Well, my first attempt at road racing had it's ups and downs.

First I want to thank HybridDynamics for all their help in helping me figure out what was wrong. Also, thanks to the Beaverun staff, Especially Amber who drove my father and I to our hotel. And thanks to Trey and the entire Integra Type R club for organizing such an awesome event.

And thanks to John at RoadRace for helping me with the suspension setup, it rocked.

I had never even been to a roadcourse before this, so the whole experience was quite new. We got 4 run sessions of a half hour each, and I was placed in the beginner field. About 85% of the cars were Integras. I had a cool instructor from R and D motorsports who drives a Integra R in the Honda challenge.

First Session: Just getting the hang off things, learning the lines, feeling the car out. Was a lot of fun, I was very cautious, as my car had 340whp and was setup to have oversteer. So, I wanted to move gradually up the ladder and make sure I wasn't trailbraking.

Second Session: I was more agressive, still calm, still learning. There were a lot of cars out, and they all seemed to get in packs, so I found myself off the gas a lot more. I let a lot of people pass me to get some room to actually get on WOT, I experimented slightly with getting controled oversteer through the turn. I was getting more agressive towards the end, starting to feel comfortable and getting more ambitious with applying power through the turns.

Then, the fun began. I met Scott Siegel of Siegel Racing, and he talked to me as soon as I got done with the second session. After my session the instructors went out in their cars, and Scott took the helm in my Evo to give me some pointers. Well, to put it lightly, this was the most amazing and possibly the most fun I've ever had in a car. Somehow we started perfectly infront of the pack of cars so that we had lots of open space. I had no idea my car was this fast, Scott can drive. We were passing all the other cars like clockwork. Then we were coming through the straight and the car just flat out died. This was so much more abuse than my car had ever taken, much more than autocrossing, and about 100x more than drag racing. My tires actually melted, there is molten rubber through the entire tread.

After being pulled off the runoff, I noticed the fuel pump wasn't priming most of the time, which it normally did every time. So, we began testing: fuel pump voltage, fuses, coolant was green and clean, oil looks good, plugs are blackish with detonation flakes, then we replaced the fuel pump, then we did a compression test.

Well, apparently two back to back sessions, one at 10/10's caused severe detontation. This is my basic thinking. The turbo got extremely hot, the intercooler surpassed it's efficiency, and before long I was pumping lot's of compressed extremely hot air into my engine and subsequently got detonation. And to top that off, it was 80 degrees plus the whole day.

The compression test results:
Cylinder 1: 160
Cylinder 2: 30
Cylinder 3: 30
Cylinder 4: 150

So, I don't have enough money to buy the best of the best, but I'm not going to put an engine in that's not capable of handling the abuse of a roadcourse. So, I'm checking out all my options. I'm thinking that I should probably buy a larger intercooler, a 2.0 or 2.3 top to bottom engine and get my car retuned on a load bearing dyno with lot's of safety precautions. The intercooler is probably going to be the new Vishnu unit (if I can afford it). And as for the engine, I'm going to get something with all race spec bearings, arp hardware, etc. And I'm looking to see if someone will guarantee their work for roadracing. If I can afford it I might get a stroker. But I can either buy from someone who has a core, so they can send me the built engine, and I can send them mine back. And just install it in our shop. Or, I'll put my car on a flatbed and drive it somewhere where they can put the engine in and tune it there. I want someone who crosses every t and dots every i, I want the rebuilt to be meticulous. I don't want to have this happen again, and I want to be back on the roadcourse. I want to be back and ready in two weeks ideally.

So, I'll be calling or emailed BJ's, Buschur, Darkhorse, AMS and maybe some other places Monday.

Later,
JD

 

JD,

You couldn't be with a better group of guys. Trey's been a close friend of mine for several years. I'm sorry this happened to you, but especially that it happened in absolutely most fun environment you can possibly use your Evo.

I do think something really abnormal went awry, as lots of guys on here road race their cars in hotter weather than that and have no problems. These cars were designed to do this, and although the warranty doesn't support it, the actual hardware should.

Could you please elaborate a little bit more about your fuel pump? When you tested and replaced it, was there anything wrong with it?

Big mechanical failures are tough, and I've had my share of them over the years. The best thing you can do right now is poistively reinforce your mind while the car is down, and remind yourself how much better it will be when you get it back up and running. I wish you the best of luck and a speedy recovery to your Evo!

 

It's not the pump, I got it to prime. And they almost never fail. Or at least it didn't seem to. The oil has metal flakes in it and the plugs have detonation specs on them. So, all I can figure is the hypothesis I posted above.

And I'm looking at the BJ's stage 3 engine with ARP hardware. I really want to make sure this doesn't happen again. So, an intercooler, stage 1 head with springs and retainers and light porting and complete race block is what I'm thinking. And getting some warning lights (led) setup with my AEM for EGT and a/f. And I really want to find out how those that are road racing are tuning for long sessions in high heat.

