Drag racing pushes a vehicle’s powertrain to the limit. When running on the razor’s edge, failures can be catastrophic when something goes wrong. Just watch what happens when this Honda-powered Toyota MR2 has its valve cover blow up on the strip.<\/p>\n
The run starts fantastic. This car launches like a rocket down the track. Then, things go very wrong. From the starting line, the incident looks like a puff of white smoke. Things are much more dramatic from inside the vehicle’s cabin because a spray of oil suddenly coats the rear window.<\/p>\n
However, the driver doesn’t realize anything is wrong because the engine is behind him. Naturally, he’s paying attention to the track ahead. He\u2019s unaware of a problem until a track official mentions a fire around the turbo and oil all over the track. When the racer finally looks at the rear window, his only response is a dejected, “Damnit.”<\/p>\n
Somehow, the engine developed enough crankcase pressure that the front of the valve cover exploded. The missing piece is big enough that the valve springs are easily visible.<\/p>\n
The reason for the failure isn’t apparent. There are large breather lines on the valve cover with tubes that run to a catch can in the cabin. However, a telemetry sensor on the engine shows 19.6 pounds of crankcase pressure. For context, a thread on the Honda-Tech forum references an engine having 0.5 to 1 pound of pressure while running 40 psi of turbo boost.<\/p>\n
A separate issue with this run was that the transmission refused to enter fifth gear.<\/p>\n
It’s not all bad news, though. Before the valve cover exploded, the MR2 was having a fantastic run. The car set a new personal best for speed in the eighth mile at 156.58 miles per hour, which blew past the previous 149-mph top run. Despite not having fifth gear and the engine failing, the driver still managed to hustle through the quarter-mile in 7.6 seconds at 178.64 mph.<\/p>\n
We reached out to the owner for more details about the cause of the failure and additional details about the car. His Instagram offers a bit more info, though.<\/p>\n