Toyota Engine Wear Issue

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I was watching the pre-race show on speed channel, Jimmy Spencer said the engine wear was because of the "water thin oil" the teams were using. It also stated that if the teams had used "castrol oil" none of this would have happen!!??
 
Quote:
White said the problem surfaces early in an engine cycle, so he hopes it won't be an issue Sunday.

""Here these engines will be running well over 9,000 RPMs for 427 miles," White said. "But once you get beyond a certain point and don't see this issue, you're golden. It's an infant-mortality thing.

"Our people at TRD have worked their tails off to fix it. We had three guys bring five engines over from California this morning. They are ready to go if we need them."


Almost sounds like a metallurgy problem.
 
I don't follow the sport much anymore, but I'm sure other teams with other engines are running similar water thin oils too. Maybe the newer generation engines Toyota is using have some serious issues. At least they didn't flat out blame the oil.
 
Seems like everyone is having their turn in the beginning of the season. Chevys broke some valve springs last weekend, Toyotas had their problems on Saturday and yesterday it was a nightmare for the Fords. Which is a shame, because I'd have liked to see Kenseth take the trifecta in the beginning of the season.

None of which is surprising, the beginning of the season is for trying out modifications and adjustments, and this year, working out problems with parts suppliers.
 
They have to be cam in block engines? The engines are under stress. look up the valve spring pressures for cams that run 9,000 rpm. Comp cams website lists their springs.
 
This is what happens when Toyota tries to build OHV V-8 engines that run to 9500 rpm!

Joe Gibbs, a "Toyota Team" builds their own engines, and Kyle Bush's blown motor was totally unrelated to the TRD motors.
 
Kyle Bush said he thought the parts had been coated in a larger batch than before and the coating was not as good as the parts that were used during testing which were coated in a smaller batch.
 
Originally Posted By: Drew99GT
This is what happens when Toyota tries to build OHV V-8 engines that run to 9500 rpm!

Joe Gibbs, a "Toyota Team" builds their own engines, and Kyle Bush's blown motor was totally unrelated to the TRD motors.




As also happens when they try to run the Ford and Chevy engines at 9500 rpm. The arguably best Chevy team (Hendrick) had about 5 blown engines in the last two races, and poor old Matt Kenseth had his Ford engine begin to come apart on the first lap of the Las Vegas race.
 
Originally Posted By: 1999nick
Originally Posted By: Drew99GT
This is what happens when Toyota tries to build OHV V-8 engines that run to 9500 rpm!

Joe Gibbs, a "Toyota Team" builds their own engines, and Kyle Bush's blown motor was totally unrelated to the TRD motors.




As also happens when they try to run the Ford and Chevy engines at 9500 rpm. The arguably best Chevy team (Hendrick) had about 5 blown engines in the last two races, and poor old Matt Kenseth had his Ford engine begin to come apart on the first lap of the Las Vegas race.
Yep like I posted these engines are under stress, to me it is amazing how race engines hold together .
 
hmm, a boundary lubrication problem.

So, what are they not saying? Of course it could be poorly nitrided cams. Does not happen on the dyno. Does happen on the track.

My guess ... they redesigned the valve train and missed a harmonic resonance. The resonance is load and rpm dependent, conditions that were not replicated in their dyno run profile. At the resonance, the valves and lifters bounce, tearing the [censored] out of the cam lobes. If the engine development team is good, they should be able to use the track telemetry to replicate the problem on a dyno.

The other possibility would be that it's a lubrication starvation issue. Seems unlikely, but not impossible. The fact that they throw that explanation out there so easily tells me that it's probably not the root cause.
 
They were saying that the Hendrick failures were a vendor issue. I bet most of the teams, regardless of manufacturer, get most of their rotating assembly components from the same supplier, or groups of suppliers.
 
Oil starvation??

Oil pump and/or scavaging issues. They are turning more revs this year they did not account for something in the oil pump. Another possibiliy they changed something in the pump to utilize lighter oils and they are starving the engine.

With the use of light oils, I wonder how well the engine is lubricated at low speeds while driving around the paddock area.
 
Originally Posted By: BR549
I was watching the pre-race show on speed channel, Jimmy Spencer said the engine wear was because of the "water thin oil" the teams were using. It also stated that if the teams had used "castrol oil" none of this would have happen!!??

THere is a lot of pressure to use thinner oil these days to get better gas mileage and/or more horsepower. A lot of races have been won by making one less pit stop than everyone else.
 
Gone are the days of 20W-50 in race motors.

Light oils have many advantages over heavy oils if implemented properly. pumping lighter oil takes less effort (i.e. reduced parasitic loss) and it can get in to small areas easily. this leads to tight tolerances and smaller oil galleries too to save weight.

Pushing the enevelope, we are going to be seeing lighter oils in production cars too. 5W-20 is just the tip of the iceberg.
 
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