 

I think the best thing you can do for extreme hardware usage is tune a bit on the conservative side with air:fuel, boost, and even timing. The few times I had my WRX on track, I'd keep it on the pump gas map, but throw in about 1/3 tank of really high octane race gas. Its really expensive, but great insurance.

Good luck with an effective and economical resolution, man. Please keep us updated!

 

I have the Buschur Stage 4 stuff with an AEM EMS system and have run 3 events at Mid Ohio with two drivers driving the car in A and B run groups. Usually the car is out for almost an hour straight and I have had no problems. The car was sorted out by Quantum Racing in Marysville Ohio and they did a nice job tuning it on the street and on their 4 wheel dyno after installing the EMS. Give Mark a call and see what he can do for you. Good luck and the track stuff is a hoot and the Evos will hold their own when modified with almost anything that is driven to the track except a well driven Viper.

 

Were you logging at all? I have a bit less hp than you and ran in upper 80's at Nelson Ledges a few weeks ago with no problems. I think you had an unfortunate failure of some sort, not related to the efficiency of the FMIC. My car was rather rich for that track day (10:1) due to switching from TPS reference to MAP reference on the emanage a few days before the event. What a/f are you tuned for?

 

Since you have the AEM, Water Injection would be a good idea too. It's an extra level of safety against detonation.

 

I don't think I had a large enough margin of safety for this type of racing. Keep in mind I made 340 whp with a Buschur stage 1, no cams, no fmic. I think a FMIC is a great assurance, and the race gas is also a great idea. Two things I wish I had purchased instead of being cheap.

 

I am sure you will get to the bottom of this but I will tell you this, the intercooler is not the problem, many many hours have been run flat out with evos.
If you did have detonation that would be from timing or fuel, because that is how the evo handles the situation.
About your plugs, were they completely clean, no soot whatsoever? forgetabout the specks that could be from using antisieze on the threads. If you have any color on the insulator that would rule out afr. If you have standard plugs with a ground strap bent over the electrode and there is color from the bend down then timing was good.

However I see you are running an aftermarket ecu....... look there my friend.

hope you find out what went wrong, cheaply, and can get back on the track it is a blast isn't it.

 

Sorry to hear about your luck. I'd be willing to bet the major failure (other than tuning of course) was the head gasket between #2 and #3. The reason I'm stating the obvious is that you may have less internal damage than you think. I just helped Mitsuorder out a little with a head gasket failure. There was no erosion of the head or block surface, only requiring the gasket to be replaced. Really, in my opinion, it should be called a headbolt failure, as it appeared that they stretched allowing the gasket to go. Seeing his has prompted me to go ahead and install ARP head studs in my relatively stock car. I should have them in hand from RRE Tues. You might also want to ask RRE about the posability of G induced fuel starvation due to the poor gas tank design of the Evo... I'd say all the engine builders you named are more than up to the task.

Sorry again, and good luck!

 

I agree with Zeus. All of the Evo engine failures I've read about have been #4 melting, never two adjacent cylinders.

 

Well, I'm off tomorrow, so I'll head into work and take the head off.

As for the plugs, they are soot'y with white/silver specs on them. Somehow one of them had zero gap. Maybe I bumped it in the three times I took them out and in, but I highly doubt it. And I didn't put them in with no gap.

And as for the headbolts, that may be. But one of the guys said when I got it to idle by feeding it throttle that it sounded like pistons and/or ring failiure.

 

LOL!
Now there's the understatement of the year. I would have been screwed without the help of Zeus and GWDEVO8, these guys went above and beyond to get me back up and running. I owe these guys BIG. I do agree with Zeus's statements. If I'm not mistaken derekw had some issues similar to this with tank levels on the OTC before his car wrecked.

 

Man, that really sucks. I just got back from BeaveRun last weekend and beat the livin' crap out of my car turning 1:13s (2nd track event, 1st at BR). I had no issues. I'm running a Buschur Stage 3 with a flashed ECU.

A few comments/questions:
-Did you have logging turned on?
-Who did your tune for the EMS?
-Can you post your CAL file?
-Was knock control activated?
-What boost level were you running?
-It looks like you were running 93, true?
-I'm not sure I'd go with a stroker if you want a bulletproof track motor. Maybe others with experience can chime in but a stroker isn't going to like the high RPMs as much as the 2.0L.

I'm not trying to flame or be critical at all here. Since I track my car and have considered using the EMS to tune I'm anxious to find out the root cause of your failure. As others have stated, I don't think the issue is with your intercooler or fuel. A guy I was running with last weekend had a similar level of mods but he was running Xede, albeit at lower power levels. I think you have to seriously look at the EMS tune or the boost level you were running. It seems to me that there are loads of safeguards that can be set up with the EMS to prevent this sort of thing from happening, namely dumping fuel and/or pulling timing when knock voltage gets too high.

 

I would be willing to buy your engine off you if you want. Basically the block but if you want to sell the block and head i will take that too. Let me know and maybe we can work somthing out. Thanx!