Winding it up

At 57 i wouldnt want to run in a Marathon so why would you want to redline it!!

Problem is lack of spares, break a cylinder block and you aint going anywhere for quite a while.

 

Unfortnately that's the reality.
The temptation is great, no doubt about it.
Which gears would you red line in?

 

Certianly is tempting with a free revving engine as the V6, i would rev above 5K but thats me looking after an old girl!!

 

Perhaps this post will be a little harsh but let me get this straight you guys are driving your Dinos around shifting at 5 and 6K because you are afraid of damaging the engine due to age? To me this is total nonsense from both an engineering perspective and a vehicle ownership perspective.

From an engineering point of view somwhere between 7-8K is by no means pushing the boundries of is design or stressing it outside of where it was designed to operate in the first place. When an engine and its fluids are properly up to temperature it operates at its best in the range where it makes the most power (higher rpm). Moreover driving around at medium RPM often introduce harmonic vibrations that are very harmful to an engine as they weaken the internal components and can lead to premature failures. Provided an engine is under load accelerating it to its redline is BETTER for it than lugging it around at low speeds.

Now as a vehicle owner I cannot imagine being such a slave to your machine that you fear essenitally using it for fear of breaking it. Might as well keep it locked up and spend your days following the value threads. Also where does this $40K rebuild number come from? This is total insanity as a straight Dino engine re-build does not cost anything near that and that is assuming someone else doing all the work.

There is a ton of misinformation out there and much of it is based on fear rather than actual in the trenches wrench turning.

 

mmmm not sure i totally agree with your perception about the V6 engine reliability. Firstly where do you get a supply of major engine components should the engine go bang. Not too many blocks or heads lying around.

The V6 as you know is not the perfect engine design and has inherrent design flaws due to the imbalance of cylinders in each bank. Yes it will rev to 7500rpm and was designed that way.......but 40K miles later?

Furthermore stressing an engine to redline is going to take its toll on a 40 year engine unless it is in perfect balance, which i doubt there are only a few that are in tip top order. Using your theory then these damaging low range harmonics will increase with engine speed quite considerably and increase the risk of terminal engine failure. These faults must be in a 40 year old design using 40 year old technology. Yes the engine may cope with it when new but 40 years later only in short bursts. IMO everything has to be "race" prepared & tuned to do it constantly. Is the average dino owner prepared to whip the engine out every 12 months to rebuild....i doubt it.

If your that confident then feel free to rev the crap out of your engine but please dont counterance others to do the same or belittle them by referring to dino values. That is irresponsible and something i wouldnt of thought you would entertain.

As for cost to rebuild an engine you are looking at well into £15K GBP or around $25K. Not a small amount of money for those that are not blessed with a big bank balance. So inevitably you err on the side of caution and shift up a gear before its too late, anyway the best sound is from the intake at 4-5K

Best

tony

 

150 miles today in the British sun and I regularly went to 7,000.....just sounds so good and if it's been re-built and in good tune, why not? I have always thought (with no engineering experience at all!) that the problems come if you don't regularly stretch an engine and spin it up properly......use it or lose it! Love to know if that has any technical truth to it.

 

Upshifts a 3 when poodlin around. sweet spot 4k to 6k. Its still all within sensory range.
Personally never thrashed lower gears no point. This is not a point and squirt machine.
Let it build up, it will come at you so fast and when you see that road come towards you at 6k in 5th,....you had better be in Germany!

 

if you secure your flywheel, change front pulley, change conrods, and secure the main caps on the block then you can stay between 5000 and 8000 on every gear, but with your engine i would not go over 5000, your guides are in bad shape, your valves are dancing on the seat

 

To better clarify my point on engine harmonics they do not increase with engine speed but rather come and go at different engine speeds so running faster in many instances results in a smoother running engine. I cannot comment to the exact nature of the harmonics specific to the Dino engine as I was more making generalizations with regards to that comment.

Getting back to the issue of taking the engine at or near redline my main point is that you are not 'testing the limits' at those engine speeds as it is well within the safe design parameters of the machine. It is by no means an abuse to the machine which is why I openly offer the advice to run the engine in the higher rpm bands (again assuming both load and proper temperatures are present).

I am not a wealthy guy at all but I also refuse to be afraid of what 'might' happen if I use my car within its operating range. I have seen engines blow while idling and I have seen incredible engine durability after unimaginable abuse. It is my opinion that if your operation of a machine is tempered by what it would cost to fix 'should' it break while in your care then you are missing out from the full experience of what the machine has to offer. I can't imagine owning something that had such a crippling fear on me and would rather drive a Toyota to its fullest rather than a Ferrari half way. Again my opinion.

Lastly this is assuming a car that has received acceptable maintenance. Should the vehicle in question be well out of service then I would address that first and then drive the car properly but not drive in a lesser fashion to mask the problem. It is the difference between you OWNING the car rather than the car owning you.

 

Rob
Without modern rev limiters there are not many people who can judge 7000rpm from listening to the engine let alone having the time to look at the tacho or indeed trust the accuracy of the tacho. In either case you risk buzzing the engine beyond its designed parameter of 7500rpm and risk causing severe damage which may not be immediately apparent. Servicing or tuning will not stop engine damage if abused, the only real way to use these at the upper limits is to race prepare and that is a whole new ballgame than standard rebuilding.

