At our last lapping day at Bremerton Raceway, we had a report of debris on the track, followed by a dead '69 GTV rolling to a stop on the back straight.
Here's a fuzzy pic of some of the debris we picked up from the track. I'll let you roll around in your mind what happened.
..and this one barely shows that immediately behind the engine you can see the ground. It was just amazing to open the hood, and see no evidence of the bellhousing. It had completely taken the force of the flywheel exploding. The ears of the bellhousing had just ripped away from the motor, as well as the exhaust manifold branch of #1 and #4. The starter was just hanging there, with a bit of the bellhousing attached. All that remained of the flywheel was the 8 bolts holding the small remains on to the flywheel (1750 motor).
You opened the hood, and looked at the pressure plate ***'y, hanging there. Absolutely incredible. No flywheel or bellhousing to be seen.
Talk about a suicidal motor, when it pranged, it bent the throttle lever rod to full on, so the motor saw stratospheric rpm just before he turned it off.
It had a standard flywheel, improperly lightened. I like my Rugh 4130 flywheel more and more.
Yes, both people were very fortunate to still have their little toes intact. To them it felt like the driveshaft fell off. They didn't know such a catastrophe had occured.
they should be happy thats all that happened. before my dad opened his shop, his boss tried to lighten a flywheel himself. The result: the flywheel ripped through the bellhousing, through the transmission tunnel, through the dash, and out the windshield. After that, he coughed up the money for an aluminum one.
When this engine came apart, the car was at speed, and laid a trail of shards and fluids down for about half the length of the track. We shut down and had about 8 people walk that whole end of the track looking for parts and pieces that were blown around, and laying oilzorb. It was pretty amazing!
Well, I read "rolled to a stop" a bit more dramatic.
Good to here that the occupants are ok.
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