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Just guessing here but hopefully the cracks are not related to the crank signal noise -> timing error.
When flywheel was cut for trigger wheel, didn't the cutter just copied the stock teeth shape? That is like obvious thing to do, I have had S2 flywheel in my 2.5 16v turbo for years, no issues at all, stock sensor, no noise etc.
At this time all we know is the block has suffered two cracks one on each side what appears to be approx half way down from the deck. What has caused these I do not know but hopefully some critical inspection will allow us to establish a cause of failure.
Strange place for cracks.
Patrick commented that with smoke present, his driver braved it out and drove to a fire extinguisher station so it sounds like the engine was still running which makes it doubtful that it was a free mechanical component that cracked the block.
Until more is known, I'd have to make a guess that it is torsional forces vs the engine being solidly mounted to the crossmember. The force is already multiplied by the length and rigidity of the factory aluminum mount arms.
If the one side (driver left) under the most load in forward drive went, the other would never hold by itself and would have failed immediately following, especially given that the driver would have noticed a problem (smoke) and a snap throttle engine braking event would have transferred the torsional stress to the other mount arm.
Is the engine sleeved where a lot of material was removed...?
One bolt that was too long for the thread bore's depth (or a mismachined thread bore on this particular block from the factory) on either side mount arm position could have introduced a crack that opened later if a mounting bolt bottomed before being fully tight and the other side cracked for reasons above. The other would follow, no way one mount arm would hold an engine this powerful in resisting twist force.
My heart goes out to Patrick & his team.
His efforts are heroic.
His car is of the "best" ever 944 T.
Patrick, please consider what others have said: clean the corrosive extinguisher spray off everything and leave it until you are ready. Don't make rash decisions.
(insert: as you compose yourself maybe this will help. This world level martial artist tells his story of struggle and conquest:
These "supercars" have always struggled and competition is in its nature so stiff. You have always impressed... no, beyond impressed many of us with what you are capable of.
Sorry to hear your bad news Pat!
Do you have an on-board extinguisher and are engine bay extinguisher feeds not mandatory in WTAC?
I was wondering this too.
In N. America PCA sanctioned racing, an on board stand alone is mandatory and a multi nozzle system is "highly recommended" per rules wording.
I have multi point T nozzles (spray horizontal and vertical pattern) in three locations, engine compartment at firewall aimed at header and fuel rail, at driver legs and torso, and in the rear deck area at the fuel tank filler and sending unit flange.
IMO, they should not open even a practice or test session without all corners manned as seems to be the case here.
PCA NA, the track is never green unless all corner stations are manned and radio checked as in position and ready. There is a paramedic unit that is sitting at track side manned with two technicians with the engine running and ready to roll at all green track instances and a separate emergency vehicle with fire fighting equipment and hydraulic shear jaws of life cutting system.
*** Unrelated to safety but pertaining to Patrick’s situation specifically, and I hope he reads this and understands it is meant with best intentions - Everybody involved in competitive racing of any kind assumes the risks but this instance is a little different in the run time before failure and the money involved to push to the limits that this car and very few others here have achieved. They innovate and test items that this community, both street and race car users of this site benefit from by their pushing of the envelope. For that, IMO, we owe them more than thanks and gratitude.
If you followed along with Patrick' journey, you'd have paid mind to several mentions of budget and the strain that everybody that races understands.
Back around mid-2000s, BAR Honda ran a car with the "Earth" livery. The car was a black background to mimic space and the car was otherwise covered with a giant planet earth. What some people might not know, in close up, the earth with all the colors was actually signature names of thousands of people that only had to agree to make a vow to preserve resources to get your name added to the montage.
My son was a Jenson Button fan at the time and followed through with a water conservation vow and had his name included on the car for that year.
What I'm proposing, if Patrick is ok with it, is to have his roof or hood assigned as an area to do the same thing, only with a monetary donation to have your name added to his car. For example $50 = your name sponsoring the car in XX font size, $100 increases the font size of your sponsor by XX% and so on. Just 100 people committed to a $100 space on Patrick's car would make you part of his effort and raise $10,000.
I see a lot of go fund me issues that draw a ton of donations for things that I can't even believe warrant help from others. This is one of RL own, that a lot of you have followed with interest and came to know more on a personal level than just a random internet poster.
What are the thoughts on this...?
I'm in for the 1st $100 if it takes off.
And I'm already known around all corners of the globe and don't need the advertising...
In any event, if this doesn't fly for any reason, I have a 3.0 liter block I could get to Neil at PD if it would help get this project back out of the corner.
We are committed in providing Patrick a reliable engine. Patrick and I have discussed this current failure several times, but it is too soon to expect Patrick to make any decisions going forward.
We have analyzed blocks we have here in the US and looked at what we did and when, trying to understand what could have caused the cracking. We have a time line of the work done and the testing we did as this work progressed, so hopefully with some further info from Patrick we will find the cause.
We will supply Patrick another block if that is the way forward he decides. However, I do have some reservation pushing these blocks now into the performance level this engine now produces. At 1.1b boost this engine produced approx 730 BHP. The engine was designed to run higher boost and 8800RPM. Until we find the cause of the cracking, the performance is level achieved is not important.
