So I get latest copy of SCC to see a beautiful sight. For the few with the $$$ to make a grand at the flywheel ( or over 1000whp as some have done) its an impressive sight and read up. But it always leads to certain questions. The one that I am most interested in knowing pertains to John Malinkowsky's EVO from Connecticut. I give him high praise for driving such a built car all the way to Florida seeing so many people in such high HP areas trailoring from location to location. I wanted to know if the statement made in reference to his exhaust maniold. They state that the welds most likely failed because of his 24 hr drive - heat and stress bumps. Now I know this is a assumption but if he drove his car gently and without serious boosting ( big turbo and not going above 4g's rpm so mostly in vacuum state) would there be enough heat generated other than typical operation to cause these failures? Could most possibly be from over time in high boost situations or he could have been giving a little extra go on his trip south but my understanding is that his manifold/set up is relatively new. Would I expect that if I was going for higher hp #'s that failure of welds will be a inherited issue or just that his was a random failure that needed mending? If any tuners out there could shed some light on this i would appreciate. Better yet if John ( not sure if he's a member of EvoM) could elaborate on his trip there and the problems faced. In all good story and nice to see some awesome machines.

 

I'm sure he didn't grandma it all the way down there

but the manifold would be heat cycled either way...

with that said I would guess the stress put on the set up from constant 60-80 mph speeds and not dragstrip flat roads played a huge part in that

the article was awesome to read though...one of my favorite articles in SCC since I subscribed four years ago

 

actually if you read his short feature article it says when he left a tollbooth he put a piston through the block boosting 42psi on race gas from 0-45 mph

so my guess he wasn't easy on it the entire way down there either

 

....and that was too be blamed on a throttle position sensor and that doesn't take abuse to have that happen all the time. But many unknowns when building a engine like that especially when you build the block to be somewhat bullit proof and a oem part craps out