Engine Blown On Dyno

[VSPECT]

Hi guys, My mate has an Evo 7 with 100k on the clock. When bought the car months ago, the compression test gave great results showing the engine is healthy.

Before giving it to the tuner, my mate installed these:-

G20 turbo

272 cams

fuel pump

When he took it to the tuner, the car was running perfectly but since he wanted to put in a Power FC, he went to a tuner to tune the car with standard injectors.

When he returned to the workshop at the end of the day to pick his car up, they said it was pining (not sure how to spell it)...so they asked him to come back and run the petrol down and come with a fresh tank of fuel....

During when he was running the fuel down, the car was not idling properly and at the lights it nearly stalls and on start ups it stalled after approx 30 secs later.... but he loosened the accelerator cable and that fixed all the problems he felt his car was having after the first tune....

When he gave the car the second time, he left the car at the tuner in a perfect condition and was not making any sort of noise and was running healthy....But unfortunately he walked into the workshop later that day to find his engine was blown while they were tuning the car...(bearings, rods, crank all gone and prob other parts of the engine too due to them damaged)

Now the question is that where does my mate stand and how should he go to pursue the matter....should the tuner fix the engine at no cost? or is he responsible for the damage....Noting he didn't sign any paper work saying he will be responsible for any damage like we do on the dyno days....

[WHITE R32]

without sounding like an idiot,

its a performance car

youll find unless your friend can prove neglegence (sp?) which is near impossible, he wont have a leg to stand on

its a 100k old engine thats been modded and leaned on.... it happens and is not neccessarilly any fault of the tuner

just suck it up and move on id think

as an example if i took a 100k old sr20 to a shop and did mods like your friends id half expect it to come back with a spun bearing as they are notorious for it

[VSPECT]

well how can the car me leaned on by my mate? the tuner should have made sure he didn't lean the car...these mods are minor and without tune the car is pretty much standard...and running on standard boost, a healthy engine shouldn blow when on dyno for a tune....what i think, tuner will have to make a mistake for an healthy engine to blow....

[R31Nismoid]

who knows how he drove it during the tank/petrol changing time.

he might tell you - like a grandma, yet he was doing 8,000rpm launches which of course ends in tears as clearly the car had an issue. he should have taken it back immediately. not gone driving it around.

too much unknown here to say anything specific is at daily.

[VSPECT]

i know for sure he didnt push the car...and before the mods even he has never done a launch in the car....i can count the number of times he pushed the car with my fingers...the car was babied.. literally....and especially during the petrol changing time, he was driving worse than a grandma...

[ARTZ]

ya james thats him...the guy with the black evo...

TJ, the work my mate did wasnt the cause of the engine blowing though....

You said he fitted a turbo and cams, whats to say he hasn't dropped something in the engine , maybe clogging an oil passage or something similar that has eventually caused it to self destruct...just a thought..

[joeyjoejoejuniorshabadoo]

i would not bother pursuing it...

tuners do the same shit all day every day and it's not "fun" for them so people dont go round redlining the hell outta cars and breaking them that way

when the motor is pulled down he'll be able to see what caused it... could be something as simple as a tensioner pulley giving way and the timing belt slipping or a pre-existing fault in a rod... all these parts are old as hell these days

not to mention the home installation of cams and turbo

[33gtst]

Not all pinging is audiable....even babying it may have been doing damage. Without seeing accurate afrs you have no idea whats going on...a lean car can run surprisingly well...for a short time...

Fuel mods before power mods....without fuel...power may exit sideways...

Sorry to hear about your friend, I've had a couple of my engines let go after "questionable" tunes over the years....I hope he gets it back on the road soon.

[WHITER33GTS-T]

I lost a engine on the dyno and the problem was the previous mechanic. No fault at all of the dyno operator.

[MBS206]

i know for sure he didnt push the car...and before the mods even he has never done a launch in the car....i can count the number of times he pushed the car with my fingers...the car was babied.. literally....and especially during the petrol changing time, he was driving worse than a grandma...

