I'm really glad that I put all new upgraded valves in my head on the last time apart.

If you need some OEM stock bits, I do have misc. stuff around...

Trying to find words of encouragement, but know that Kevin is now wanting to build a race car after you took him for a ride Friday night. I think he'll be building himself a race car soon thanks to you!

Not that hanks car isn't fast enough, just be glad you've never been for a ride in my buddy Cody's supra.... 1700hp to the rear wheels and a sub nine second quarter mile time might fry your brain worse than your Audi addiction has already....drag slick 32x11r15 on the freeway over triple digits, 40+ pounds of boost and 20 dollar a gallon of vp import sucking faster than 20 yuppie humvees screaming as they loose grip while trying to shove your eyeballs thru the back of your head is an exhilarating experiance that is just hard to describe...

Dangit Hank! That is a big time bummer!

I said this on the phone last night, but again, really sorry...and now I see it. Ugly...at least that tall block will be on your way soon so slowly you can make it bigger badder and stronger! :cheers:

Sux Hank. But now you can get going on that stroker!

That really is a bummer Hank. No one likes to trash a motor, we all know that when playing close to the edge that sometimes its inevitable that we fall over that edge at times, but to lose a $1500 turbo in the process is hard to take. Bottom line is you should be up on the Oregon coast with your family digging clams, fishing and having fun in general. It would have cost a lot less! I still feel for you.