The case of the mystery noise has finally been solved.
A quick recap, whilst on the dyno under load, the car developed a concerning noise. Our tuner Rich did exactly the right thing and stopped the enigne immediately.
Before this, he did however notice that the oil pressure was still good and the engine was still running sweetly.
To make matters harder Rich had headphones on, so any opinion on the nature of the noise was unavailable.
We did however now have some numbers and more information on our car and the amount of power and torque we are producing.
With the information we had we decided to change the gearbox to a much stronger unit. While this was being carried out and the engine was removed from the car we took the bottom of the engine apart to check for any issues. We found nothing of concern.
So we refitted the engine and transmission back into the car ready to fire it back up for the first time since the failure.
It was at this point we heard the mysterious noise for the first time. Not a pleasant experience.
Our first thought was the noise was coming from the top end of the engine.
However, once we had the top of the engine apart and completely stripped absolutely nothing was found that could account for the noise.
So the only thing left was to remove the engine and carry out a full engine strip and post mortem.
Once the engine strip was completed as the individual parts were inspected the answer revealed itself.
The pistons on cylinders 4 and 5 had experienced a bit of pick up. What this means is that these two pistons have run hotter than the rest.
The piston on the left is from cylinder 4 and the one on the right is what it is supposed to look like!
So the good news is we have identiifed the problem, we will investigate all potential causes and do our best to negate them while the engine is in bits.
All the parts required have now been ordered and upon their arrival we’ll rebuild the engine and get back on track as soon as possible.
In summary, the noise was caused by the pistons ‘rattling’ around in the bores.
We’d also like to thank all of those that have responded to our last message, it is very pleasing to know someone is reading these.
We think Andy deserves a special mention for suggesting that the noise is possibly Ian’s wallet crying!
