I had one of the worst days of my life... We went to the track to test the car for the first time after two brief test drives. We left with an engine where one of the pistons broke open the block on the exhaust side... gutted...
Please try and help me find the reason for this. It might be my stupid mistake as well as anything else, but I need to understand what went wrong before we fit a new engine.
Here are the specs:
2005 R1 engine, sump baffle plate fitted, 4 core aluminium radiator, pipercross airbox kit, Castrol 10W50 4T racing oil, new oil filter, Power Commander III USB (not properly set up just yet, but to the advice of the Power Commander center we set everything at 0-20% throttle to 0 and everything above 20% throttle to 10), Koso RX1N instruments.

We started the day with an easy run, not revving too high, but testing the car nontheless for grip and mechanical condition. The water temp. went up to 85-86 degrees max. The car drove great. But after two laps the clutch started slipping. So we immediately kept a low engine speed and retired to the pits. We opened the bonnet and there was some, but not much oil inside, coming up to the airbox through one of the breather pipes and dripping very slightly from the airbox. We figured there was too much oil in the engine - which we anticipated, as we have filled more than the oil level indicator window on the engine would have suggested. The reason for this was the fact that we could not get rid of the oil level warning light in the Koso unit using the R1's original feed. (mistake 1, I guess). We figured that the slipping clutch could also be caused by too much oil, so we lowered it slightly, coming back to the max. indication on the engine peep window. Out on the track again. We have also adjusted the rev counter setup, as it showed 14.000 when the engine was difinitely not at that sort of speed, maybe more like 9-10.000. I figured I will rev the engine into the limiter once to see what the instrument shows then and we'll see then. It didn't happen ever. I backed off before I reached the limiter as the engine speed sounded quite high to me, but I have not found the limiter, and the Koso showed over-revving again, although later this time. (I have to say that I am no motorbike person, so can not judge by the sound what revs I could have attained). After two laps we were called in the pits because of an accident. In the pits we waited around 4-5 minutes with the engine running on idle, and the water temp. around 85 degrees. After the track was clear, we were out again. We have done one lap and a half, when after a quick but fairly long and tight right hander and the following chicane I accelerated out and heard for a second or max. 2 seconds a slightly more metallic sound to the engine. Like as if the exhaust can has been placed in a slightly larger metal drum maybe. But by the time I have realised that the sound is different, it was too late, I heard "krrrrrrr" and there was smoke pouring out the exhaust cutout on the side. We stopped on the side immediately and I lifted the bonnet. There was oil everywhere, but the water was intact, only steaming a little. But by the time we have been towed back to the pits, all water has gone.
We lifted the car and there was a hole on the front of the cylinderblock on the exhaust side with the internals visible... end of story I guess...
This is how it happened and here are some more facts:
- The Koso unit remembers the highest recorded water temperature. It was 109 degrees according to it.
- We have a Racetech mechanical oil pressure gauge that unfortunately I was not wathching during the failure itself, but it shows zero when on idle, and picks up to around 40-60 psi on 3-4.000 revs. On the track, whenever I looked it, it was around 60 psi.

What could have caused the incident, do you reckon?
- Water overheating? - The 109 degrees is high, but not insanely high I guess... unless the water was not circulating in the system.
- Oil overheating? - I don't have an oil temperature gauge, so don't know... but maybe we need an oil cooler?
- Not enough oil? - Doesn't look like too little to me, see above.
- Engine over-revved? - possible, but only if there is no limiter on the R1 engine. We are using the bike ECU with the Power Commander. Can someone please confirm that the limiter should still work? If there was no limiter, I ruined the engine myself by trying to find the limiter... If there was, I have definitely not over-revved the engine.
- Sump baffle not effective enough? - It happened on the twistier part of the track, true. But we have only ever driven two laps after each other at speed, and the baffle plate should prevent exactly this happening...
- Power Commander setting incorrect? - could it be that the above mentioned "safety" map can cause something like this?
- Fuel system not effective enough? - could it be that the engine was not receiving enough fuel for any reason (incorrect pump, filters, etc...)
- Water or oil pumps defective? - could it be that any of the two not functioning could cause this?

Please help me understand what I have messed up. I am over the initial horror, disappointment and hatred against the car and myself, I know that I have messed up and I am the first to admit that, but I absolutely want to fix the car soon, and have already found a couple of potential engines for sale, but I want to make sure this doesn't happen next time, too.
The reason I want to fix the car is, that when it drove, it drove like it was on rails, very predictable, very quick and easy to drive. An amazing car and an otherwise great day that turned to a disaster...
My advice to anyone as excited to bring the car on track as soon as it is finished: Don't do it! We should have sorted out the rev counter, the oil level lamp first and we should have driven the car a couple of hours at a slow-moderate pace to see if anything shows up in the cooling system or the engine itself, but we were impatient... here is the result...

Thanks for all your help and support and please help me find the cause!
Gergely

Hi
we experienced this problem early on when we used the 05 R1 in our RGB race cars.
We blew 3 engines one after the other before we found the problem -
Basically the 05/06 R1 is very compact and seems to suffer from high crankcase pressure at first we could not work out why the engine does not spit its oil out in the bike but we reckon it is because in the cars we are at wide open throttle about 70% more than when riding the bike. Mainly because we have more grip and stability and are not likely to flip the car!!
To cut a long story short every time we put one on track it blew out its oil and then rodded itself.
I spoke to the racers in the states who told me they either dry sump them or some use a modified breather set up.
We tried the breather mods and so far it seems to have worked.
We fit an additional -10 union to the cam cover, inside the cover we fit a small baffle plate set off the inside surface to stop oil being blown straight out the hole.
We then feed this extra breather into a catch tank which has the original breather plumbed into the bottom of it.
On the top of the breather tank we fit a small K&N filter , since running this way we have not had the same problems but we are running with a cut and deepened sump as well.
Hope that helps - if you need more details u2u me
regards
Andy

100% sure it's oil surge. I'll bet it's big end failure / seizure leading to rod breakage.

