As some of you guys may already know, I blew my motor at the track about a week ago! Well, it was a disaster and my heart was broken and my brain was hurt. I can't describe how my feeling was the first few days.


The cause of failure? It is hard to determine but there are few possibilities or combination of them. I don't want to blame anyone who has been working on my car before because it is hard to verify and it could be some hardware failure. I spoke to forum member Tailwag who also blew his motor last year. His failure was from the stupid ECU wires shorted. So many possibilities here.


Ok here is the story and what happened. I recently upgraded my turbos with new Tial 65mm VTGs and car was tuned by Sam(By Design) and Mitch. The reason why I upgraded turbos was that I had some oil smoking/consumption issue that I had to fix and while the shop was fixing it I wanted to have some more power. We also thought it could have been bad turbos or exhaust valve seals but neither was the factor because the turbos are new now and they replaced all valve seals but still smoked little bit. I was so tired of it and just decided to ignore it because it's still within Porsche spec according to owner's manual. Mine took 1 quart every 400 miles.


My tuning history. I bought my car at 62k miles as complete stock in 2013. First I had a Softronic tune more than one year. Perfect and never had any issues. Last November, I brought my car to Undercover and got custom tuned by Garth. He made 499whp and 562wtq on his Mustang dyno. Perfect and car was even stronger! I gained a lot from the Softronic tune. And my car was in winter mode short after. I started this season at the track event(2 day road course) on March. At this time, my car ran something wrong. I felt some vibration on hard acceleration even on normal mode. I never ran sport mode at the track anyway. I switched back to original map(Softronic) and the vibration went away. So I kept run the entire track sessions. Well, the smoking issue started from that day. I contacted many different Porsche shops including dealer and I ended up trying new turbos(Upgrade) and replacing exhaust valve seals.


Fast forward. Two Sundays ago, I went to Pocono track 1/2 mile roll event with the new setup and tune. Car actually ran perfect with Sam and Mitch's remote tune. Data logging numbers were great and they tuned it little conservative just in case. Now at the track, we all did warm up laps for about 5 mins. The disaster happened at the first run when I floored on 3rd gear around 4k rpm. Power dropped down with big red "Oil pressure too low" message on the gauge. One of the rod was broken. That's it! Car towed off from the track.


Now here is the bright side of the story. Sam has been working out greatly with me. And I was lucky enough that I found good used motor for the great price. It's off of 2009 with only 2000 miles! It's basically a brand new motor for 1/3 of price plus my damaged motor. It's currently being prepared to ship. My motor is also ready to go. With this new motor, I'm so confident and Sam will take good care of it for sure. It's still in the progress and this ordeal is not done yet but I want to be a optimist and never again!


Here are few pics.


Broken rod!


















Spread out the parts






My ugly motor and parts are packed to ship

 

bummer, dude. Nice find on the engine, though.

 

Sorry for what happened.

 

Man, that makes me sick. Sorry man. I know you are in good hands with Sam. It would be nice to know what made the rod fail though. What fuel were you running? Any idea on Tq numbers?

 

Am sorry for that .. I faced same issue long time ago .. Put my lose was broken rod , crankcase only !!

So I went to forge Rods and 3.8l Kit ... Etc etc !!

My advise to you if you want to do future more upgrades , do the engine now .. At least
Head studs
Rods
Ported/polished head (simple) do not go too much !
Replace bearings and Orings

Your engine will hold 1000hp with no issues

Good luck buddy .. My Exp with Sam perfect !! He is the man

 

I haven't got a chance to run dyno before blew the motor so it's a permanent mystery.


Luckily the motor is near by Sam so he will check it out and inspect for me some time today.

 

Thanks for your advice but I'm broke now after this drama.
Plus I'm not interested in 1000hp. I will actually reduce the torque down low and be safe. I'm pretty sure with this healthy new motor I can hold more power but I want to be safe at this time.

 

Sorry to hear but nice find on the 2K mile engine. P.S. Sam is the man! ;-)

 

Just keep the torque below 650 and you will be fine. You are still running E85 so that will help.

Good luck and hope everything goes back to normal soon.

 

What other damage other than the piston and liner? Easy replacement if that all that happened.

 

Man we all put so much time and effort into this. Choi was patient with his install and the build up to getting behind the wheel. Logging several nights in a row LATE and we were having a great time with it. I know we all wish that we looked inside the motor now with the history but hindsight is always 20/20 and priorities get in the way. I feel so horrible.

This tune was pretty conservative and we are running it in 2 other cars now on E85. Ron will be finishing soon and jump on the dyno with his as well. My plan was to get Choi running nicely with Cobb/Mitch's help and have him enjoy the event on the weekend. Then get on the dyno to verify and start pumping things up. I am so confident, that we will run the exact same file in his car when it's all together and continue from there. I expect under 600 wheel with soft and smooth delivery (the main key). If there is anything to be learned/shared in my opinion its that this game is risky. You can be conservative and careful and things can still go wrong in rare cases. There are guys running 65 & 68mm VTG's as well as Alpha turbo's running 700+ wheel and never an issue. Some bend rods after a year or 2. Then the other side of the coin. Generally it points to motor condition and history especially if tuned conservatively based on years of data and experience. This thing just buckled at the knees.

Yeah I will swing by to take a look at the motor today and help with anything I can! Including the discount we spoke about and cashing in some local favors . I cannot gain from your loss my friend. I promise to be right there with you till the end and give all I can to get you back where you need to be.

Let's get you back up and running!

 

Sorry to hear about that buddy, man that sucks. Do you have any logs of your last run or even before but on the same day that you could share with us. That will help tremendously determining what happened. Were you running E85? Race gas?

 

Thanks everyone for your kind words!



Thanks Angel. Yeah that's what I would do.


Cracked Cylinder wall and oil pump too.


I forgot to mention that how much Sam is helpful and how hard he is working for me. He is treating me like his family. For the new motor, he asked even further discount than I already made using his good relationship to the business owner. It's a beyond customer service. Thanks buddy!


I ran e85 at the time of blow. And yes I have all the logs for both 93 pump gas and e85. I can share that later.

 

I got sick to my stomach reading this. I'm sorry this happened to you Choi. Good luck on coming back from this.

 

Important for public dissection of those logs.