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Indium Gray Metallic Money Pit Mk7.5R

scrllock

Autocross Champion
Location
MI
Pulled an @Autobahn today. Went out to Grattan, first session of the morning, just finished the no-passing lap, and started giving it throttle on the straight. Oil/coolant behind me, christmas tree dash, low coolant, etc. etc. Get pulled off and find this on the belly pan.

PXL_20220625_152211798.jpg

Definitely some piston, ring, wrist pin, and cast iron block material. Not sure what happened, didn't get a log because I didn't get over 70% pedal, obviously a mess of codes. Thankfully no one got caught on my fluids and they were able to get me off without too much more drainage. Bad day all around, at least one other motor blew and they ran out of the stuff to clean off the track after before noon.

Got home and the back of cyl3/4 looks.... breezy.

PXL_20220625_201702846.jpg

Looks like the head is mangled so that's an extra bummer. Gonna pull the oil pan tomorrow then make some calls on Monday. Big-time bummed tho.
 

MonkeyMD

Autocross Champion
That sucks. Did they charge you for track cleanup too.
 

Autobahn

Autocross Champion
Location
Huntington Beach, CA
Car(s)
'18 Golf R
Well done and welcome to the club! Time to come back even stronger 💪

If you plan to build another long block I recommend Ferrea or similar valve springs, I noticed mine revs a bit crisper up top.
 

scrllock

Autocross Champion
Location
MI
That sucks. Did they charge you for track cleanup too.
nope.

Well done and welcome to the club! Time to come back even stronger 💪

If you plan to build another long block I recommend Ferrea or similar valve springs, I noticed mine revs a bit crisper up top.
I'd like to. Would be quicker to grab a drop-in block but long-term it'd be cheaper to pay the core fee on a built one up front. I have heard good things about Ferrea, local shop recommended their stuff when I had them quote me a rebuild last year.
 

dood.

Drag Racing Champion
Location
Seattle
Car(s)
2017 GTI S DSG
Damn man that sucks. On the bright side your thread title is even more accurate now.
 

scrllock

Autocross Champion
Location
MI
Started doing some disassembly and clean-up. Drained the pan, hurt to see all the coolant come out first.

Lower oil pan contents. More piston, ring, crankcase material.
PXL_20220626_145742149.jpg

Think this was the water pump belt?
PXL_20220626_145750970.jpg

Oil baffle, more piston material. You can see the Cyl4 Rod here.

PXL_20220626_151750409.jpg

Looks like there's a hole in the front of #4 as well. Looks like the rest of the water pump belt is poking through.

PXL_20220626_152019842.jpg

Bottom of #4 is really mangled. Definitely seized up. Looking through a big hole in the upper oil pan.


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Cyl 3 rod looks more intact, but there's a small window in front of that as well.

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Trying to filter out the large metal fragments as I pour the contents of the pan into the drain pan.


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Looks like part of the top of Cyl 4's piston.

PXL_20220626_160934429.jpg
 

Acadia18

Autocross Champion
Location
The Greater Boston Metropolitan Area
Car(s)
2019 Golf R
That sucks. Did they charge you for track cleanup too.

Man. I could understand why they would, but talk about what a kick in the nuts that would be.

"Oh hey, we know you just completely blew up your engine, but ahh... you mind kicking us a couple bucks to clean your mess off the track?"
 

MonkeyMD

Autocross Champion
Man. I could understand why they would, but talk about what a kick in the nuts that would be.

"Oh hey, we know you just completely blew up your engine, but ahh... you mind kicking us a couple bucks to clean your mess off the track?"

At our track days, that's one of first things they tell you. If you think you have a leak, pull off right away, because you don't want to pay for a full track cleanup.

I think the last Porsche that hit the barrier paid $6k for repairs. Of course this is COTA, so other tracks are probably different
 

scrllock

Autocross Champion
Location
MI
Let's start rumors. It was the Garret turbo.
Let me be clear, I'm not blaming anything. This is a pretty modified car that's being tracked regularly. That's easily 10x as hard on the engine as a car that just sees street pulls. It's kinda rare to see other guys running aftermarket turbos or even a tune at these things. It's always the cars with power mods that dump fluids.

Man. I could understand why they would, but talk about what a kick in the nuts that would be.

"Oh hey, we know you just completely blew up your engine, but ahh... you mind kicking us a couple bucks to clean your mess off the track?"
I really appreciate the organizer (3 balls racing) and track workers. They probably would have had someone kill the rest of their day to give me a lift home if I'd asked. Next time I'm there I'll remember to offer to reimburse him for the cleanup stuff, but I doubt he'll take anything unless it's a donation to his charity.

Post #2 from this thread has me inclined to think cylinder 4 has been hurt for over the last year… and being on e85 has managed to mask any concerns that could have been flagged on the logs through the tuning renditions.
Maybe, but compression was fine until at least last August and the car was tuned on two turbos with both 93 and e85 since the plug blowout before that, so if logs could have caught it, they would. I have had almost no blow-by in the can after the past couple track days. I assume that the issues from last year were mostly related to the leaking Cyl2 direct injector. Once the block is opened up I'll know more--it's certainly possible that contributed. It's also been tuned by 3-5 people, been through shitty Nebraska/Colorado gas, failing fuel pumps, etc. Maybe I should have stuck with 2-step colder plugs. Who knows.

I think the last Porsche that hit the barrier paid $6k for repairs. Of course this is COTA, so other tracks are probably different
Thankfully there aren't many barriers at my local tracks, so the risk of having to pay for those is low. And if you do hit one, you're probably going fast enough that the cost of the barrier isn't your problem anymore.
 

dtfd

Autocross Champion
Location
Massachusetts
Car(s)
MK7.5 GTI
Worst case scenario.....

Are you going to just swap blocks and go again or are you planning on building the next one?
 

scrllock

Autocross Champion
Location
MI
Worst case scenario.....

Are you going to just swap blocks and go again or are you planning on building the next one?
I think the plan is to build one. I don't want to put a stock block in and then either blow it up or pull it to build it later.
 
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