great video lovely set up shame about the engine!

http://www.fluke-motorsport.co.uk/videopoll.cgi?http://www.fluke-motorsport.co.uk/videos/films/20040327_blyton_02.wmv

oooh nasty... was that his flashy electronic gear change going tits-up there then or driver error?!

it says on the caption that he saw 24000rpm when it went bang. Is this possible?!

I've never seen a rev counter go that high on a car or bike. F1 don't have that many, methinks he may be exaggerating a little.

Pete you seem to have missed the point. Obviously the engine and hence rev counter are never meant to see that sort of RPM... Hence the 'blowup'... He's running fancy electronic gadgetry and missed a gear so having floored it the engine must have revved to the mechanical limit before exploding. I wouldn't be surprised if it did reach 24000 rpm.

Cheers

Perfectly balanced F1 engines rev out at about 18-19,500. If they get as high as 21,000 they usually let go. Motogp bikes make top power from 8-16,000rpm and cut off at that sort of limit to prevent damage and to make them user friendly. Even if he's running a tuned bike engine I wouldn't believe he'd seen 24,000 rpm unless I saw it with my own eyes. You have your opinion I have mine till I see his datalog.

buzzed my blade to 14.5k once on a dodgy down change, dont think it would have stood another 10k on top of that.

The point is the engine didn't stand it guys it was ruined!!!

Cheers

it would have been ruined way before it got to 24,000rpm. I think it would have welded itself into a solid lump, the engine on there is still firing when he is coasting back to the pits.

I tend to agree with Pete on this.
Highly unlikely he was looking at rev counter at the precise moment it hit that rpm and as it was so brief the counter would not have registered it due to buffering.
It sounds more likely that either the clutch or the drive coupling let go as engine was definately running after glitch.

Terry

He is using what looks like a stack style electronic instrument system. These datalog engine variables and can recall max and min values. You can also download data logs onto your PC for analysis/tuning purposes.

Cheers

i totally agree the rev counter could indeed go round to 24000rpm but it's impossible for the engine to rev that fast as it would as pete says, melt it's self together long before reaching that kind of revolution.

did sound impressive when it went on that video though!

Hello

I am a memeber of Locostbuilders.co.uk which in case you haven't heard of is a forum
for discussing amung other things the building of lotus 7 replicas, i would like your help
in resolving a debate that has been going on for a while as to whether or not the r1 engine
that blew did in fact reach 24,000 rpm as written on your web page, sorry for the odd question.
link to the debate http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/viewthread.php?tid=17959

Thanks Graham
(Macspeedy)

Reply

Hi Graham,

Good to hear from you, classy thread I need to register to reply, so, as a quick explanation of the scenario (feel free to post) -

The engine was a relatively standard '99 R1, just the usual clutch/carb/ECU mods done, nothing internal. We were testing a new flatshift paddle-shift system at Blyton before sending the car out to compete in the Barbados Rally Carnival. The flatshift is a Translogic ignition cut, the paddleshift is a Kliktronic. Basically the system allows full clutchless flatshifting and when working is an aboslute joy. The Translogic sits between the ECU and the coils killing the spark when it sense an imminent gearchange (position sensor).

Now, it was occasionally missing gears on the test, basically the Kliktronic wasn't pushing all the way through in time so it would hit neutral and overrev (well, it would bang off the limiter). I'm pretty certain this is what happened when the engine let go. The engine is changing from ~13,000rpm to ~9,000rpm in milliseconds, so, if it's going let go, that's the most likely time it's going to let go.

Onto the blow-up, when it let go, I coasted back to the pits with the engine still (sort of) running on 3cylinders (all be it with zero power and sounding like a complete bag of nails) for a look. We tried to take off the plugs, the plug from #4 snapped off. Strange. So I took off the exhaust manifold, and out fell a valve stem. Ah. Off came the head and now things got really interesting.....All the exhaust valves were stretched over 3mm. One of the exhaust valves in #4 had actually completely let go, come out, and gone back in where the spark plug should be. The spark plug for #4 was bent over trying to fire #3. The top of the combustion chamber and the piston crown were peppered and dimpled like a well used golf ball.

Although I've since binned the engine (obviously!), I've kept the head because it just makes for such amusing viewing. I'm away down south for a few days but if you'd like I can get some photos of it on my return. I was tempted to eBay the thing...

The 24,000rpm came from an instantaneous reading from the datalogger (MyChron 3). It actually maxes out at 24,000rpm so that figure must be taken with a pinch of salt as when the engine punched through the limiter all hell went haywire with the electronics.

Since then, I've dropped in another engine (this time purpose built by Mistral) and always keep a spare. The flatshift system has worked seamlessly so far, taking us to a class win by over 7s on the TotalSport SuperSprint in Barbados and seeing us through to the end of the Rally Barbados. I believe, that the Blyton mishap was just a 'weak' engine, I had bought it from some sidecar guys on SideNet.co.uk and they have so many spares lying around they could cobble any old engine together at a push..(not tarring them all with the same brush but you know ;-D).

Happy motoring!

Cheers,
Graeme.

Mac
That was nice of him to mail u back.

topman!

if it maxes out at 24,000rpm there's a chance that it went higher . Nice to read that from the horses mouth or keyboard or whatever .