The K-tec clio going up in smoke

[Mike@Rentech]

Hows that bad advertising? things happen on track, rag the hell out of a car and now and again things will go bang. Nothings going to last forever is it!!!

Remeber its French

 

[bradharding24]

If you cant see how an engine blowing up is bad advertising for an engine builder, then i dont recommend a career in advertising.

Sure some people will turn round and say 'hey this sort of thing happens'. These people PM me and i will set up a company making you very fast, unreliable engines. Club discount to you guys 10%.

I certainly wouldnt go back to a company if the engine i paid to be built blew up within a year (expect to get my money back).

 

[KungFuSpaghetti]

If you cant see how an engine blowing up is bad advertising for an engine builder, then i dont recommend a career in advertising.

It's a standard Renault component :S

This is why forums can be a dangerous place. Little knowledge or common sense sadly

 

[Marky_]

Jenson Button's same Mercedes engine has just won three F1 races in a row. Now that is impressive. Reliability and performance. That is the key.

I should think Merc will have blown a few on the dyno before being able to produce that kind of reliability.

 

[JCC]

However you look at it, this is a company product. That product has failed. That will always reflect badly on the company.

I have no axe to grind, but this would make me think twice before getting work done at Ktec. Im sure others would feel the same.

As most people who go to Ktec have road cars, reliability must be very high up on the list of desirables. Its not like Ktec main business is tuning race engines. They tune road cars mainly. In which case this looks bad.

I would be more impressed with a company that supplied me with an engine that lasted 10 years and never went wrong, than one that could 'live way up in the rev range' but only lasted 2 weeks.

Maybe thats just me.

Jenson Button's same Mercedes engine has just won three F1 races in a row. Now that is impressive. Reliability and performance. That is the key.

You cannot possibly compare an F1 engine built from day 1 with the purpose of racing in mind, using millions of pounds worth of technology and computers to iron out any faults, to an engine from a road car designed to be used on the road that's been tweeked and tuned a bit to produce a bit better performance by a few guys in a workshop. I'd bet there were quite a few Mercedes engines that were tested and blown to pieces before the final product was put out on track.

 

[SBV116]

lol!! Some class comments in this thread!

It's mechanical and used hard, it blew up, oh well!!!

I think they did well not to have a big accident on the oil, every one missed everything!

 

[drhowser]

there will always be people who come to a conclusion without checking facts first.

personally, i'd imagine they would make the type of customers who k-tec would not be too upset to not take on.

 

[Tigger]

Holy smoke! The banter's good in here - can see who's for & against K-Tec :S

I would just blame the French lol and if they aren't to blame - sh1t happens!

 

[bradharding24]

It's a standard Renault component :S

This is why forums can be a dangerous place. Little knowledge or common sense sadly

A good tuner would have know when and where to uprate parts so that the engine didnt blow up. If this is ktec 'ultimate clio' and it uses standard parts alongside a sadev gearbox that will rev the engine hard on downchanges, i would question that they know what they are doing.

'These things may just happen' and 'it may be bad luck'. But that doesnt change the fact that i dont want these things to happen to any car i get built and i dont want to rely on luck from a tuning company. I want reliablity and performance.

 

[Ryan k]

A good tuner would have know when and where to uprate parts so that the engine didnt blow up. If this is ktec 'ultimate clio' and it uses standard parts alongside a sadev gearbox that will rev the engine hard on downchanges, i would question that they know what they are doing.

'These things may just happen' and 'it may be bad luck'. But that doesnt change the fact that i dont want these things to happen to any car i get built and i dont want to rely on luck from a tuning company. I want reliablity and performance.

Your only saying this because it happened to a K-tec car. If Renault had done it you wouldn't say a thing. How do you know it didn't have a problem from factory and adding the box made it give up. All parts fail and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Even the strongest and well made parts fail.

 

[Jay Payne]

The race cars ran the sadev box with a standard engine when Renault built them

 

[Matteh]

lol @ stromba kicking off as usual

 

[Russ_16v]

A good tuner would have know when and where to uprate parts so that the engine didnt blow up. If this is ktec 'ultimate clio' and it uses standard parts alongside a sadev gearbox that will rev the engine hard on downchanges, i would question that they know what they are doing.

'These things may just happen' and 'it may be bad luck'. But that doesnt change the fact that i dont want these things to happen to any car i get built and i dont want to rely on luck from a tuning company. I want reliablity and performance.