If he never pushed the car, why did he want more power?

[WHITE R32]

If he never pushed the car, why did he want more power?

I was thinking this also, people don't buy evo lancers just to drive them to church on Sundays

As I said, I think your friend may have to just accept it as it is, being an unfortunate part of the game of modding cars for performance

Tuners take no liability because anything could have happened to the car before it got tuned or even before your friend bought it

[mid life crisis]

i built a speedway motor yrs ago all brand new stuff fired it up on a engine dyno and was running sweet after giving it a few pull up and down the rev range we deicded the cam had been run in enough so we give it too her what followed was a almighty bang a lot of steam and smoke and half a brand new cracktested carrillio rod hanging out the side of the block .

tuners fault nope all a ratio mixtures was good motor run sweet during the run in period this was just a faulty conrod that let go even tho it had been crack tested . sometimes shit just happens

[VB-]

pull the motor down and see what caused it first. could have been oil starvation or anything.

also they said it was pinging with the fuel that was in there... how long had your mate been driving it with the new mods before he took the car to them? sure he drove like a grandma when he was trying to drain the fuel, but what about before he went to the tuner? he's just put his car back together with all those new parts, i bet he would have given it a bit of a belting when he took it out for its first drive... while it would have been knocking

[GTRNUR]

2-3 seconds of detonation can break an engine easy. Pick your failure. Broken ring lands, or spun bearings as a result of the rod bearings taking a hammering.

Also, by "its a 100k old engine thats been modded and leaned on", White R32 meant an engine thats been tuned to within an inch of its life. Not an engine that has been tuned with a lean air/fuel ratio.

Most, if not all tuners tuning random cars off the street will always tune to the safe side of things. This means a little richer than makes optimal power and a little less ignition advance in order to keep it safe.

Only when you show up at a workshop with a bucket of money and request a massive horsepower goal will a tuner go for broke on a tune. And in some of those situations a potential engine failure during tuning/R&D is factored into the quotation.

As for the evo, only a forensic examination will tell the story.

[StealthX]

Not sure about you guys, but every dyno (three) that I've taken my car to, the tuner has given me an exclusion of liability form to sign...

[GTR-N1]

If I was your mate's tuner, I'd simply try and source another engine at $W/S and relay that info to your mate.

That's all I'd need to do - purely for goodwill's sake.

I wouldn't even feel obliged to scavenge the previous bolt-ons at zero labour cost. I'd start charging again.

[gregor]

as these guys have said it would be hard to make a case. I've had a similar issue, but it would be an uphill fight. I'd try to be reasonable and see how far that gets you. Most mechanics dont want to be pricks about this sort of thing either.

The thing i dont understand is why didnt the tuner or your mate suggest to drain the tank instead. Knowing the car is pinging at any level i wouldnt be out running through another 2-300 km to run the fuel down. Drain it and fill it up, may take an hour tops and everything gets done faster.

[N1GTR]

Dodgy fuel and was told to run it empty?

Take the fuel line off where it joins the fuel reg and run that line into a bucket. Then either turn the fuel pump on with the ecu or start the car and let it idle until it stalls. Then go to a servo with a jerry can, fill up good fuel head back and put that in the tank then fix the fuel line back to the reg.

It's too late for this car but hopefully some info that can help others in the future

[mad082]

you have to remember that running a car on a dyno involves full throttle and high revs. the engine popped because it had a weakness/fault. it just happened to be in the hands of a workshop at the time. and engine in a good condition won't pop for no reason. i agree with everyone above that it isn't the tuners fault.

[STATUS]

As sad as it is it is rarely a tuner fault, i dont know this car or situation but by the sounds of it and the mods a tune should not realy kill it... i mean it would have to be pinking BADLY for a long time to blow up or run lean for A LONG time to blow up. Yet a slight oil starvation at some point in time could have burnt bearings etc and it was just its time..

i dont know, but to be honest unless you heard it on the dyno detonating its head off (or a dead wideband sensor) it could be anything.