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Back from my trip to the Nurburgring this afternoon.

Great trip, meeting up with a load of decent folk, and the 'Ring was brilliant. Everything I hoped it would be, and I doubt thoroughly it'll be a year before I'm going back.

Only downside is that the Vitesse decided to throw a rod somehow on a Belgian motorway on the way back, and blow a hole the size of my fist in the back of the block, in magnificent style.

At the very least, at least I've made history, as noone has heard of a T16 holing the block before. Must have taken quite some force to do that, with the T16's solidity.

So. Motivation to get the ZXR roadworthy just upped, and became priority.

Bad times.

I'll post any pictures I can find relating to the Ring later, in here.

thats unlucky, you really must have ragged it round there. Pics of that hole in the block would be nice too

Not really. Only parts which would have taken more of a pasting than they get on my daily drive, is the running gear. The engine wasn't particularly hard worked on the track, or on the motorways.

The pictures I took are on a mate's camera, the guy who was riding shotgun. As soon as he gives me them I'll be posting them for ya...

...


Bugger.

only ever see this happen on a rotary petrol mower b4

seen it happen to a vauxhall astra. That had a pretty hard life with my friend driving it tho.

Captain safety with the hi-vis

You have to have the Hi-Vis jackets, Rob, they're part of the euro travelling kit.

Euro Travelling requirements -

Warning Triangle,
Hi-Vis Jackets, one per Capita,
Spare Bulb kit,
Fire Extinguisher,
First Aid Kit,
Light beam pattern deflectors.

If you have a breakdown, and get out of the car without having the Hi-Vis on, they will do you.
Equally, if you travel with the Hi-Vis jackets in the boot, and they pull you, they'll do you.
I just thought hell with it, why take the risk, and stuck them both on the parcel shelf.

WIN.

They like thier road marking there dont they!!

'AVE IT'

Yeah, opportune moment, that photo.

The guys from the RCOC who had originally organised the trip we tagged on with, marked the track themselves - just RCOC and the four slash mark that is their signature for the club - RCOC ////

Slight update - what's left of piston no3 (pretty much just a cracked crown), is not stuck.



You can see the remains of the piston crown in the crank case, actually resting on the crank after I pushed it down - my fingers are between the bore and crown.



Towards the bottom of the piston crown in this picture you can see the fracture across the surface.



I managed to get my hand under the remains of the piston, and turn it on it's side fully in the bore so I could see under it. What I saw was this -



conrod for number three piston is missing, presumed dead. Same story on the Gudgeon pin.

Some pretty deep scoring in number three bore -



Conrod number Four, intact, though dented quite nicely.




Confusion thrown into the mix. The hole is directly in front of number four conrod, but number three conrod is the one that is missing...?





Speculation/Hypothesis - Big end of #3 fails, allowing the conrod to detach from crank. The #3 con rod drifts enough towards #4 to be pushed in front of #4 conrod by the crank, and #4 conrod knocks it with some force, into the back of the crank case, during which the #3 conrod mashes the bottom half of #3 piston like jelly, thanks to this unorthodox movement.
Conrod #3 then either exits engine with the momentum it has smashed the block with, or rebounds back into the sump, along with the gudgeon pin.

If a jobs worth doing.......!!

Well now.

Been a while since I've done anything involving the Vit.

This evening, motivated by going to the rover800.info/forum meet at Gaydon this morning, I set about getting the sump off the Vit.

Here's 99% of what I found inside. The rest is just too small to pick up.



I've still not been able to identify 90% of the absolute shrapnel in the bottom of the sump.







After cleaning it all up with some white spirit/Fairy liquid, I've picked out a few bits I can recognise.

Rod -







The big end of the rod is discoloured massively, I suspect it got pretty f**king hot before it finally gave.









Lots of completely uneven, sporadic wear and gouging in the end of the rod - no sign of the shell that was inside.





Rod end - pushed far too far open.





Some of the Gudgeon -





The rest is just a pile of unidentifiable metal shards and pellets.

From what I can see, it looks to me that one of the big end bolts failed, letting the crank simply split the end away from the rod, and that bouncing about looks to have done the rest of the damage.


PROPER JOB!

It meant it didnt it?

Looks like a bomb has gone off!

whats the plan then?