Well I'll guess I'll start. :smile:
4.5 (2.5 times was intentional)
4.5 (2.5 times was intentional)
-
Protip: Profile posts are public! Use Conversations to message other members privately. Everyone can see the content of a profile post.
Unofficial How Many Times You've Blown Up Your Engine Thread
- Thread starter Vega$ NSX
- Start date
OK, what is wrong with you if you intentionally blew up your engine? And how do you do it a 1/2 time?
I think you and Snakey need to get together and start your own DNF Race Team.
But hey, thank you very much for your economic stimulus plan one blown engine at a time.
On a serious note, I think this thread is probably alot more valuable if you add what you learned from it, so not to repeat it and others can learn without having to blow their engines too. Never mind, you did it 4.5 times. "Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it." — Winston S. Churchill
Last edited:
I'll bite
.5 for me.
It never went but was on it's way!
Had two cylinders that failed leak down test. Found something extra when torn down.
This is my motor...
http://www.scienceofspeed.com/produ...peed/billet_main_caps/factorymaincap3_800.jpg
My main.
http://www.scienceofspeed.com/produ...Speed/billet_main_caps/factorymaincap_800.jpg
Two piece main cap...
http://www.scienceofspeed.com/produ...peed/billet_main_caps/factorymaincap2_800.jpg
Here is the complete story.
http://www.nsxprime.com/forums/showthread.php?t=143947
Needless to say I don't have stock main caps any more.
Later,
Don
.5 for me.
It never went but was on it's way!
Had two cylinders that failed leak down test. Found something extra when torn down.
This is my motor...
http://www.scienceofspeed.com/produ...peed/billet_main_caps/factorymaincap3_800.jpg
My main.
http://www.scienceofspeed.com/produ...Speed/billet_main_caps/factorymaincap_800.jpg
Two piece main cap...
http://www.scienceofspeed.com/produ...peed/billet_main_caps/factorymaincap2_800.jpg
Here is the complete story.
http://www.nsxprime.com/forums/showthread.php?t=143947
Needless to say I don't have stock main caps any more.
Later,
Don
Last edited:
I didnt blow my motor, but it had low compression. so its at drivingambition right now. my rebuild isnt cheap. I couldnt imagine rebuilding 4.5x, Im most positive my wife would leave me before i even mentioned a fourth rebuild:frown:
I can't even remember. Well over 10. ...and more than 4 pretty substantial ensuing engine fires.
Yeah but you don't count. You have sponsors. :tongue::biggrin: Each of my engine build came right out of my own pocket. :biggrin::biggrin:
Last edited:
I don't think talent came into play regarding the blowing up the engines. However, the sponsors certainly did come into play in the rebuilding of said blown up engines, which allowed the opportunity to blow them up again.
In a very short answer, it's the only way to know the limits of what your car can handle. When you start pushing the limits of the car, it's only a matter of time before you break it. I expected it. Stay tunned, I'm working a pretty comprehensive response on what it's like to go though an intensive FI build with multiple failures.
Everything you might possibly want to know about blowing up your engine through forced induction (FI):
Ok, as a general philosophy here is what I’ve learned in increasing the power levels in the NSX. Got a minute, this might take a while.
Disclaimers
First a few disclaimers. The first is that this is just my experience and understanding and in by no way considered “expert” advice or absolute facts. I also am not advocating any specific system, manufacturer, or approach. These are just my opinions based on multiple experiences and observations.
The very first thing you need to keep in mind is, anytime you start modifying the engine and putting out more power than it was intended to you will decrease the longevity of that engine. Period. Sometimes it is more immediate (blown up engine), sometimes it takes longer, and sometimes you won’t even notice it at all. Think of FI as smoking cigarettes. Will it affect your health? Most people say it will. Do people who smoke cigarettes die very early from lung cancer or emphysema as a direct result of smoking? Sure. But have people lived to 100 who have smoked their entire life? Yes they do. What I’m saying is there is no guarantee that smoking cigarettes will kill you or shorten your life by X number of years. But it does increase those odds. So the only way to avoid a smoking related illness is to not smoke at all. However, people who do not smoke at all still get lung cancer. So it’s not a direct correlation. The same thing with FI. There is no magic HP limit that will guarantee a blown engine. There is no magic equation that will say X HP increase will result in a X decrease in engine life. I get asked that question all the time. If I add X power, how long will my engine last? The simple answer is nobody knows. The only thing you need to know is that you will always increase the percentages of engine failure the more power you add. By how much? Who knows.