Personally i like to drive my Dino in a spirited way but well within the liits of the car bearing in mind we are both not getting any younger!

Disagree with you on engine harmonics as its a complicated area and one not fully understood by many including me

Tony

 

openly offer the advice to run the engine in the higher rpm bands (again assuming both load and proper temperatures are present).

its totaly madness to give advise to use engine on higher rpm without first restoring the front pulley that help take out the harmonic vibration, that rubber is 40 years old, it can easely separate and brake the crank

 

My point exactly. It is necessary to have an engine that is in good service (not necessarily fully re-built) and in that I include the front pulley. I have seen many of these pulleys with the rubber portion all dry rotted and cracked which to my mind is poor service. That said a pully that has its rubber visibly intact and pliable even if it is not 100% brand new fresh is again well within the service limits of the engine.

I bounced this conversation off a good friend of mine who is a powertrain engineer for the OEM. He eats breathes and sleeps engine harmonics and durability. He ironically told me that the most violent harmonic vibrations ie. the ones that tax the balancer hardest take place from about 1500-2500rpm and outside of that it is pretty smooth sailing.

Regarding over-revving due to the car not being fitted with a rev-limiter I will refrain from commenting but I will say that fitting a rev limiter is an easy thing to do and it can give an owner some much needed piece of mind.

 

Now I'm fretting about my harmonic damper! I see the Damper Doctor can rebuild Ferrari dampers. Anyone have this done before?

 

Since when has the torsional damper / pulley been a servicable item and one that is changed, anyway you cannot just go around replacing the damper at will, it is a crucial element in the crank assembly.

As for engine harmonics, i dont really see how your friend can say that the most violent vibrations occur at 1500 - 2500rpm. That totally depends on each engine and its physical state.

The best rev limiter is your right foot!!

Cheers

tony

 

Any component that carries a perishable material such as the rubber in the damper is a service item. While the damper does not have a stated service interval in Ferrari documentation it is no different than rubber suspension bushes that should be replaced upon seeing major cracks in the rubber from a visual inspection. Any decent service should carry out a visual inspection and it is hard to miss the cracks on a crank damper as it is in full view with the right rear wheel removed. To miss that is to generally be sloppy as you do not need to be told to check the damper but you sure as hell should notice when the rubber is cracked on one.

BTW the engine harmonics numbers I quoted were from an engine with the same basic architecture as a Dino motor which is why I bothered mentioning it in the first place. The generalization to be made is that engines are designed to operate at their best near where they make the most power. As such the harshest harmonics are tuned by the engineers where the engine is likely to spend the least of its time which is just past idle but below any meaningful power.

 

Yes but we do not live in a perfect world Rob and is why a generalised statement about constantly revving engines to near there max is not sound advice. Pushing the engine to its limits will unravel weaknesses which may not be good.

If all of the pistons produce identical combustion pulses, then engine vibration will be very small. You cannot design out engine resonance, but more likely you need to accomodate it.

However if any one cylinder (or more) is less effective than the rest then engine vibration / resonance increases massively and will occur anywhere in the rev range. Faults such as broken ring, leaky valve seats, low compression, worn cam, bad timing etc etc can cause one or more cylinder to be weak and will / can cause a higher than normal vibrations in the engine. You are more likely to get high speed misfire at higher revs.

With a 40 year old motor it would be near impossible to get these spot on throughout its working life and therefore weakness have developed in the castings / metal. Rebuild the engine but you always reuse the main components.

Cheers
Tony

 

Sorry Tony but I will just have to disagree with you on this one and leave it at that.

I shall continue to keep my engines in good service and drive them within their designed range and should they blow I'll re-build them and drive them again.

When I bought my 308 a little over 10 years ago it was every penny I had in the world and I would put fuel in it as I got money. Even then when I was flat broke I totally ignored those who instilled the fear of God in you that the sodium valves were a ticking time bomb ready to break and cause catastrophic engine damage. I made sure the car was well serviced and drove it hard when I felt like it. Now 10+ years later it still runs great and I have gotten a decade of use out of it (not to mention countless great memories).

That's all we just look at things differently.

 

Tony, with the right service (training) you could easily run a marathon at 57, you are young! In February of this year, an Indian born runner nicknamed the Turbaned Torpedo, ran a marathon in Hong Kong at 101 years of age.

IMHO, the second best part of Dino ownership is the sound it makes in the upper limits of the rev range! Drive'em if you got'em ....

 

Just called him, he says no problem.
He has never done a Dino damper, but by the description, and if it has not come apart, he can laser align it to the original position of the two components.

Regards, Alberto

 

I hope if done correctly you wouldn't have to re-balance the whole assembly. Just pull the damper, have it reworked and then re-install.

 

Here is a little blurb about harmonic dampers on the Mini Mania site: Mini Cooper - Mini Harmonic Damper

 

Rob, we shall have to agree to disagree Not known too many engineers to agree all the time!! I'll keep driving mine the same old way, it suits me fine.

Run a marathon :-0

when my engine was rebuilt the damper was balanced with all the other crank components and was a fundamental part of the balancing process. Not quite sure how you can just change it?

 

Tony I believe your countryman is in the rev it camp
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