I know there are other engines producing Patrick's current level, but we do need to use engineering to decide this, not chance.
I was checking out the Porsche Classic website. You can get a brand new 3.0L block from Porsche in Calgary for 4200.00 Canadian. Would a brand new block....with your sleeve work be an option?
Thinking this because it's newer metal. Thoughts anyone?
Originally Posted by Performance Developments
We are committed in providing Patrick a reliable engine. Patrick and I have discussed this current failure several times, but it is too soon to expect Patrick to make any decisions going forward.
We have analyzed blocks we have here in the US and looked at what we did and when, trying to understand what could have caused the cracking. We have a time line of the work done and the testing we did as this work progressed, so hopefully with some further info from Patrick we will find the cause.
We will supply Patrick another block if that is the way forward he decides. However, I do have some reservation pushing these blocks now into the performance level this engine now produces. At 1.1b boost this engine produced approx 730 BHP. The engine was designed to run higher boost and 8800RPM. Until we find the cause of the cracking, the performance is level achieved is not important.
I know there are other engines producing Patrick's current level, but we do need to use engineering to decide this, not chance.
Seriously though, it's best we let this shake out I guess. For all we know, Patrick may not approve and ultimately it's up to him.
Originally Posted by gruhsy
I was checking out the Porsche Classic website. You can get a brand new 3.0L block from Porsche in Calgary for 4200.00 Canadian. Would a brand new block....with your sleeve work be an option?
Thinking this because it's newer metal. Thoughts anyone?
I don't know enough about this engine to even comment but it may just be bored and Nikasil treated.
One thing I do know, I'm not easily impressed by many people in the automotive world but Neil is definitely an exception.
As a matter of fact, I am working on a few items that they are helping me with right now and everyone I have had contact with at PD should be the model of what professionalism is.
Just catching up here guys. Firstly thanks for all the kind words and wishes. Much appreciated. I've been trying to be as philosophical about this latest incident. I'm pretty good at doing this. Totally realise that millions, perhaps billions of people worldwide would love to only have my problems. So I'm being realistic about my issues.
It did take an enormous amount of finance to get the car to this point and to be honest some irresponsible decisions were made by me just to keep the quest alive. So the budget is at an all time low and the car will just have to sit for a while. (I do understand about cleaning as much of the retardant off before cover goes on). Neil @PD has been very proactive in communications with me and we will try to work something out so I'm thankful for his transparency in this matter.
In regards to Fire prevention. Yes, we have a 'Fire system' in the car but these are really only good to give the driver an extra say 30 secs to get out of the car. Being a country with a small population (<25 million) we don't have massive amounts of $$ being poured into Motorsport. Most of the posts are manned by Volunteers who don't get paid for it. Being that this was a practice day unfortunately meant that there were no marshals at their posts as crazy as this sounds. Nor were there even large fire extinguishers at each of these locations. It really is stupid and cause of concern. Paul took it upon himself to risk injury by driving most of a lap trying to find someone that could help. In the end it took at least 3 full bottles to put it out. Unbelievably lucky that we didn't sustain a ton of damage or burn to the ground. I'm immensely indebted to Paul for doing this.
As to the cause of the cracks, we may never know exactly. There are a few theories which are being bounced around. Until we pull the motor out and apart they will likely stay as theories. Even then, they may just be slightly better guesses.
I don't have a ton of pics of the flywheel, however just looking at these seems to support what the Race Engineer said. The teeth themselves don't seem to be cut as far towards the 'blank side' as they could/should be. Tried to show what I mean here. So they just made new mount more towards downpipe and put in new sensor. Everything seemed to run cleaner then. I would be highly doubtful that these syn errors caused the cracks though.
I actually was wondering if you could still buy these 3lt blocks new from the factory? Amazingly it seems that you can still purchase many new parts from the factory for these 25-30 year old cars. Short of going full billet (which in itself isn't a cure all, nor is it cheap) then perhaps a new block mightn't be such a bad idea. Food for thought.
So we'll get around to pulling the motor down and then see what we can find.
I was checking out the Porsche Classic website. You can get a brand new 3.0L block from Porsche in Calgary for 4200.00 Canadian. Would a brand new block....with your sleeve work be an option?
Thinking this because it's newer metal. Thoughts anyone?
I heard about these 'Heritage' blocks a year or 2 ago, I asked my local OPC to get me a price for a 968 block but they couldn't. Their opinion was the blocks were being bought almost as soon as they became available in Europe. May be different in other markets?
Bret Patton (Ski) had posted a link to a few new 968 blocks for sale in Canada years ago.
Don't recall what the source was -
If the displacement target could be replicated from a 2.5 block, I'm fairly certain that the early 944T blocks would be the strongest. The blocks cast pre-'86 had thicker walls.
The shallower coolant passages and siamesed cylinders would make the late 3.0 blocks overall stronger than a minimal block wall thickness change though.
10-14-2017, 04:21 AM