The second thing you need to understand is anytime you add parts to a system you increase the percentages of something to fail. As I mentioned before, if you had just one part, like a wheel, then only one thing can go wrong; the wheel. If you add an axel to that wheel, well not only did you add one more part that can fail, but now you have to worry about the interface of the wheel to the axel that can go wrong as well. So adding ONE more part, added TWO more points of failure. If you added a third part, it would add up to SIX more points of failure. Any time you increase the number of parts, you exponentially increase the probability of the system to fail. The other question I get asked all the time is can is can I build a reliable FI setup? When you add a turbo or supercharger, you are only adding multiple parts to the system, so keep in mind what that does to the reliability to the entire system. Again, no direct correlation, just odds and percentages.
Methodology
So first let me start off by talking about my methodology in how I got to my understanding. When I started my big power build, I didn’t realize the crazy path I would eventually end up taking. In fact, in reflection, I certainly did not pick the most effective, nor cost efficient, path towards big power. However, as I mentioned in another thread, everything has a value and the entire process was very entertaining, educational, and unique and I have gained a lot from going through the experience. In the end, the way I ended up building my NSX was to push the limit of the engine until something broke. Then I would go back and fix that part, upgrade it, beef it up and then increase the power some more until the next thing broke. The NSX is like a chain made up multiple links. Power is generated on one end of the chain and delivered to the ground at the other end of the chain. The power is passed down each link on the chain, with each link representing one part. If one of the links were to fail, then the chain no longer works. So a link could be a piston, a rod, an axel, transmission, etc. When I started adding power, I would eventually find which was my weakest link. Sometimes it would be a minor link and I could just replace it. Other times one link breaking would cause multiple links to fail simultaneously (blowing up the engine) and the failure was more catastrophic. In some cases I would have to upgrade the same link multiple times, because what I could handle at a certain power level, it couldn’t at a higher level. For example, at 425 whp, my clutch didn’t hold well so I upgraded it to something that could hold 450 whp. But eventually I upgraded enough parts to get up “chain” to handle to 500+ whp and my clutch wouldn’t hold again. So I had to upgrade that link one more time. I didn’t intend this to be my methodology in upgrading my car. It certainly would have been more effective to just beef up the entire chain all at once, but there are many benefits to the way I did it as well. I won’t get into all of them, but it certainly allowed me to know more about my NSX then I ever thought I would.
Con’t
Ok, as a general philosophy here is what I’ve learned in increasing the power levels in the NSX. Got a minute, this might take a while.
Disclaimers
First a few disclaimers. The first is that this is just my experience and understanding and in by no way considered “expert” advice or absolute facts. I also am not advocating any specific system, manufacturer, or approach. These are just my opinions based on multiple experiences and observations.
The very first thing you need to keep in mind is, anytime you start modifying the engine and putting out more power than it was intended to you will decrease the longevity of that engine. Period. Sometimes it is more immediate (blown up engine), sometimes it takes longer, and sometimes you won’t even notice it at all. Think of FI as smoking cigarettes. Will it affect your health? Most people say it will. Do people who smoke cigarettes die very early from lung cancer or emphysema as a direct result of smoking? Sure. But have people lived to 100 who have smoked their entire life? Yes they do. What I’m saying is there is no guarantee that smoking cigarettes will kill you or shorten your life by X number of years. But it does increase those odds. So the only way to avoid a smoking related illness is to not smoke at all. However, people who do not smoke at all still get lung cancer. So it’s not a direct correlation. The same thing with FI. There is no magic HP limit that will guarantee a blown engine. There is no magic equation that will say X HP increase will result in a X decrease in engine life. I get asked that question all the time. If I add X power, how long will my engine last? The simple answer is nobody knows. The only thing you need to know is that you will always increase the percentages of engine failure the more power you add. By how much? Who knows.
The second thing you need to understand is anytime you add parts to a system you increase the percentages of something to fail. As I mentioned before, if you had just one part, like a wheel, then only one thing can go wrong; the wheel. If you add an axel to that wheel, well not only did you add one more part that can fail, but now you have to worry about the interface of the wheel to the axel that can go wrong as well. So adding ONE more part, added TWO more points of failure. If you added a third part, it would add up to SIX more points of failure. Any time you increase the number of parts, you exponentially increase the probability of the system to fail. The other question I get asked all the time is can is can I build a reliable FI setup? When you add a turbo or supercharger, you are only adding multiple parts to the system, so keep in mind what that does to the reliability to the entire system. Again, no direct correlation, just odds and percentages.
