E-mail the datalog .dat to me. Send me a copy of the map also.

Igywj@hotmail.com

 

The tuner fucked up. Plain and simple. Unfortunately, you probably signed a form absolving them from fault, right?

If they are decent guys, they will fess up and replace your motor. If not, I would plaster their name up and down everywhere you can.

 

Austin could be MZM, but there are others. It shouldnt really matter anyway. Something obviously failed. These motors can run perfect one minute and be gone the next, with no warning.

 

donny,

Only if improperly tuned or a pre-existing problem is present.

 

I had a motor go because I barely had any gas in the car. I made a hard left hand turn and nailed the throttle. POP. I am guessing I sucked up some air.
How much gas was in that car when it was on the dyno? Just curious.
It is really hard to put blame on any one person and is really not fair until all of the facts are known.

 

the motor will go because of heat...or lack of fuel...or too much fuel. he had gas in the tank...he was getting more gas at the end when his motor blew than the beginning.

motors dont just pop....they pop for a reason...its not magic. his popped because they ran it on no maps....boosted under hugely lean conditions.

any rotory tuner knows better. perhaps they were tired...perhaps they were in a hurry....but at this point it seems obvious what happened.


j

 

Damn this is all a shame. I'd definitely contact a lawyer...

 

If it was their baseline map then you may have a case. There are simply too many possibilities for anyone here to be sure who is at fault. Case in point, how many run a wideband on each rotor to confirm that each has a safe afr?

I will initially tune with 104 unleaded for a bit of extra protection until the afr is close then switch to whatever fuel is normally run to dial in timing. Just don't trust fuel pumps, injectors, and especially someone else's car that I did not put together.

 

did you sign a form saying that anything that breaks is on you? or do they have any signs posted saying that they are not responsible?
not putting the blame on them, just make sure you cover yourself just in case...

 

Regardless of why the engine actually went, it appears they didn't leave any room for error on the FIRST run. That is where I have a problem with this whole thing.

I would have them better explain the info you have and give them a chance to see the light.

 

i looked at the trace2.txt file and i can't make much sense of it, unless the car was slipping on the dyno. Car speed in MPH is jumping all over the place, as is the power and torque and showing negative numbers in places. Then there are the a/f ratios as high as 20? what kind of scale is that on? Did they offer any explanation for that txt file?

 

You just cited exactly the same reason (in principle) that we think this guy's motor went...it wasn't because you had some mysterious condition. You had little fuel in the car, busted some boost out on it, starved the engine, it leaned out, and BLAM! b0rked engine.

It's not alchemy...there's a science behind all of this stuff, and from what the traces show, this guy leaned waaaaay out, and the tuners should have seen this coming a mile away (if they're worth their salt, which it would seem they're not).

Artguy has the ticket...baby steps. You simply cannot expect to tune on a rediculous boost setting from the get go, and what's more, the tuner should be taking extra care of your car since all you should be paying them for is the time and know-how to get the most out of your machine.

 

not to be an *** or anything, but did the motor explode? I watched my friends drag 1st gen pop at the start of a drag run and it poped the front end off the ground about 1.5 feet and made the biggest bang along with some pretty flames under the car.

 

I know all the guys who run the shops in austin... they all are cool and hopefully will be easy to work with...

FWIW... I wouldn't mess w/ the boost controller untill I had a good preboost setup and dumps plenty of fuel thereafter. Please post your full list of mods... and time on them if possible. What spring was in your wastegate?

Your wategate should at least prevent overboosting if feathering the throttle...

given everyone has their own methods for doing things.

My question is... was did something fail (injector) or was it leaned way to far out... I'm to tired to go dig through the txt doc but what I would say is call someone else for their opinion on the matter. IMO don't call between the rivals... MZM vs. Protech (assuming that its one of them) because I can tell they are rivaling for the austin market. I don't doubt anyone, or question their judgement but sometimes people can be mislead when it comes to money or rivalry. A third party would be my first step. I poped a couple of motors originally thinking my tuner f-ed up on something, boy did I feel like an ***! I'm glad to see your objectivity in the situation. The cause for my woes lead down to a sticking injector (RC 1300's) which cost me a motor pulling away from a driveway.

Anyway, good luck, and read over the shop form your signed to see if it limits liability. Then talk to the boss and see what he says. P.S. do you have an aftermarket warranty? PM me for an idea if so if worst comes to worst.