I can see your point mate, but i think one thing your missing is they didn't build the bottom end, how do we know that the previous owner didn't give the car death, and abuse it? I know what your saying and if they had built the engine then i could see your point, but as the bottom end was untouched i cant see your arguement.

also from another point of view is that you could say if you bought all that kit and fitted it to your road car then it should last. - but lets look at this logically, who is going to go to buy 6k's worth of box? You gotta remember that that engine now has a very short RPM window, and has spent its recent life over 5000 rpm, now as its a rod bolt letting go (and lets be honest if anything breaks engine wise it always is a rod bolt! that is why when people do rebuilds they always use ARP rod bolts) that is not k-tecs fault, an engine used at very high revs constantly will put extra pressure on any part that is weak, all thats happened is this weak rod bolt has failed.

I think if it goes again after k-tec has done it then we can continue this convo lol

 

[-J-]

A good tuner would have know when and where to uprate parts so that the engine didnt blow up. If this is ktec 'ultimate clio' and it uses standard parts alongside a sadev gearbox that will rev the engine hard on downchanges, i would question that they know what they are doing.

'These things may just happen' and 'it may be bad luck'. But that doesnt change the fact that i dont want these things to happen to any car i get built and i dont want to rely on luck from a tuning company. I want reliablity and performance.

All I can say is THANK GOD you dont know what goes on behind the scenes at a Major car manufacturer's :lolup:

 

[sideways danny]

lol @ stromba kicking off as usual

LOL f**king good spot!!!!!! must be bored now he's banned from WC again

 

[Saner]

I think the majority of people are missing the point Brad is making.

If you were to see someone eating Haribo, then start choking and collapse on the floor. Would you not think that based on the little information yoiu have infront of you, its advertising that Haribo caused the problem?

It all depends on how much information people base there opinions. From the responses in this thread most people have decided to wait untill they have more information before reaching them.

I wouldn't be surprised if somebody cut you up whilst driving you blamed the driver of the other car. Yet how do you know they weren't avoiding a possible collision?

 

[sideways danny]

I think the majority of people are missing the point Brad is making.

If you were to see someone eating Haribo, then start choking and collapse on the floor. Would you not think that based on the little information yoiu have infront of you, its advertising that Haribo caused the problem?

It all depends on how much information people base there opinions. From the responses in this thread most people have decided to wait untill they have more information before reaching them.

I wouldn't be surprised if somebody cut you up whilst driving you blamed the driver of the other car. Yet how do you know they weren't avoiding a possible collision?

I think YOU're missing the point that he's the internets largest clio owning troll

 

[Russ_16v]

I think the majority of people are missing the point Brad is making.

If you were to see someone eating Haribo, then start choking and collapse on the floor. Would you not think that based on the little information yoiu have infront of you, its advertising that Haribo caused the problem?

It all depends on how much information people base there opinions. From the responses in this thread most people have decided to wait untill they have more information before reaching them.

I wouldn't be surprised if somebody cut you up whilst driving you blamed the driver of the other car. Yet how do you know they weren't avoiding a possible collision?

can see where your coming from mate, but seeing someone choking on a sweet wouldn't stop me buying them lol

 

[Saner]

lol, so that means everyone disagrees with him whatever?

Why the upper case YOU?

 

[sideways danny]

lol, so that means everyone disagrees with him whatever?

Why the upper case YOU?

no, it means he disagrees with everyone whatsoever lol

just an emphasised retort

 

[Saner]

ahh, fair enough.

Back on topic, hope the car is all sorted for FCS, otherwise GDI will have to fill all the spaces

 

[sideways danny]

Sure we'll have enough between us

 

[Ryan k]

ahh, fair enough.

Back on topic, hope the car is all sorted for FCS, otherwise GDI will have to fill all the spaces

GDI BOOOOO!!!!! :S lmao

 

[OllyTB]

All I can say is THANK GOD you dont know what goes on behind the scenes at a Major car manufacturer's :lolup:

Such as?

I can see a couple of points, if the rod bolt is a vunerable part of the engine there is an argument for uprating it and maybe the base engine is over stretched in the scenario it was being used in. However, from what i gather this was as a result of a problem with the box shifting rather than anything else, hence if you take second instead of fourth in your bog std road car you'l have a similar issue.

 

[shadowsun]

This is crazy - we're all driving around in Clio's with exhausts that fall off, steering wheels that melt and that rattle more than a fat bird the morning after a vindaloo.