Methodology
So first let me start off by talking about my methodology in how I got to my understanding. When I started my big power build, I didn’t realize the crazy path I would eventually end up taking. In fact, in reflection, I certainly did not pick the most effective, nor cost efficient, path towards big power. However, as I mentioned in another thread, everything has a value and the entire process was very entertaining, educational, and unique and I have gained a lot from going through the experience. In the end, the way I ended up building my NSX was to push the limit of the engine until something broke. Then I would go back and fix that part, upgrade it, beef it up and then increase the power some more until the next thing broke. The NSX is like a chain made up multiple links. Power is generated on one end of the chain and delivered to the ground at the other end of the chain. The power is passed down each link on the chain, with each link representing one part. If one of the links were to fail, then the chain no longer works. So a link could be a piston, a rod, an axel, transmission, etc. When I started adding power, I would eventually find which was my weakest link. Sometimes it would be a minor link and I could just replace it. Other times one link breaking would cause multiple links to fail simultaneously (blowing up the engine) and the failure was more catastrophic. In some cases I would have to upgrade the same link multiple times, because what I could handle at a certain power level, it couldn’t at a higher level. For example, at 425 whp, my clutch didn’t hold well so I upgraded it to something that could hold 450 whp. But eventually I upgraded enough parts to get up “chain” to handle to 500+ whp and my clutch wouldn’t hold again. So I had to upgrade that link one more time. I didn’t intend this to be my methodology in upgrading my car. It certainly would have been more effective to just beef up the entire chain all at once, but there are many benefits to the way I did it as well. I won’t get into all of them, but it certainly allowed me to know more about my NSX then I ever thought I would.
Con’t
The First 400 whp
Ok, so one of the key things I learned in this process the hard way is that there is a very clear lines in the stages of the NSX engine. Now it isn’t a magical HP number or anything like that but there are clear points in which really distinguish one stage of the car to the next. I think generally people accept that around 400-425 whp is around the limit of where you can push the stock engine. And up to that power level, I still feel the NSX is essentially the same car, just with more power. The balance is slightly off, but I think you can get to that level of power without having to change or modify too many aspects of the car that really change the “soul” and feeling of the car. And I think it is possible to maintain the reliability and drivability of the car that is close to stock levels to a degree.
But as I said, there are no guarantees. I wasn’t so lucky. Well when I first got my car, I dyno’d at a whopping 239 whp. At the time the car was the fastest thing I had ever been in and it was a blast. After a few years, I got very accustomed to the speed and my test drive in a Factor X turbo car (putting about 450 whp) was simply intoxicating. The rush of the boost was just too much to pass up. My first thought was that 400 whp would be MORE than enough to satisfy my speed lust (oh how naïve I was!) so I looked into building a turbo kit for a nice 400 whp or so. Also I didn’t want to jump into a 550 whp monster and wrap myself around a tree. It was my understanding that 400 whp was considered “safe” on a stock engine so I didn’t need to worry about the cost of building the engine. I was on a budget so I wanted to minimize costs. A compression and leak down test came out positive so I felt I had nothing to worry about. However, knowing I was starting to push the limits of the car I did anticipate that I something could happen. I wanted to push that 400 whp and keep pushing it until something failed. Then I would go ahead and fix that or build the engine.
I made it to about 405 whp when I lifted a head gasket a spewed oil everywhere. That’s not really blowing up my engine (I consider that .5) but I did have to take the car back to the shop and pull the engine all over again. At the time, I thought about building the engine then since I was pulling the engine, but since I was in that “magic” range, I thought I would be ok. I made it up to around 425 when one I crushed one of my piston heads. Hard to say if it was a tuning issue or just fatigue on the engine. My car had around 135,000 miles on it, so it didn’t really surprise me. The piston head didn’t have any real indications of detonation (burnt oil, high temp marks etc.) so I don’t know.
