Can over-revving the engine cause a timing belt failure? Or is something else more likely to go first. I always worry about the timing belt breaking when revving my engine all the way to the redline.

 

Redlining your motor at a stand still is not the best idea in any situation and the answer would be redlining the motor during any situation at all can cause failures if the motor is not maintained and in top condition. I would not want to be near the vehicle if the belt went at 7000 + RPMS!

Have you ever seen what a grenade does to a human body?! If not use your imagination! "Not a pretty sight Trust me"

TaboII

 

Oh no... this would not be at a standstill. I'm just talking about spirited driving. And the motor was just rebuilt (from a timing belt failure that happened at only 2k RPM) so I would consider it extremely well maintained at this point. At any rate- I guess I am just nervous about it happening again and I wanted to get the opinion of people who track theirs regularly about the relative safety of running near the redline occasionally.

 

If you have new belts you shouldn't have a problem going up to redline as the car is ment to do that also if you have a chip sometimes the chip takes it to the 7000rpms for redline so if you hit anything under that you should be ok. The thing that can happen you can make the engine spin to fast and the cam even with the belts not broken you could have contact between the valves and pistons as the cam on our cars is pretty much safe until 7000rpms so if you stay under that number you will be fine. With new belts no sign of wear on them they can go to redline without a problem. I once missed a shift and hit the 7000+ mark by shifting from 3rd to 4th but went in 2nd nothing happened lucky me I guess.

 

My timing belt failure occurred at idle. Stopped beside the road to take some pictures and the engine stalled. Tried to restart and it sounded like the solenoid was not engaging...

Towed it to a starter shop and found it to be top end of engine (had pulled belt covers off while beside the road and all seemed ok). Since it had just been worked on I trailered it back to the shop that had done the work (900 miles!!!) since they told me they would cover everyting if determined to be their fault!

Darn the Luck... The people that rebuilt the engine two years before I bought the car had buggered a helicoil and a small bolt had worked loose (would not have been noticed during any of the work that I'd had done by my shop). Bolt dropped into belt... The rest is History!!!

Black Forest Racing... (John and Co.) did a wonderful (and most understanding and gentle) job
of repair for me at only $3200. Car is now fine.

Lesson learned... Even if well maintained, there is no guarentee that the P.O. did. I have all receipts, etc. from day one, but still had this trouble. Don't over-rev!!!

Oh... and where did I break down?

It was the community of "Cold Iron" Kentucky!!!

Jim (just happy to be back in the Recarros) <img border="0" alt="[icon107]" title="" src="graemlins/icon107.gif" />