Ariel.Club Forum

About the only thing I have not done behind the wheel is put a car on the roof.... :H: I am hoping to take that to my grave... ;)   Still looking at Formula cars myself..just can't find one that fits... :D (One of the things I surely love about the Atom; It's very small..but roomy.)

[quote="MadMaxAtom and company"]
I had just been bragging to Fred at SMG that I have not had an engine fail under my foot in over 30 years,and I have been racing this or that non stop every one of those years...not to mention the "eary" years,breaking everything imaginable.Talk about trial and error. That gets old real fast.   I consider myself pretty in tune (pun intended) with how my car is running. This let go so fast and without any hint of trouble I could only surmise physical overload. Until I tear it down,I cannot be 100% sure of anything.Even then,it can become a bit of what came first,chicken or the egg...

If you are not breaking stuff in Top Fuel,you aren't winning. You just can't break every time and win... ;)
[/quote]

I was just thinking last week I have never crashed a car. Been in several wrecks as a passenger but never as a driver. I've spun on track many times and indeed have come close to whacking it (125mph 500+ yard slide at Hallet in the wet grass was a doozie) but I've been lucky. Well until last weekend when I hit a wall in the F2000 at about 50mph.

I've now blown up several engines and crashed and wrecked pretty hard. NO record to worry about now  :laugh:

I had just been bragging to Fred at SMG that I have not had an engine fail under my foot in over 30 years,and I have been racing this or that non stop every one of those years...not to mention the "eary" years,breaking everything imaginable.Talk about trial and error. That gets old real fast.   I consider myself pretty in tune (pun intended) with how my car is running. This let go so fast and without any hint of trouble I could only surmise physical overload. Until I tear it down,I cannot be 100% sure of anything.Even then,it can become a bit of what came first,chicken or the egg... the broken egg.

If you are not breaking stuff in Top Fuel,you aren't winning. You just can't break every time and win... ;)

[quote="Area47"]
I have done a lot of stupid sh1t in my time.  A couple times it cost me motors or trans missions.  Other times it was suspension.  Live and learn.   


[/quote]

When it comes to stupid stuff, I've got you all beat!  ;D

Saying that, I bet Eddie Hill has probably blown more motors that all of us combined ever will  :angel:

I have done a lot of stupid sh1t in my time.  A couple times it cost me motors or trans missions.  Other times it was suspension.  Live and learn. 

You live long enough,you see a lot of sh1t happen. ;)

The lsj destruction i have seen falls into a couple catagories.  Too lean, runaway knock. Or stuipidity.  The kr ties into three things.  Iats, afr and timing.  No tune in the world can save an engine due to the owners blindness.  If one of those is out of wack, its a nasty downward spiral from there.

Bigger, better, stronger does not equal bullet proof.  sh1t will break.  That. We all know.

Edited while sober. 

You think just because it is an atom it defys all normal laws that apply to internal combustion engine?  Really?  You can't answer my questions because you do not know the answer.  ON THE TRACK.  Not the dyno.  Great variances here.

You can make 400 pulls on the dyno for all i care.  It is that one time on the street at a different load that can kill the engine.  Stock or built.  Does not matter.

 Some diffeences on the Atom;  exhaust is different..our intercooler system is different,our intake system is different.The car is lighter and rear wheel drive with different aero,and MUCH more traction.      

  We monitored A/F ratio,IATs,coolant temp,knock retard,injector duty ccycle,boost,etc etc. SMG has dyno tuned HUNDREDS of LSJ's,twin charge equipped and Harrop units as well. We made over 30 dyno pulls over two days,and changed the tune accordingly.They are a professional shop and have an excellent reputation. It was the best I could find..

This was not a brand new motor in my car,but one that had seen a lot of hard racing already. sh1t happens,even to brand new parts.

i do road race my car.  not in sanctioned events.  i drag race my car. i daily drive my car.  the tune does NOT change for any of these.  my engine saw 98k miles before the tear down.  box stock factory issue.  3150lbs of weight to drag along.  other cars i have tuned either get drag raced or road raced.  one major road racer i tune/tweak on a regular basis beats the holy duck out of the car.  it gets road raced once a week.  a track/street prepped ion redline.  stock motor as well.  the last time i road raced my car i was on a 330whp tune.  pump gas and meth injection.  second session the meth tank ran dry.  20 laps, give or take a few.  no laptop.  dumped race gas in the car.  didn't change a damn thing.  12.6 afr average.  from 20mph to 140 mph.  zero issues.  drove the car home.

what difference does it make on the object surrounding the engine.  same drivetrain.

do you know exactly what the egt's were?  what exactly the afr was? exactly what iat2 temps were?  dyno afr and timing vary greatly to street afr and timing.  this is why there MUST be a street tune after wards.  you MUST dial in the maf.  log after log after log.  you HAVE to monitor these things.

i will say that weird sh1t does happen, but to jump my ass without knowing where i stand in this game is a bad move at best.

Mark, I was giving props to Area for first posting here and for what he has done and I have an honest desire to see what he could do with an Atom.  I don't see anything I said that was an affront to you.  What you have said is true, a track run car stresses parts harder.  A weak piston is a weak piston and will more than likely break regardless of the tune, unless the tune is seriously weak low stress kind of thing.  I have had an engine blow on me in the past and it sucks!  I do feel bad for you.

[quote="MadMaxAtom and company"]
[b] Gage,why don't you buy an Atom just so Area 47 can give you a "good" tune? WTF? Do you assholes think I just fell off the fuucking tuna boat yesterday? Until Area 47 tunes a real 300+hp road racing Atom or two successfully, all this talk about a magical tune is nothing but bullshit!! [/b]
I RACE my Atom,on a real RACE track,against other RACE cars,at 100% throttle.,,and I win. I push the car HARD.
I didn't add hp to my car so I could brag about it every opportunity I get, driving around on the street "racing" canned out ricers.....!
My car broke because I pushed it way beyond what it was designed to take.Get it? Sometimes you get lucky and get away with abuse..but not often.
Push any engine to twice the standard horsepower over what it was built to take,bone stock, is asking for trouble. Take it out on a road race track and expect it to last was wishful thinking.  I knew this and took the gamble. From the beginning I figured I would have to build a proper HP engine to take racing use.

That's why they make stronger parts.Even then,sh1t happens.
[/quote]

Madmax, while you are an automotive adventurer and a pioneer spirit, your hair trigger sense of personal insult/offense and the resulting overblown reactions never leave any room for boredom.  

But please consider this:  I think nearly everyone understood your situation (and I for one sympathized) and no one was trying to criticize you directly or indirectly, [b]even before[/b] you started swearing to make your position clear.  


No one here believes in a magical tune.  We all want the best possible tune for our own application.  A little thread hi-jacking occurred.  oops

[b]I think you make great contributions to the forum and I hope you are more successful in the future and have less bad luck.[/b]   :pop:

My car broke because I pushed it way beyond what it was designed to take. Sometimes you get lucky and get away with abuse..but not often.
Push any engine to twice the standard horsepower over what it was built to take,bone stock, is asking for trouble. Take it out on a road race track and expect it to last was wishful thinking.  I knew this and took the gamble. From the beginning I figured I would have to build a proper HP engine to take racing use.

That's why they make stronger parts.Even then,sh1t happens.

Edited once sober.

[quote="Norm"]
Area, I know that you have been very successful tuning these engines.  I wish that one of us was in your region and got the "Area" Tune. 
[/quote]

If I happened to get an Atom again, I'm only 8 hours from Kansas City.  I would do that in a heart beat for a good tune.