500 whp and Beyond
So that was the perfect time to build a race engine. Basically I upgraded the pistons, rods, sleeved the engine, upgraded the motor mounts and throttle body. I didn’t go for the full build yet, cams, valves, springs etc, because at the time I really thought there would be no way I would go beyond 450-500 whp. Now the thing I learned was this incremental increase in power was an exponential increase in cost. Once you throw in the engine build, it really starts to add up the cost of the build. Also this was where I upgraded the clutch because the stock clutch was showing signs of high temperature glazing and slippage. I went with an RPS stage 1 clutch, which in hindsight was a bit short sided because I would end up replacing it in a less than a year. The other thing I learned was that once you break down your car to that level it will never quite feel the same. When I got my ’91, even though it had 130K+ miles on it, it was still pretty clean, nice and solid. You really got a feel of how solid the car was and how clean it felt. But once you start stripping down the car, it’s very hard to maintain that fresh OEM feeling. Things tend to squeak or rattle or crack. The car just feels just less put together. It’s hard to describe, but anybody who has done extensive work to any car knows that once you start to just strip it down it all starts to feel more race-carish and less refined. Things just don’t feel as tight. Dirt and grime gets into odd nooks and crannies that a car straight from the factory just doesn’t have. You might have a slight oil leak, or extra grime coming out of the exhaust. You might get more fuel smell or funny idles. The car may stall and leave you stranded. It’s not any one thing I can single out. Once you get to around the 500+ whp mark, you’ll start to have to incorporate fundamental changes to the NSX that just start to transform it into a different car. Like I said in another post, for example, to be able to keep up with 500+whp, you’ll need to upgrade to something like 1,000+ cc fuel injectors. Those are huge because they need to be sized to flood the bejesus out of the engine with fuel for wide open throttle. But think about it, just how good do you think 1,000+ cc fuel injectors are going to be at idle or partial throttle (which is 95% of the time). Not great. It's like trying to water your plants with a fire hose. These are things you don’t have to do at 400 whp. But these are changes you have to make at 500 whp and will change how your car sounds, how it wants to idle, and how clean the junk is coming out from your tail pipes. A lot of the times I can tell a high HP NSX simply because it just has a rough start, very coarse and unrefined idle, and there are dirt and oil marks on the back bumper above the exhaust ports. That’s stuff you don’t have to deal with on a stock engine or even 400 whp. Another thing to note is at 400 whp, depending on your tires, you will have a hard time maintaining traction, especially in the first couple of gears. So do you think adding another 100 whp will be realized in the form of a faster car? No, not really. All you’ll get is even MORE wheel spin. So once you get to that level of power, you need to think about upgrading the wheels, suspension and brakes. Otherwise, adding all that power is wasted in just short tire life span. The main problem is that on a stock body, generally speaking it is hard to get wider than 295 wide rear tires. And at 500 whp, even that isn’t even enough. I had to go wide body, partly for the looks, but partly so I could stick fatter 305 wide tires in the back. Not to mention, that the stock NSX tire sizes are very well matched and balanced. Meaning, the amount of rubber on the front tires is balanced to the amount of rubber on the rear (balanced ratio). But once you start dumping some serious power to the rear tires, you’ll start to realize that all you care about is more and more rubber on the rear tires because otherwise, it’s like your rear tires are on roller skates every time you jab the throttle. The problem is that you can go up to 295 wide in the rear and even up to 305 in some cases, but it is very hard to get past 235 wide front tires without significant rubbing. That means the ratio of the widths of the front tires relative to the rear becomes wildly out of balance. The car will feel and handle completely different. As I mentioned above, the NSX starts to lose that original stock/OEM NSX feel that you were used to. Often times people expect an NSX at 500 whp to be just like their stock NSX only with just more power. It’s not. You have to be prepared that you’ve created an all new vehicle using an NSX shell. It still is a uniquely NSX experience but it’s just not that super clean, super refined, super honed, super balanced car the stock NSX is.
The other thing I learned is that once I started pushing past 500 whp, you really start to open up all the other avenues of where links on the chain really start to break down. After 500 whp, things like trannys, clutches (again), axels, cams, differential, etc. start to show their weaknesses. And because there are so few players in this market at that power level, the costs really start to exponentially add up. Also at this point, you’ll start to realize you NSX has less OEM parts on it than aftermarket parts. Once I hit 500 whp, the car felt fast again, but it wasn’t long before again, 500 whp felt slow. Previously I had only built up the rods, pistons and sleeves, so I knew that I’d be pushing the limits of the engine again by increasing the power. Again, I slowly increased the power until the engine blew again. This time I think I was around 550 whp. But this gave me the chance to redo everything properly. I redid the entire engine (new block, sleeves, rods, pistons, etc.) but also upgraded all of the ancillary equipment such as valves, LMA, springs, throttle body, etc. Also upgraded the clutch to the RPS stage II twin disc clutch because the old RPS wasn’t handling it. The next tune was putting me at around 600 whp and I had it there for a while unit the engine blew one more time. This time more catastrophically; one of the cylinders/piston head melted and basically ruined the block. This one was a bit more unexpected and I realized that at around 600 whp I was really starting to push the limits of the next threshold in the engine and turbo. I was basically maxing out the turbo and I would have to upgrade more things on the NSX to get it to run more reliably at the 600+ whp level. At that point, I felt that the NSX was turning more into a purpose built vehicle instead of the balanced street cruiser/race car I wanted it to be. So I rebuilt the engine one more time, upgraded the axels, rebuilt and upgraded the tranny, upgraded the limited slip differential, and multiple other things. The plan was to bulletproof the engine (i.e. beef up all of the links in the chains) and detune the car down to something more stable at 550 whp and have something I felt was powerful enough, yet reliable as I can make it. So far the car has been pretty flawless and as close to a stock experience as I can make it. No oil leaks, stable throttle response, no idle issues, etc. Only time will truly tell if this latest configuration will last, but I’m hoping by pushing the car to its current set up’s limits, then backing off a few degrees, I’ve set up a reliable build.