-R

 

This is irrelevant to the discussion, and yes, you're being an a**

 

There was no mention of the fuel level in the tank, though...?

 

Think he was refering to the lean condition...

 

The fuel level was fine. The fuel pressure guage on the sx was good.... I don't think it had anything to do with fuel.

Here is the datalogit file zipped...

Thanks for all the replies I really appreciate it.

wonder1and - Yes, we need to look into the injectors and plugs... and no, I don't plan on turning this into a shop thing... Liability wise, it really doesn't matter what the liability was, but yea... let's just say legally they are not liable for any issue at this point.

yy4u - that occurs when you let up on the gas. The dyno momentum is essentially driving the wheels of the car thus creating negative power.

 

14psi on a GT3540 for a base run!?

perhaps the wastegate failed you or such as the case in my friends GT3540 catastrophe, maybe the line to the wategate got a nice hole melted in it from the DP (when it was left laying on the DP because a cetain shop also in TX that tunes PowerFCs left it like that) and thus the wastegate not opening.

 

Ok a couple things.

I want to stress that it wasn't a baseline run per se. It was the car simulation to benchmark the car. Just on the base map.

I also want to stress that this is not neccesarily a "tuner fucked up" thing. If you post that, post why you think that. Otherwise you it's useless and you sound dumb.

The last thing I'm going to do here is start bad mouthing people or a shop because a modified rotary motor let go. If anyone is really shocked when a rotary goes, you are driving the wrong car.

The shop in question is being very understanding and working with me to find the root cause. So please, none of this "who was it" or "X shop sucks".

 

Fair enough Let us know what you find as the root cause for the failure!

 

Yes, bad mouthing is not a good thing. I've heard bad mouthing about every damn rotary shop in the US.

Did you have high quality gas?

I can believe 215rwhp at 30% throttle at 14 psi at high RPMS. Why not?

-Jeff

 

Doing a dyno run with an untuned map with a single turbo running 14 psi is dumb. The car should have been carefully monitored as the boost level was slowly raised, as everyone else here has said. The turbo doesn't spool instantly. They should have had plenty of time to let off if there was a wastegate or control issue.

It's one thing if the engine went on the dyno after they had been carefully tuning and the car had good A/F ratios and timing. Then you could chalk it up to bad luck or some other factor. But from your story, that's not what happened. It sounds like they were careless, jacked the car up to 14 psi, let it rip, and blew it up.

At this point, I wouldn't trust them to tune a radio.

Of course they are, they made a mistake and don't want their reputation ruined. I think it's admirable and proper that you aren't dragging their name in the mud at this stage, but I'm not sure why you are defending the shop and attacking those of us who are on YOUR side.

 

I'm not defending the shop. I'm simply trying to ensure this thread isn't a shop ISSUE. This thread is about objective opinions on my motor went. All we have so far is speculation and opinion about why the motor blew. (that's all I'm expecting) When more ACTUAL factual information comes to light, then we can point fingers all day long. Who that finger points at, the shop or the motor shouldn't really matter to you anyway.

As for attacking those of us who are on my side, well that's news to me... First off I don't even have a "side"... and secondly I thought I was being rather polite.

If you wouldn't trust them to tune a radio then I think you are quick to place blame. What would you say if we opened the motor up and found a apex seal just plain fell off and no sign of detonation? Or if we do find signs of detonation... then it's a whole other story.

If you have an opinion based on the information I've given, please provide it. And I can't thank you enough for it. Please do not interperut this as an "attack" on you or anyone else who has said anything negative. If I felt I am getting screwed by the shop here, believe me I wouldn't be so objective here and this thread would be in the vendor feedback with a negative writeup. If you see that thread, post there. Otherwise, this is a completely different thread. Likewise if they do the "right" thing I'll be writing a positive writeup. Until I make those one of those posts, I don't see how it even concerns you.

 

From your logs, your A/F ratios were very lean. Who knows what your timing was. I would be much more inclined to believe something just happened to the motor if the a/f ratios were ok. Apex seals don't just "fall off". Your motor had been running fine for 9k before this, right?

What bothers me the most about your story is the fact that they thought running the car at 14 psi to set up the boost controller was ok....

I won't comment any more until you come back with the engine teardown results. I just hate to see people get ripped off, if that is the case here.