Untold story of SPC #51 in 3/07 C&D article

[rcweingart]

An update on the engine damage. I got the preliminary tear down results and the engine definitely suffered oil starvation from the high G load without an accu-sump, dry sump (to my knowledge all of the "production" cars - Z06, Porche, and Lotus), or deep sump (Noble). A couple of bearings were spun and there was other evidence of oil starvation without going into all of the details. The coupe is so low that you can't fit a typical deep sump pan on the car which is why an accu-sump or dry sump is needed for the track if you're going to pull high G loads. The original pan was supplied by Superformance but Roush has since designed a new improved pan for the GT 40 engines and is supplying the new pan on the new coupes as well. Even so, these pans are still shallow because of the how low the coupe is so consider a dry sump or at least an accu-sump if you are going to push your car on the track.

Addressing Dan's post, I wouldn't have been as dissatisfied with the article if (1) it explained that all the other cars were track prepared where mine was a last minute substituion, was set up only as a street car and was not prepared for the track, (2) that the engine was down the 80 HP because of my velocity stack screens versus the Roush supplied K & N filters, (3) pointed out how strong the coupe really was (1.12 G, 0 - 60 in 3.7, etc.) instead of writing that it wouldn't set any track records, and (4) didn't take a cheap shot at Roush ("expensive" engine noises) when the car actually ran the entire barrage of tests only finally succumbing to oil starvation damage (caused by their driver failing to monitor the oil pressure gage) during a final photo shoot after the track event.