Con't
Ok, so one of the key things I learned in this process the hard way is that there is a very clear lines in the stages of the NSX engine. Now it isn’t a magical HP number or anything like that but there are clear points in which really distinguish one stage of the car to the next. I think generally people accept that around 400-425 whp is around the limit of where you can push the stock engine. And up to that power level, I still feel the NSX is essentially the same car, just with more power. The balance is slightly off, but I think you can get to that level of power without having to change or modify too many aspects of the car that really change the “soul” and feeling of the car. And I think it is possible to maintain the reliability and drivability of the car that is close to stock levels to a degree.
But as I said, there are no guarantees. I wasn’t so lucky. Well when I first got my car, I dyno’d at a whopping 239 whp. At the time the car was the fastest thing I had ever been in and it was a blast. After a few years, I got very accustomed to the speed and my test drive in a Factor X turbo car (putting about 450 whp) was simply intoxicating. The rush of the boost was just too much to pass up. My first thought was that 400 whp would be MORE than enough to satisfy my speed lust (oh how naïve I was!) so I looked into building a turbo kit for a nice 400 whp or so. Also I didn’t want to jump into a 550 whp monster and wrap myself around a tree. It was my understanding that 400 whp was considered “safe” on a stock engine so I didn’t need to worry about the cost of building the engine. I was on a budget so I wanted to minimize costs. A compression and leak down test came out positive so I felt I had nothing to worry about. However, knowing I was starting to push the limits of the car I did anticipate that I something could happen. I wanted to push that 400 whp and keep pushing it until something failed. Then I would go ahead and fix that or build the engine.
I made it to about 405 whp when I lifted a head gasket a spewed oil everywhere. That’s not really blowing up my engine (I consider that .5) but I did have to take the car back to the shop and pull the engine all over again. At the time, I thought about building the engine then since I was pulling the engine, but since I was in that “magic” range, I thought I would be ok. I made it up to around 425 when one I crushed one of my piston heads. Hard to say if it was a tuning issue or just fatigue on the engine. My car had around 135,000 miles on it, so it didn’t really surprise me. The piston head didn’t have any real indications of detonation (burnt oil, high temp marks etc.) so I don’t know.
500 whp and Beyond
So that was the perfect time to build a race engine. Basically I upgraded the pistons, rods, sleeved the engine, upgraded the motor mounts and throttle body. I didn’t go for the full build yet, cams, valves, springs etc, because at the time I really thought there would be no way I would go beyond 450-500 whp. Now the thing I learned was this incremental increase in power was an exponential increase in cost. Once you throw in the engine build, it really starts to add up the cost of the build. Also this was where I upgraded the clutch because the stock clutch was showing signs of high temperature glazing and slippage. I went with an RPS stage 1 clutch, which in hindsight was a bit short sided because I would end up replacing it in a less than a year. The other thing I learned was that once you break down your car to that level it will never quite feel the same. When I got my ’91, even though it had 130K+ miles on it, it was still pretty clean, nice and solid. You really got a feel of how solid the car was and how clean it felt. But once you start stripping down the car, it’s very hard to maintain that fresh OEM feeling. Things tend to squeak or rattle or crack. The car just feels just less put together. It’s hard to describe, but anybody who has done extensive work to any car knows that once you start to just strip it down it all starts to feel more race-carish and less refined. Things just don’t feel as tight. Dirt and grime gets into odd nooks and crannies that a car straight from the factory just doesn’t have. You might have a slight oil leak, or extra grime coming out of the exhaust. You might get more fuel smell or funny idles. The car may stall and leave you stranded. It’s not any one thing I can single out. Once you get to around the 500+ whp mark, you’ll start to have to incorporate fundamental changes to the NSX that just start to transform it into a different car. Like I said in another post, for example, to be able to keep up with 500+whp, you’ll need to upgrade to something like 1,000+ cc fuel injectors. Those are huge because they need to be sized to flood the bejesus out of the engine with fuel for wide open throttle. But think about it, just how good do you think 1,000+ cc fuel injectors are going to be at idle or partial throttle (which is 95% of the time). Not great. It's like trying to water your