Removing the oil to the max mark will have done it.

Oil coming out of the breather initially will have been surge but there was still enough in the sump.

Clutch slip could have either absence of oil or loads of oil lurking in the clutch end of the engine. Again due to surge.

Accusump or dry sump to cure.

quote:

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Originally posted by Gergely
I had one of the worst days of my life...
Gergely

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I totally agree with Nick, I think you will need to tackle both the surge and breathing issues and should then be ok.
US firm Taggart do a dry sump system for them, real nice but real pricey. Josh Smith has been using it on his Phoenix R1 racecar trouble free for a season
regards
Andy

Got me worried now
I have only a baffled 05.
Maybe I'll look out for an accusump to be safe.

similar thing happened to me.
my car was used mainly for track and race use so not much road use. I used to run with the R1 airbox reversed and the breather still connected. I found that the airbox would have 1/2" of oil in it after a good run. I disconnected the breather and fed it into a catch tank, didnt stop the problem but it stopped the oil from giong into the airbox.
One trackday at oulton park the engine went BANG!!!!
main bearing failure, which in turn threw a rod.

I built up a new engine from two bad ones and never had the oil problem with that one.

for some reason my first engine had a build up of crankcase pressure which in turn led to the oil / breather problem?

on inspection of the engine we didnt find anything obvious that could have caused this. One theory was a worn piston ring / bore causing a higher crankcase pressure.
As said before the bike boys dont have these problems as the engines are ot worked as hard as in a car.

Gutted for ya, but remember bike engines are not designed for heavy cars. Tey are already at th top of the stress table and the extra weight can be the breaking factor.

Andy,When you say an additional -10 union did you plug the two Ais outlets in the cam cover or did you vent those as well?Where abouts on the cam cover did you fit the -10 union?I run a supercharged R1 (05) in a Caterham which vents the cam cover and a seperate tank for the gearbox breather that returns the oil to the sump.Over filling the sump did not help as it iust pumped out the extra.Over 1K miles on track days so far so good.Winston

quote:

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Originally posted by coozer
Gutted for ya, but remember bike engines are not designed for heavy cars. Tey are already at th top of the stress table and the extra weight can be the breaking factor.

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Gergely, I have replied to U2U.

Hi Stuart, car looks great mate

Has anyone got any info on this breather mod to help reduce any chances of problems?

Thanks guys for the information.
I am currently in contact with MNR, Road Warrior and Andy B and hope to find out the reasons and solutions. According to Andy and Road Warrior the 2004-2006 R1 needs breather modifications, otherwise it will fail whatever we do. According to MNR it was probably caused by the engine being overfilled initially which might have caused a leak and eventually lead to too little oil, oil surge and the failure, but no other modification is required.
I am still checking with all parties and once the engine is out of the car I might know a little more, but I think we will have to do the breather modifications to be safe - while also making sure that the engine is not over-filled...
I will keep you posted.

An Internet based car magazine has been at the track day, and they have attached a camera to our car exactly before the failure happened, so there is video footage of the failure available embedded in the below article. I am - understandably - not too keen on watching it again, but it might be interesting for you so here it is:

Video + pictures of the engine failure

Gergely

Excellent video apart from when the engine let go.
I am concerned that this will happen to mine now I think I will do the mod just to be on the safe side as I want to do some trackdays this year.

Just one question, is it just Hungarian's that walk really fast and talk like Donald Duck

[Edited on 9/4/09 by stuart_g]

We have spoken to several racers, all of them with slightly different approaches, so here is a combination of their ideas and a seemingly failure-proof plan:

Link to post in BEC section

Any ideas anyone?

MNR already know about this problem and have a few customers running what they use to overcome the problem.

have you spoken to them to see what they are using?

MNR still say that there are no modifications required other than the baffle plate.
But because the racers I have spoken to have made some modifications, except for one guy, but even he said an oil cooler is vital, I have decided to follow them and put together a - hopefully - bullet proof plan by combining all the ideas...

I think that the best solution for that problem would be a dry sump system, they are a bit expensive but will give the engine a bullet proof lubrication system.

PWL

Jon Lee from Lynx AE has been racing his R1 car with an accusump and it has been pretty bulletproof.

We have done the modifications that all racers suggested. Here is the brief description:
Remove the cam cover and remove the AIS covers.


AIS covers

Remove the reed valves completely, only leave the top metal holder plate (with the rectangular slots)


Reed valves

Drill two holes in the cam cover under where the reed valves used to be and block the two exhaust ports using some aluminium inserts or screws...


Modified breather

Replace the two rectangular metal plates (without the reed valves), replace the AIS covers (we have put them back upside down) and replace the cam cover.


Completed modification

All that remains now is to connect the breathers with the catch tank and the gearbox breather on the other side of the engine. We didn't have time to do that yet, maybe this week...

A huge thanks goes to Sonja and Greg (road warrior), Andy Bates at AB performance, and several other RGB racers for their help with the modifications. All that remains to be seen of course is how these will work, but together with our new oil pressure gauge and warning light, the oil temperature gauge and light, the planned oil cooler and the optional Accusump, we should be covered. The Accusump is something we will only install if we see dropping pressures on track.
Gergely