Oil Pressure? Overheating? The data shows why our Pikes Peak engine failed

If you have been following along with our 2024 run up Pikes Peak, you know that we had an engine failure during qualifying. You might also have heard us mention that we most likely hurt the new engine in our Pikes Peak WRX STI on race day.

Now that we have a Haltech Nexus R5 standalone ECU installed in our race car, we finally have the ability to go through the data to see what happened to our car.

In this episode of the podcast, we sit down with Harvey Epstein of The Boostcreep to go through all the data, and diagnose what happened to both engines running on Pikes Peak.

We have to give Harvey a big Thank You for all his help with tuning the car, and supporting us through race week, as well as helping us to go through all of the data!

Thanks for watching and Stay Tuned!

In this Episode:
00:00 - Intro
00:22 - It's time to talk data with Harvey
01:41 - Why having this level of data is so powerful
02:42 - Let's start with coolant pressure
08:24 - What good coolant pressure data should look like
10:30 - How coolant pressure data can now tell us a head gasket is starting to fail before damage occurs
12:25 - coolant pressure from our race run up Pikes Peak
14:23 - How this data explains the seemingly random overheating issue or head gasket issue - They are not random failures
16:58 - Let's look at Oil Pressure
17:15 - With data, having the full context is critical to be able to understand what the data means
19:44 - Oil pressure readings are different on the dyno compared to the track or compared to a race environment
21:10 - Setting safety limits with the standalone can be tricky
21:50 - Oil Pressure readings from the first run of the new engine
23:50 - Having the data can be critical when you have to make the decision to keep running, or stop running the car
27:55 - How long does it take failures to develop? They are not instant as you might expect
29:30 - Having the data removes the mystery, and gives you a window into what is actually happening in the engine
32:40 - Subarus are missing some key sensors if you are building a race car.
36:15 - If you say Subarus are unreliable, where is your data? Because most likely you don't have the data that you need.
37:30 - This shows what can be done on a stock STI Type RA shortblock. But have we reached the limit?
38:25 - Why we ran Pikes Peak with a stock engine to this point
39:02 - How does all this data help Harvey see things differently?
46:05 - Bending a spoon and additive fatigue. Failures take time and develop. They don't just happen.
51:00 - Safety limits and data are a big reason to go with a standalone ECU
59:30 - Final thoughts

If you want to follow Harvey and see what he is up to, you can find his Youtube page here:

   / @theboostcreep  

And his Instagram here:

  / the_boost_creep  

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