Robertio in dead engine shocker :-(

[Robertio]

The latest in the long line of my failures to get any meaningful bhp out of my engine:

To cut a long story short I finally managed to kill one of my Iannetti ceramics today.  Absolutely no idea why it decided to let go other than it is a rotary and apparently these things are to be expected.

My highly trained team of mechanics got the car running with all mods in place  Took it out with the wideband on and after a few runs played around with the gain on the boost controller, sure enough it spooled up a bit quicker.  Had a few more runs at this setting - only running 10psi on BNR uprated twins run non-sequentially and all seemed well.

No knock values / det or anything amiss, took it round to have another run and fine in second, short shifted into third and at about 4.5k (so it hadn\'t quite reached 10psi) there was a pop sound, for all the world like an intercooler hose coming off.

Pulled in and it stalled, lifted the bonnet and all hoses correct and accounted for, took it back to the garage and took the engine bay apart.  Having checked everything seemed OK a quick rotor check was carried out and the front was found to be dead.

As I said, nothing seemed amiss, AFR was 11.3 at the point of bang, and as far as we can tell nothing caused it.  So after getting on for 12k miles my Iannetti\'d street ported engine checked out for some reason it hasn\'t felt necessary to tell me, it\'s never made huge power and today it felt about 40bhp down on when it was running the stock turbos (although this may have been down to the more subtle power delivery).

Very disappointed to say the least as many thousands were put into getting the car ready for TOTB and now it is just not going to be happening

[scooby_si]

sheet man sorry to hear that specially in such non extreme & unwanted (not that it ever is) circumstances....
Hope ya can see yer way to progress further & get to bottom of yer issues....
Si

[DRAGON]

Gutted for you. I\'ve been there its not nice. Glad your having a go though.
Get some normal apex seals get her rebuilt. And before you get her on boost again try and find the problem. Are both exhaust ports even in colour?

[Archbish]

Ah shit.  sorry mate - sending a big ol\' hug.

Good luck with getting her running.

OJ

[clive]

Real sad to hear your engine is not well,

Fingers crossed, but things aren\'t always what they appear, at the beginning of last year l thought l had lost a rotor and it turned out to be a carboned up tip that had stuck in from where it hadn\'t been mapped !!!!

l know this maybe clutching but it just maybe not what you think.    

[Carl]

Hi Robbie,
Sorry to hear that your engine has gone.
What timing were you running?
What fuel?Was it old fuel or fresh?Octane?
What spark plugs?
11.3 is a bit lean.
Damage could have been done prior to these runs,and only now shown itself.Don\'t forget the hammering it has had on trackdays too.

Let me know if I can help.I will do all I can to assist you.

As your warranty was for 12000 miles(Just reached)
if you send me the engine I will repair it for a parts only cost.

I think it would be good for me to look at it.

Kind regards
Carl

[Glenn Butcher]

What\'s going on man!?!?!?!?

Robertio - please post up the details Carl has asked for.  Timing probably being the most important.

Engines just shouldn\'t be failing like this!

[20B_boy]

Damn sorry to hear that Rob

I know you\'ve (and poor Marc at The Garage - and Bob your part time lacky! been putting every thing into getting the car running again over the last months...

[yonner]

what ecu do you have and who is remaping it for u. i hate to see someone els in my position os far as a blown engin goes :S best of luck to fixing it m8

[Robertio]

What timing were you running?

In the area where it died it was within 1 of the base map leading, with a slightly narrower than base map split


What fuel?Was it old fuel or fresh?Octane?

Fuel was old (Optimax & 1/2 bottle of NF) with a fresh helping of booster.  Couldn\'t really do much else as the car had not far off a full tank of fuel (had never planned on having it off the road for this long).


What spark plugs?

9\'s, the 10\'s hadn\'t turned up in time so we ran it on 9\'s to sort out the low boost map.


11.3 is a bit lean.

Accepted it is slightly leaner than ideal, but at the low rpm and boost I would have imagined it to be acceptable.  It was richer at higher rpm (and lower for that matter).


Damage could have been done prior to these runs,and only now shown itself.Don\'t forget the hammering it has had on trackdays too.

It showed no sign of any problem before this point, but obviously an earlier problem could have led to the failure - but I would imagine that something must have triggered it to go at this particular moment.  
It has only done 500 miles on track, almost all the other 11k were done cruising on motorways off-boost - generally it only had one on-boost run per journey.  It is not a town car and it never did short journeys.  If a rotory is only capable of 500 miles on boost then I\'d be best getting rid of it as soon as it is running as the car should have been running 2k+ miles on-track this year had things gone to plan.

[Carl]

Hi Robbie,
Thanks for putting up the info.
Don\'t lose heart over this,I agree that the engine should last a lot longer with the type of driving you have done.

I will say that the mapping side of rotaries is critical.I can help you with that in the future if you would like but like anything,for something good it does cost a little more.

Out of interest Robbie since you got it running again what sort of mileage did you do?

Can you put up a pic of the spark plugs and which is which please?The colour may indicate whether the front rotor is running leaner than the rear.The A/Fs maybe a balance of the both but one maybe quite lean and the other rich,giving an average that is reasonable but masking the problem.

Kind regards
Carl

[Robertio]

It was running for only 20 miles or so on Saturday before it went pop.  Out around testing loop a few times (just guessing on mileage), to try to set it up so that it could be driven properly after that.

With the car being 20 miles away picts are a bit hard to come by, but both plugs were black rich, one dry, the other wet.

[John Yorke]

Robbie gutted for you mate:(  It seems an age since you had the car on the road. I do know FD\'s do not like old fuel, lets hope it is not a blown seal, it has been known for them to stick in the rotor.
Best of luck:wave
John

[Donato]

Really sorry to hear that Robbie.

Gutted for you.

If you want to keep your costs down i would be happy to help with engine removal, (had a bit of practice now..).

If you need a hand with anything give me a call.

Regards

Donato

[bnaellis]

Sorry for short engine demise Rob. I don\'t think there is anything wrong with your afr or your boost or your timing or your plug rating (9) at that boost. Best you can do is pull it apart and I guess all shall be revealed.

rgds