One of the instructor/Mini owner at my local BMWCCA drives a bone stock '04 JCW R53. Last week at the track the engine came to an untimely death. Anyone else have experience catastrophic failure on or off the track like this?

Below in italics is the event told by the unfortunately owner.

"As far as the rod through the side of the block: I am now told by
several people that this is a known problem. When running R compound
tires and a stock oil pan, I guess the oil sloshes to one side and
leaves the oil scavenger with nothing to scavenge. Two people told me
that at the track today. I wish they would have told me that last
Thursday. I'm further informed that this condition is cumulative. So
when you keep going to the track and going fast through corners, the
damage builds up until finally there is a failure.

I had no warning in terms of a dash indicator. I also had no odd noises,
overheating or loss of power. The car was running great, then a loud
sound and then the "check engine" light comes on. I'm coasting down the
straight thinking, "No ****. Check engine for what? A hole in the side
of it?" Of course, that's exactly what we found."

 

Wow. That stinks. All you track rats need one of these in your oil pan...

 

Jan at RMW has a fix for this problem. Call him.

 

Perhaps Jan could post it here? I would love to take any precautionary measures.

 

Thanks for the suggestions.

I'm really just looking to see if others out there have experienced or heard of similar failure. It just seems weird that it can fail without much warning or power loss if its accumulative???

To gather more data to assess oil pressure during track event, I've just hooked up my oil pressure sensor to Traqmate, so I'll have record of oil pressure from this weekend's 2day HPDE. Will report back next week.

BTW, I have the RMW baffle, but waiting to install it at end season as part of engine build.

 

here's a helpful link https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...hlight=oil+pan

 

The old autocrosser's trick is to run with an extra half-pint of oil in there...

Or one of these:
http://www.mini-madness.com/index.as...ROD&ProdID=235

Yep, I'm an Old autocrosser...

 

Rut roh, Reorge.

mb

 

Jan made up some of these.



I've been using one all season. Happen to have an extra in the garage. Tossed it up in the Marketplace.

 

Is Jan not selling them? I don't see them on his site or any of his vendors sites. It's a great idea hope he is/does sell them.

 

I believe you can also get them from Detroit Tuned.

 

i have a hard time buying into the "cummu1ative" aspect. i have a friend w/ a high1y modded 02 who is racing W2W now and has been doing DE's since he bought the car in 02. he is wicked fast. he has broken about everything on his car. he recent1y 1ost his engine, but it wasn't oi1 starvation re1ated. the bad news for his competition is that he wi11 be insta11ing a RMW stroker. the baff1es are a great and simp1e so1ution and shou1d be a part of a11 serious track rats' package. good time for the poor victim to get one of jan's strokers!

 

What's with all the 1's instead of l's...

 

1337 sucks.

 

What about running a lower volume oil pump for race applications?

Nothing like pumping oil like mad and having it return at a slower rate!

Jeremy

 

i'm a cabinet/furniture maker and my keyboard is a dusty mess. that is the best that i can do to convey my message. the missing key doesn't work.

 

yes this is an RMW part to fix the problem

we have another batch of them coming out next week

My website is being re-done and all parts will eventually be on there

If you want a part and it isn't on my website..... call or email me...

I probably already have it made........ we have oil coolers too that will be out as soon as the shipment gets here for the heat exchangers

 

Thanks for the updates Jan.


Hey Bean, get this keyboard http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/5a7f/

 

Overpriced ThinkGeek stuff...same thing, 1/2 the price http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1845

 

Forgive me for being noob, but what does that do and improve to prevent this problem?

 

Well not knowing a lot about how that stuff works, but based upon visual inspection it looks like those flaps close when you're in a hard corner and trap the oil in that hexagon shape wall. That should prevent all the oil from sloshing to one side, keeping oil where the scavenger is. If I made a mistake, please correct me... just trying to surmise how I think it works.

GotMINI

 

The shiny part is the oil pickup that sucks oil out of the pan. The "box" around it holds oil near the pickup so there's always some to suck in. Cornering g-forces flap the hinges shut on the "outside" side of the box, keeping all the oil from flowing out and to the "outside" side of the oil pain when cornering. Net result, enough oil enclosed around the pickup for oil to be available through the corner. When not cornering, oil flows normally around the pan and refills the box.

 

Ahhh, it makes a lot more sense now.

What's the price tag for this part Jan?

 

$175

 

Lets see $175 or a new engine? Seems like an easy choice for one who tracks their MINI.