plants with a fire hose. These are things you don’t have to do at 400 whp. But these are changes you have to make at 500 whp and will change how your car sounds, how it wants to idle, and how clean the junk is coming out from your tail pipes. A lot of the times I can tell a high HP NSX simply because it just has a rough start, very coarse and unrefined idle, and there are dirt and oil marks on the back bumper above the exhaust ports. That’s stuff you don’t have to deal with on a stock engine or even 400 whp. Another thing to note is at 400 whp, depending on your tires, you will have a hard time maintaining traction, especially in the first couple of gears. So do you think adding another 100 whp will be realized in the form of a faster car? No, not really. All you’ll get is even MORE wheel spin. So once you get to that level of power, you need to think about upgrading the wheels, suspension and brakes. Otherwise, adding all that power is wasted in just short tire life span. The main problem is that on a stock body, generally speaking it is hard to get wider than 295 wide rear tires. And at 500 whp, even that isn’t even enough. I had to go wide body, partly for the looks, but partly so I could stick fatter 305 wide tires in the back. Not to mention, that the stock NSX tire sizes are very well matched and balanced. Meaning, the amount of rubber on the front tires is balanced to the amount of rubber on the rear (balanced ratio). But once you start dumping some serious power to the rear tires, you’ll start to realize that all you care about is more and more rubber on the rear tires because otherwise, it’s like your rear tires are on roller skates every time you jab the throttle. The problem is that you can go up to 295 wide in the rear and even up to 305 in some cases, but it is very hard to get past 235 wide front tires without significant rubbing. That means the ratio of the widths of the front tires relative to the rear becomes wildly out of balance. The car will feel and handle completely different. As I mentioned above, the NSX starts to lose that original stock/OEM NSX feel that you were used to. Often times people expect an NSX at 500 whp to be just like their stock NSX only with just more power. It’s not. You have to be prepared that you’ve created an all new vehicle using an NSX shell. It still is a uniquely NSX experience but it’s just not that super clean, super refined, super honed, super balanced car the stock NSX is.
The other thing I learned is that once I started pushing past 500 whp, you really start to open up all the other avenues of where links on the chain really start to break down. After 500 whp, things like trannys, clutches (again), axels, cams, differential, etc. start to show their weaknesses. And because there are so few players in this market at that power level, the costs really start to exponentially add up. Also at this point, you’ll start to realize you NSX has less OEM parts on it than aftermarket parts. Once I hit 500 whp, the car felt fast again, but it wasn’t long before again, 500 whp felt slow. Previously I had only built up the rods, pistons and sleeves, so I knew that I’d be pushing the limits of the engine again by increasing the power. Again, I slowly increased the power until the engine blew again. This time I think I was around 550 whp. But this gave me the chance to redo everything properly. I redid the entire engine (new block, sleeves, rods, pistons, etc.) but also upgraded all of the ancillary equipment such as valves, LMA, springs, throttle body, etc. Also upgraded the clutch to the RPS stage II twin disc clutch because the old RPS wasn’t handling it. The next tune was putting me at around 600 whp and I had it there for a while unit the engine blew one more time. This time more catastrophically; one of the cylinders/piston head melted and basically ruined the block. This one was a bit more unexpected and I realized that at around 600 whp I was really starting to push the limits of the next threshold in the engine and turbo. I was basically maxing out the turbo and I would have to upgrade more things on the NSX to get it to run more reliably at the 600+ whp level. At that point, I felt that the NSX was turning more into a purpose built vehicle instead of the balanced street cruiser/race car I wanted it to be. So I rebuilt the engine one more time, upgraded the axels, rebuilt and upgraded the tranny, upgraded the limited slip differential, and multiple other things. The plan was to bulletproof the engine (i.e. beef up all of the links in the chains) and detune the car down to something more stable at 550 whp and have something I felt was powerful enough, yet reliable as I can make it. So far the car has been pretty flawless and as close to a stock experience as I can make it. No oil leaks, stable throttle response, no idle issues, etc. Only time will truly tell if this latest configuration will last, but I’m hoping by pushing the car to its current set up’s limits, then backing off a few degrees, I’ve set up a reliable build.
