H
HardScrabble
Guest
At least to me.
Seems that I find contradictory, or at least differing, statements regarding the cause of engine failures by RR engines over the past couple of races.
Mark's engine failure at Las Vegas has been reported as due to both a rod failure and a crankshaft failure, depending on the source. Jack was quoted as saying "crankshaft", but several other folks have reported "rod". Don't know which, but either one of those is, IMO, likely to be one of those part failures that will happen from time to time. It's one of the base reasons for the statement, Horsepower costs money.
This past weekend at Atlanta the Roush engines failed en masse. The quote we heard from Kurt's CC was he thought it "broke a piston" ( I have since seen that written as "burned a piston" but that is not what he said). Broke a piston could mean almost anything so I tend not to take this too literally, kinda of a something happened in that area but I don't know what type statement. Since then the consensus seems to be that the engines did burn pistons. My observations during the telecast were that I did not see the usual white smoke which seems to go with burning a piston, but the cameras may have missed that. Anyway, the analysis given by Larry Mac seems to be that he feels (or has heard) that the Roush tuners were going for increased fuel mileage on Sunday and leaned the engines too far. Not sure why they would go for mileage this aggressively as Atlanta does not strike me as a fuel mileage track, but things change. Another theory advanced is the engines were turning more RPM than the tuners anticipated and resulted in a lean out condition. Have not seen, and very might not see, anything on this directly from the Roush shops, so the question remains as to the cause.
Disposing of all this speculation, I am quite sure that the engine shop is reviewing every aspect of the program in these areas. The cat in the hat is not likely to abide continuing failures quietly.
Seems that I find contradictory, or at least differing, statements regarding the cause of engine failures by RR engines over the past couple of races.
Mark's engine failure at Las Vegas has been reported as due to both a rod failure and a crankshaft failure, depending on the source. Jack was quoted as saying "crankshaft", but several other folks have reported "rod". Don't know which, but either one of those is, IMO, likely to be one of those part failures that will happen from time to time. It's one of the base reasons for the statement, Horsepower costs money.
This past weekend at Atlanta the Roush engines failed en masse. The quote we heard from Kurt's CC was he thought it "broke a piston" ( I have since seen that written as "burned a piston" but that is not what he said). Broke a piston could mean almost anything so I tend not to take this too literally, kinda of a something happened in that area but I don't know what type statement. Since then the consensus seems to be that the engines did burn pistons. My observations during the telecast were that I did not see the usual white smoke which seems to go with burning a piston, but the cameras may have missed that. Anyway, the analysis given by Larry Mac seems to be that he feels (or has heard) that the Roush tuners were going for increased fuel mileage on Sunday and leaned the engines too far. Not sure why they would go for mileage this aggressively as Atlanta does not strike me as a fuel mileage track, but things change. Another theory advanced is the engines were turning more RPM than the tuners anticipated and resulted in a lean out condition. Have not seen, and very might not see, anything on this directly from the Roush shops, so the question remains as to the cause.
Disposing of all this speculation, I am quite sure that the engine shop is reviewing every aspect of the program in these areas. The cat in the hat is not likely to abide continuing failures quietly.
