100% DI Failure with Nurburgring rentals

[regal]

Originally Posted by Mikem53

This is a stock engine not designed or strengthened for the rigors of racing..

Do you see the above quote? You seem like a reasonable guy. All I, Mike, and many others have done is drive the car in its power band.. Its the most important aspect of a lightweight high revving sports car. Perhaps you have never seen a factory car on the track? There is no "rigor of racing" above a spirited 15 mile back country drive keeping the engine in the powerband with 2nd and 3rd gear. Do you understand how your above quote comes across as calling the engine and car a POS?

If not perhaps you bought the car because of the looks or some other aspect, but for the enthusiast its a very important to be able to drive a car in its power band.

The only complaining I have made is centered around the factory tune (torque dip, knock, and DI failure.) The dealers are clueless at this point because there is no TSB, they try to help but its not their fault as Subaru has issues with factory tuning and Toyota isn't stepping in. I don't wish a DI failure on you are anyone else, it is a huge hassle.

So I am moving forward, fixing the injectors myself so I know its done right and tuning the car. It was built for tuning/modding any how. The incredible handling, engineering marvel of a chassis, and after market support make it worth it. This is a sports car not an appliance so screw a warranty.

[Mikem53]

Originally Posted by regal

Do you see the above quote? You seem like a reasonable guy. All I, Mike, and many others have done is drive the car in its power band.. Its the most important aspect of a lightweight high revving sports car. Perhaps you have never seen a factory car on the track? There is no "rigor of racing" above a spirited 15 mile back country drive keeping the engine in the powerband with 2nd and 3rd gear. Do you understand how your above quote comes across as calling the engine and car a POS?

If not perhaps you bought the car because of the looks or some other aspect, but for the enthusiast its a very important to be able to drive a car in its power band.

The only complaining I have made is centered around the factory tune (torque dip, knock, and DI failure.) The dealers are clueless at this point because there is no TSB, they try to help but its not their fault as Subaru has issues with factory tuning and Toyota isn't stepping in. I don't wish a DI failure on you are anyone else, it is a huge hassle.

So I am moving forward, fixing the injectors myself so I know its done right and tuning the car. It was built for tuning/modding any how. The incredible handling, engineering marvel of a chassis, and after market support make it worth it. This is a sports car not an appliance so screw a warranty.

I stand by my quote.. Keeping it in the powerband is one thing.. Doing it constantly on a track is another.. Can't you see that? If this car was intended to be a serious racer.. It would at least have a proper oil cooler, diff cooler, larger radiator.. Etc.. It's not built for the rigors of racing.. As I said earlier..
It would also cost a lot more.. I tracked mine.. But within reason.. I did a few laps and brought it in to cool down.. Knowing that its not setup for the track.. On the street, you rarely get the opportunity to run it hard for long enough.. And the OEM knows this.. You can't expect to track it all day without consequences..
The OEM gave us a good start.. A fine chassis and a sweet NA engine to play with.. But get serious.. It's not going to deal with high rpms under load for hours.. Not what it's intended to do.. I don't care what marketing says in their brochures... Which some on here think is law.. Anyone with some racing experience knows what a stock motor will do.. There are some exceptions as with anything.. My last car cost almost 3 times what this one costs.. And I had to modify it to handle road Atlanta before I took it there..
I also attended HPDE at BMWs facility here in S Carolina.. Where they remanufacture their "track" cars after so many track events..
There is no free lunch.. Driving hard on the road is way different from driving hard on a track.. If you start out with a problem and then push your car to and beyond its intended limits.. Then you will not like the results..

[mla163]

Can someone CN this technical issue? There's a lot of noise in this thread.

[thill]

I think this should be merged with the other 10 DI threads in the technical forums.

[regal]

Originally Posted by Mikem53

On the street, you rarely get the opportunity to run it hard for long enough.. And the OEM knows this.. You can't expect to track it all day without consequences...

I guess its a cultural/regional thing. Where I live there are many unpopulated hilly curvy 20 mile runs of old blacktop and gravel, 2 & 3rd gear 5k+ rpm the whole way on/off throttle not high speed driving. Drove my E30 BMW once or twice a week thru these stretches for 8 years never had any engine issues. Does that put me in the 1 out of 10k cars sold? maybe.

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by Mikem53

Well your vagueness is beyond reasonable belief.. To say no miata has had a problem racing.. That's hilarious!! How the F did you come to that conclusion.. Attend every event miatas participate in? Read every post? Oh please.. Look at all the people that are racing the twins street and track that have NO issues.. Vs the handful that do.. Get serious..
All you do is speculate and then complain what a POS the car is.. Yet everyone else is doing fine all day long with theirs..
YOU need to get your car looked at if you have a problem.. Instead of parking it and bitching about how lousy subaru is.. All day long you speculate and conjur up past history on other engines to compare to. Talk about pathetic.. You get that award.

Miatas run forever, if you don't let them overheat. Older plastic endtanks have a tendency to burst... When you have modified engines, that's a different story, but stock 1.6 or 1.8? It'll go forever. Just change oil.

Just another reason why Miatas are the #1 raced car in the world. Oh, and they have unmatched factory support. Toyota/Scion, where are you? Are you listening?