Con't
Tuning and Blowing Up
First off, tuning is the single most important factor in the longevity of your engine. Period. Everything else in a turbo/SC build is just pieces and parts. For the most part, they are just pieces of plastic, metal etc. Yes they can fail and ruin your engine, but you assume that they won’t no different than you assume your tire isn’t going to explode while drive on the freeway. For the most part a turbo/SC kit will work or will not work (because it has a flaw.) If there is a design flaw, chances are you probably never heard of it because it disappeared from the market. But if it is a reputable brand, then chances are it is a proven design. People often will mention names like Comptech, SOS, LoveFab, because they are all proven designs. While there is no doubt there are slight quality differences between each system and some are probably more efficient than others, for the most part they are all proven designs. As I mentioned in a previous post, a lot of these kits use the same main components; same turbos, blow off valves, waste gates etc. the major variable being the design and the welds of the interconnecting piping. Like I said, one system might be more efficient than another, but really are you going to notice the difference between 425 whp and 435 whp because one person’s kit is 2-3% more efficient design? Also keep in mind a bad weld or failing part (unless it involved fuel or meth delivery), will usually not cause a detonation. That is not to say that a failing part, shoddy kit, or poor installation will not cause detonation, they certainly can and have. However, if you are buying a proven reputable kit, and installed by a reputable installer, you have to assume that for the most part it will not be the cause of an engine blowing up. Far and away, the biggest culprit in engine detonation is tune OR staying (or rather not staying) within the limits of your build.
So first let’s just look at just the tune. The reason the tune is so important is it unlike a part which might fail. For the most part, when you put in a part, like a rod, or fuel pump, you assume it’s going to not fail. However and parts do fail and if a rod or fuel pump failed, it could be catastrophic. But for the most part, you assume that they won’t or you assume it will take a very long time for it to eventually fail. A tune is different in that if you have a bad tune and are setting up bad air/fuel ratios or bad timing or whatever, it’s not that you hope that it won’t fail, it WILL fail. A bad tune is a guarantee your engine will detonate. It’s not a question of “IF”, it is a question of “WHEN” and chances are it will be much sooner than later. So understanding that a bad tune is a sure fire way to blow up your engine, you can see why people say tunes are so critical.
The second culprit also deals with the tune, but is more about pushing the limits of the engine. I’ve twice blown up my engine pushing the limits of it. Pushing the limits is like adding FI to your engine. There is no direct one to one correlation to how far you can push the engine, to when it will fail, to how badly it will fail. You just increase those odds. Anytime you start increasing the boost, or advancing the timing, or start to get more aggressive A/F ratios, you just keep cutting away at that margin of error. The closer you run towards the limits of the engine setup the more temperature fluctuations, increased intake air temperatures, poor fuel octane etc. will have a greater chance of blowing up your engine. Not a guarantee, but your margin for safety gets slimmer and slimmer. But therein lies the black magic of it all. So say you have a turbo setup that is very aggressive and therefore has a harder time maintaining inlet and outlet temperatures. At the same time, you have a tune that is so aggressive that has very little margin for variance in the engine conditions. So around town on just 1 or 2 hard street pulls it will run fine all day. Then one day on the track after some aggressive driving, inlet temperatures start to fluctuate and then BAM, the engine blows. So who’s fault is it? Is it the tuner for having an aggressive tune, which would have been fine for street driving. Or is it the turbo kit that didn’t adequate regulate temperatures? That is why you’ll see so many arguments regarding blown engines and finger pointing because most of the time when an engine blows, it is hard to identify a single sole cause of the detonation. A clear design flaw or a clearly bad tune are easy to diagnose and point out, but most of the time that is not the case. It is a combination of factors between the build and tune that contribute to an overall failure. An NSX is going to see a wide varying set of conditions and it is impossible to predict them all. All you can do is give yourself enough safety factor to protect and buffer yourself from all these different conditions. However, by the very fact someone is increasing the power by adding FI, you are already cutting into that safety factor. By going more aggressive, it’s just further reducing that safety factor. It is up to you how close to the limit you feel comfortable pushing it. If you wanted to be safe don’t do anything to the car; keep it stock. But face it, if you didn’t want to push that limit at all then you wouldn’t have boosted your car in the first place.
The bottom line is as I have stated from the start, you need to be prepared and understand that any time you start to push the limits and increase the power levels, you are just increasing the odds of blowing up your engine and it is often because of the addition of multiple additional points of failure.
First off, tuning is the single most important factor in the longevity of your engine. Period. Everything else in a turbo/SC build is just pieces and parts. For the most part, they are just pieces of plastic, metal etc. Yes they can fail and ruin your engine, but you assume that they won’t no different than you assume your tire isn’t going to explode while drive on the freeway. For the most part a turbo/SC kit will work or will not work (because it has a flaw.) If there is a design flaw, chances are you probably never heard of it because it disappeared from the market. But if it is a reputable brand, then chances are it is a proven design. People often will mention names like Comptech, SOS, LoveFab, because they are all proven designs. While there is no doubt there are slight quality differences between each system and some are probably more efficient than others, for the most part they are all proven designs. As I mentioned in a previous post, a lot of these kits use the same main components; same turbos, blow off valves, waste gates etc. the major variable being the design and the welds of the interconnecting piping. Like I said, one system might be more efficient than another, but really are you going to notice the difference between 425 whp and 435 whp because one person’s kit is 2-3% more efficient design? Also keep in mind a bad weld or failing part (unless it involved fuel or meth delivery), will usually not cause a detonation. That is not to say that a failing part, shoddy kit, or poor installation will not cause detonation, they certainly can and have. However, if you are buying a proven reputable kit, and installed by a reputable installer, you have to assume that for the most part it will not be the cause of an engine blowing up. Far and away, the biggest culprit in engine detonation is tune OR staying (or rather not staying) within the limits of your build.
