Haltech Gt-r Engine Carnage!

[PJ.]

As many of you may be aware the Haltech R35 GTR Skyline had a catastrophic blow up on Friday the 24th if October. Our GTR has been running on a new platform of Haltech engine management flawlessly for over 5000km's now.

The car was being track tested at Eastern Creek raceway

(http://www.eastern-creek-raceway.com/) when the engine let go. The car had completed countless flat out laps with the engine producing 400kw at the wheels, up from 300kw at the wheels - The driver tells me it was a terrific ride!

After finishing Haltech's latest Flat shifting calibrations a few more test laps had to be carried out. With no sign of trouble the car went out and successfully completed 2 more laps before finishing up on the side of the track leaving a trail of oil and plume of smoke behind it.

It was time to put it in the trailer and go back to the workshop to pull it down. After building up enough courage our in-house mechanic removed the VR38DETT from the car and set it up on the engine stand.

A few hours later the engine was fully stripped and the damage to the engine was clear - It appears Haltech have found the limits of Nissans new super car!

The engine had met its maker.

Piston #1 and #3 had separated from their lower halves right through the center of the gudgeon pin. As the Conrod's had no piston's to guide them up and down the bore they started smashing the bore, block, oil pump, sump and anything else that got in their way.

Due to the massive damage to the block we will need to replace it. And figure it's a great time to make the engine a little stronger. We will be boring the motor out and installing Darton sleeves, replacing the factory cast pistons with a study Forged unit as well as installing a set of Billet conrods. This should allow the engine to reliably produce over 400Kw at the wheels and handle the pressure.

Keep an eye on the Haltech website or drop us an email anytime for further updates.

Edited November 18, 2008 by PJ.

[Gus-]

wow this will ber awesome when it is done

[maveric]

any pics of the carnage

[lingeringsoul]

at least we ar ethe first in t he world to blow one up and find out the limit of the engine.

[writeoff]

Thanks for the update. I too would like to see pictures.

Congrats to Haltech for finding the limits (I know that's a weird thing to say but that's how we find out the limits of all engines - by blowing them up) and I hope they learnt heaps from it that will advance future development of the VR38DETT.

I feel for them in terms of how long it will take to do the rebuild and the $ involved. Hopefully the research was worth it.

[scott1600]

Thanks for the support guys! It will certainly be a much stronger and bigger engine when its finished.

I have not taken any photo's yet, but will get some onto sau first!

[lingeringsoul]

wonder if any of the japanese tuning houses have done anything this outrageous.....they all seem to be making pretty bits rather than hard core bits. But then, they do have different focus than us.

[PurpleR32]

wonder if any of the japanese tuning houses have done anything this outrageous.....they all seem to be making pretty bits rather than hard core bits. But then, they do have different focus than us.

Excellent point!

Has anyone released aftermarket rods, pistons etc for the 35?

All i see is carbon & titanium bits. I guess the engineering of the more important parts takes longer

[nerm]

are you going to upgrade tje gearbox at all.. it was my understanding that this was the weakest part of the car one the powre output of the engine was upped?

[2rismo]

The gearbox was still going when the engine let go. I reckon that says it all.

[Beer Baron]

well it was making 30% more power after all, and that is still with the factory turbos, factory fuel system, factory cooling system, factory intercoolers. not a bad effort for the poor little engine. especially since in this case 30% is 100awkw! Anyway, hopefully it will be back soon.

[No Crust Racing]

Thanks for finally giving us some info on what went wrong guys.

Pics would be awesome too!

[scott1600]

There are very few performance parts we can actually get. Darton are doing the sleve's for us, and the Rods are still up for grabs. ACL have the gaskets and are making us a full set, as well as a set of pistons. We have sent them the remaining pistons to measure up and diagnose the exact cause of failure.

Thanks for the positive feedback guys.

[LSX-438]

was there an actual diagnosis on what happened?

- understand if you would rather not say (research takes time and money after all)

[NRVOUS]

There are very few performance parts we can actually get. Darton are doing the sleve's for us, and the Rods are still up for grabs. ACL have the gaskets and are making us a full set, as well as a set of pistons. We have sent them the remaining pistons to measure up and diagnose the exact cause of failure.

Thanks for the positive feedback guys.

Was the car still running the factory Oil???....I had an interesting conversation with another R35 owner & engineer who feels the 0-40 blends are a recipe for disaster when punishing any of these high performance monsters & we should lean towards 10-50 or the likes of castrols Edge 10-60 for Aussie conditions.

[sh@un]

So, you killed it with a mechanical over-rev?

Normally a rod will fail due to a extreme tension strain when this sort of thing happens, but i'm guessing since they are made from titanium, the gudgeon hole in the piston was the weakest link.

[scott1600]

was there an actual diagnosis on what happened?

The pistons are with ACL at the moment being tested - In the experience of several of our customers (who have come to visit!) we are all in agreeence that the piston simply pulled apart at the gudgeon pin. This is common for overrev's or simply overpowered piston. Track racing the car on cast pistons with 400kw, i tend to believe overpowered. Plus the twin electronic throttle system and electronic gearbox make an overrev impossible! It doesnt let you select the gear if it will rev too high, and on downshift it opens the clutch until its safe! amazing!

but i'm guessing since they are made from titanium

I read this in the nissan blurb too - but in the same blurb it also states forged pistons.... Im no expert on the rods, but these look and feel just like any other nissan rods i have seen..

As for the oil, it was using the reccomended mobil oil. And I agree with you about viscosity for many engines. And also believe that a lot of people are using oil that is way too thin for clapped out "race" motors in the australian climate. But the newer close tolerence variable cam engines normally need to run pretty much the same oil that is reccomended.

As for the gearbox - we are ontop of that too. Heaps of GTR first gears already breaking and already seeing a gearbox with under 10 launches get crack tested to see that its ready to go its time for a full gearset in ours as well.

[No Crust Racing]

Thanks for keeping us posted and giving us your insight, great to see some hard data getting online as it comes to light.

Keep it up.

[mxfly]

You should be able to tell the difference straight away between titanium and normal rods by the weight itself

[scathing]

Thanks for the update guys. I was wondering what happened to the car after I read about the earth shattering kaboom.

Sorry to hear about the motor, but not sorry to hear you're boring it out. There's no replacement for displacement.