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by Mikem53

I stand by my quote.. Keeping it in the powerband is one thing.. Doing it constantly on a track is another.. Can't you see that? If this car was intended to be a serious racer.. It would at least have a proper oil cooler, diff cooler, larger radiator.. Etc.. It's not built for the rigors of racing.. As I said earlier..
It would also cost a lot more.. I tracked mine.. But within reason.. I did a few laps and brought it in to cool down.. Knowing that its not setup for the track.. On the street, you rarely get the opportunity to run it hard for long enough.. And the OEM knows this.. You can't expect to track it all day without consequences..
The OEM gave us a good start.. A fine chassis and a sweet NA engine to play with.. But get serious.. It's not going to deal with high rpms under load for hours.. Not what it's intended to do.. I don't care what marketing says in their brochures... Which some on here think is law.. Anyone with some racing experience knows what a stock motor will do.. There are some exceptions as with anything.. My last car cost almost 3 times what this one costs.. And I had to modify it to handle road Atlanta before I took it there..
I also attended HPDE at BMWs facility here in S Carolina.. Where they remanufacture their "track" cars after so many track events..
There is no free lunch.. Driving hard on the road is way different from driving hard on a track.. If you start out with a problem and then push your car to and beyond its intended limits.. Then you will not like the results..

You make it sound like we were doing enduro racing. We're not. In fact, we're not racing at all. We just go to the track, do a few laps to test suspension components, and come off.

My Honda's been doing just fine, without any "reliability modifications" or "racing modifications", and it's got 115k on the clock.


Granted, the root cause of the failures of our engines is there, regardless of if you do one lap or twenty. Doing less laps just delays the inevitable. Eventually the problem will rear it's ugly head.

[Black Tire]

Originally Posted by Opposed

I actually don't know his purchase date. @Black Tire. I haven't seem him post on here in a while either. Maybe his DI failed??? LOL

My car was purchased on May 31, 2012. It currently has 24,543 miles on it and if it has a DI problem, I have not been able to detect it. I has seen several days at DCTC (short track) and three days of running at BIR. I would not consider this to be a lot of track time. Most of the mileage has been on the highway. Still, at BIR most of the lap would be at WOT. I did not drive it cautiously. I usually run 93 BP, but at the track I had to run 91 BP, usually with Race Gas additive to boost the octane to around 100. I have never detected any knock.

I plan on having the car at Cars and Coffee tomorrow if anyone wants to take a look and discuss the issue.

[Tromatic]

Rental cars are abused beyond belief. I can't imagine how much of a beating a rental race car takes. Missed shifts, serious over revs, all the rest. When cars that are driven hard that have never seen the track start having this problem, then I'll worry. Meanwhile, I'll go for a drive in my awesome little car. The rest of you can come up with more reasons to hate the car and not drive it.

[RIPTRD71]

Originally Posted by Tromatic

Rental cars are abused beyond belief. I can't imagine how much of a beating a rental race car takes. Missed shifts, serious over revs, all the rest. When cars that are driven hard that have never seen the track start having this problem, then I'll worry. Meanwhile, I'll go for a drive in my awesome little car. The rest of you can come up with more reasons to hate the car and not drive it.

[Dezoris]

I have to point this out, we have short memories, if we take the first model year S2000, it had plenty of cylinder melt downs.

All because of oil jet bolts that did not flow enough oil.

It took them two years before they updated them, and most everyone was swapping them into the older models. S2000s also had glass syncros by design early on and plenty of diff issues.

I can't believe I am defending this car, but it's a first model year. Pushing the limits on it has consequences and usually those no one else has discovered yet.

[thill]

Originally Posted by Tromatic

Rental cars are abused beyond belief. I can't imagine how much of a beating a rental race car takes. Missed shifts, serious over revs, all the rest. When cars that are driven hard that have never seen the track start having this problem, then I'll worry. Meanwhile, I'll go for a drive in my awesome little car. The rest of you can come up with more reasons to hate the car and not drive it.

While there is truth to your statement (rent-a-racer cars being abused beyond belief) it still does not instill confidence in the platform when they pulled all of their FT86 cars due to the DI issues. I am not into being an armchair mechanic who pretends he has the answers. We don't know if this DI issue is isolated, or how difficult it is to replicate on the street vs the track. We know it is happening, there are over 20 people on this forum who have reported it. But it seems isolated so far vs the total number of FT86 cars out there. But hey, my engine could seize up at some point and I could be the one fighting with dealers.

I think everyone would agree that Toyota and Subaru really should be investigating this and resolving the issue. But I can also see where this issue is being blown out of proportion. But that tends to happen on car forums. Hell, there are people here pursuing the Lemon Law because their high pressure fuel pump chirps.....

[mla163]

I have actually rented from that same place and ran the Nurburgring in a Scirocco. The shop did not strike me as a place that completely neglected their cars.

Still, I can't imagine a more intense test of a car than to be a high performance rental cars on the Nurburgring. Those cars must have been thoroughly flogged at least once a day.

[SciOnDrifTtSlIdeR]

my car started with the cricket noise at 2200 kms should i worry?