So first let’s just look at just the tune. The reason the tune is so important is it unlike a part which might fail. For the most part, when you put in a part, like a rod, or fuel pump, you assume it’s going to not fail. However and parts do fail and if a rod or fuel pump failed, it could be catastrophic. But for the most part, you assume that they won’t or you assume it will take a very long time for it to eventually fail. A tune is different in that if you have a bad tune and are setting up bad air/fuel ratios or bad timing or whatever, it’s not that you hope that it won’t fail, it WILL fail. A bad tune is a guarantee your engine will detonate. It’s not a question of “IF”, it is a question of “WHEN” and chances are it will be much sooner than later. So understanding that a bad tune is a sure fire way to blow up your engine, you can see why people say tunes are so critical.
The second culprit also deals with the tune, but is more about pushing the limits of the engine. I’ve twice blown up my engine pushing the limits of it. Pushing the limits is like adding FI to your engine. There is no direct one to one correlation to how far you can push the engine, to when it will fail, to how badly it will fail. You just increase those odds. Anytime you start increasing the boost, or advancing the timing, or start to get more aggressive A/F ratios, you just keep cutting away at that margin of error. The closer you run towards the limits of the engine setup the more temperature fluctuations, increased intake air temperatures, poor fuel octane etc. will have a greater chance of blowing up your engine. Not a guarantee, but your margin for safety gets slimmer and slimmer. But therein lies the black magic of it all. So say you have a turbo setup that is very aggressive and therefore has a harder time maintaining inlet and outlet temperatures. At the same time, you have a tune that is so aggressive that has very little margin for variance in the engine conditions. So around town on just 1 or 2 hard street pulls it will run fine all day. Then one day on the track after some aggressive driving, inlet temperatures start to fluctuate and then BAM, the engine blows. So who’s fault is it? Is it the tuner for having an aggressive tune, which would have been fine for street driving. Or is it the turbo kit that didn’t adequate regulate temperatures? That is why you’ll see so many arguments regarding blown engines and finger pointing because most of the time when an engine blows, it is hard to identify a single sole cause of the detonation. A clear design flaw or a clearly bad tune are easy to diagnose and point out, but most of the time that is not the case. It is a combination of factors between the build and tune that contribute to an overall failure. An NSX is going to see a wide varying set of conditions and it is impossible to predict them all. All you can do is give yourself enough safety factor to protect and buffer yourself from all these different conditions. However, by the very fact someone is increasing the power by adding FI, you are already cutting into that safety factor. By going more aggressive, it’s just further reducing that safety factor. It is up to you how close to the limit you feel comfortable pushing it. If you wanted to be safe don’t do anything to the car; keep it stock. But face it, if you didn’t want to push that limit at all then you wouldn’t have boosted your car in the first place.
The bottom line is as I have stated from the start, you need to be prepared and understand that any time you start to push the limits and increase the power levels, you are just increasing the odds of blowing up your engine and it is often because of the addition of multiple additional points of failure.
great read.
- Joined
- 20 November 2004
- Messages
- 257
Which then brings up a whole new subject: How do you know if your tuner is good, and what makes a good tuner?
Because all my homies said he's the shiz...
But seriously: good point. How about. Their past experience, track record, involvement, and TRACK/race car tuning experience.
- Joined
- 20 November 2004
- Messages
- 257
But all I hear is " I've tuned over a thousand cars", "I tuned the worlds fastest Yugo". "I tuned this, I tuned that", and "I can tune anything".
What do you believe? Same thing goes for the engine builder...
What do you believe? Same thing goes for the engine builder...
You wouldn't let a Yugo engine builder build your NSX motor?
Talk is cheap. Everyone and their mom is a "tuner" (tweaker). Track record of successful tunes for cars that aren't just street driven or dyno queens but ones that can handle the stresses of road racing IMO is a huge. Show me a car they tuned that races competitively. That's a start.
Definitely one motor toasted...the other motor had massive blow by but never took it apart but pretty safe to assume broken ring lands so we'll call it 2
Similar threads
