Team Karnage has been flat out alongside the guys at Intec Racing putting together a new 2.2L s13.4 SR motor. why S13.4 u ask? without getting into too much detail or pointing fingers, just ask Dean at Irwindale if you see him and get a moment to speak with him!! 🙂 Some of you SR guys may be able to guess already….
While testing at Evergreen Speedway on Thursday Dean was getting used to the car and setting up suspension for the big oval when disaster struck. While on full throttle in 4th gear the wastegate vacum failed letting the motor boost by RPM! This caused a massive boost spike blowing the headgasket and lifting the head bolts allowing coolant to flood the cylinders between cylinder 2/3 and busting the block and rods…..It was literally a worst case scenario!!
Here is the video of the testing at evergreen and the last run on the video was when the motor was killed!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqSyfP9GV3I
That very night we ripped apart the head to check the damage and it was clear we needed to rebuild a new motor entirely. Thanks to all our sponsors, CP Pistons, Carrillo rods, Brian crower, ACL, ARP, Apexi (Dynamic Autosport) all the required parts were sponsored, dispatched and delivered within 24hrs to get us back on track!!! Massive thanks to Jun, Mikey and Lawrence at Intec Racing for help with the assembly as the donor block needed honing for the BC 2.2 stroker was luckily in stock but it needed a conrod cut from the block after a bottom end failure.
Assembly began first thing today with collection of the block from the machine shop ready for the BC crank, Carrillo rods, ACL bearings and CP pistons to be fitted. We also got brand new A/N fittings for the wastegate and all other lines on the motor to stop any chance of vacum failure like what had happened two days previously. The plan was to use the new donor block to fit the 2.2 bottom end while retaining the original head as it was undamaged – luckily!! Once the bottom end was assembled it was time for headgasket………when another hurdle presented itself! The new donor block we used for the 2.2 was supposed to be a S14 Blacktop block but it turned out to be a S13 redtop!! The oil feed for the tensioner on a S14 is fed from the top while a S13 block is fed from the pump which meant they did not match up……some clever thinking by Jun/Mikey and Lawrence to reroute the feed directly to the tensioner solved the problem and the build was back on track.
While all this drama with the oil feed/returns was going on it was time to assemble the newly built OS Giken SR transmission gear-set and have it ready for the motor when it was built. So at roughly 2am the motor and transmission were ready to be mounted together and lowered into the S14……Tune in for more on the startup and remapping in the morning!!
Team Karnage.
Great to see such great support and backing … doing us proud Deane !
Talk about a worst case at the last minute geeze.
mad props to intec… guys really buckled down and busted out a great motor from what i could tell. can’t wait to see the results from the weekend…