*MOST* people's car will never even see a track and thus will never be being pushed as hard as what the KTR Clio is. The entire point of that car is to get down and dirty on the track and to showcase what KTR can do.

If you fiddle and tune an engine as to the limit as they have you should EXPECT problems at some point. By adding extra load you're just making a breakdown more probable.

Verdict - Give them a break!

 

[Ian_182]

LOL. What was the tool in the Corrado doing at the end :S

Drifting on oil i think...

 

[KungFuSpaghetti]

A good tuner would have know when and where to uprate parts so that the engine didnt blow up. If this is ktec 'ultimate clio' and it uses standard parts alongside a sadev gearbox that will rev the engine hard on downchanges, i would question that they know what they are doing.

'These things may just happen' and 'it may be bad luck'. But that doesnt change the fact that i dont want these things to happen to any car i get built and i dont want to rely on luck from a tuning company. I want reliablity and performance.

Unless you have a sadev I wouldn't worry too much. ITB's run on a standard engine without any issues, sound more like driver error which happens.

 

[bradharding24]

If this was a self build car from an amateur enthusiast i would cut them some slack. These things happen, building cars is a learning process. Somtimes you get it right, some times you get it wrong.

However, from a professional tuning company i would expect that learning process to be complete and the products that are for sale as 'kits' to be bullet proof and totally reliable from the first day of off. Lets face it, these products are not 'cheap'. You are paying for the knowledge that these people know what they are doing.

 

[OllyTB]

these people know what they are doing.

Something you clearly don't, you don't know the failure mode, you don't know the history of the car or the exact circumstance it failed under. There is no company in the world that does not have failed products or parts, not even in the aerospace or pharmacutical industries, let alone auto. You have unrealistic expectations and simply sound like a chump!

 

[MarcoB]

Brad how do you know they werent testing for this exact eventuality? Please go on...

 

[Ryan k]

However, from a professional tuning company i would expect that learning process to be complete and the products that are for sale as 'kits' to be bullet proof and totally reliable from the first day of off. Lets face it, these products are not 'cheap'. You are paying for the knowledge that these people know what they are doing.

They hadn't even touched the bottom end it was standard so how is it anything to do with them??

 

[stan*]

Just want to mention, regarding "failure testing" etc...
They werent testing for failures of engine components now were they! Come on!
Common sense after watching the vid tells us there were certain safety implications involved with that sort of failure. To suggest they were trying to induce this ON TRACK is daft.
Aside from simulations, destruction testing is done on a dyno, under controlled environment, where its safe. Not on a track, in the open, putting others at risk.

As has been said, it was down to driver error, likely he mis-judged the shift and bang it down a cog too soon....

 

[bradharding24]

They hadn't even touched the bottom end it was standard so how is it anything to do with them??

Because when they put this 'kit' on your car they wont touch the bottom end either.

Does this really need spelling out for people? These are bolt on 'kits'. They have bolted them onto an engine that could be in any road car. This is what they do for a living. And it has failed. That should raise alarm bells to anyone with any sort of basic common sense.

This is a great illustration of why 'kits' are not good. Bespoke engine built /tuned to an individuals requirements is the only way to go.

 

[bradharding24]

Brad how do you know they werent testing for this exact eventuality? Please go on...

For a start they would get in trouble with the marshals and the track organisers if this was the case as it is very dangerous. Come on dont be silly.

 

[Ali]

PMSL! Typical CS mongo's!

 

[bradharding24]

Something you clearly don't, you don't know the failure mode, you don't know the history of the car or the exact circumstance it failed under. There is no company in the world that does not have failed products or parts, not even in the aerospace or pharmacutical industries, let alone auto. You have unrealistic expectations and simply sound like a chump!

I dont need to know the history of the car with my customer hat on. I see the engine blow up in a ktec car with ktec stickers all over it, and i draw conclusions based on what i see.

 

[172Ben]

You see mouldy bread, does that mean you dont buy that bread anymore? Same sort of analogy could be said for anything. An engine that is pushed that hard all the time, will eventually run its course - Fact.

It doesnt mean that there products are in any way faulty at all.

 

[Spongebob 172]

tbh dont you think you should all hear what ktec have to say before making assumptions...people here are quick enough to **** these companies off when something goes wrong but have you never heard of the saying...dont bite the hand that feeds you..most of you have probably used ktec products and never had a problem,by slagging them off like this it must make them wonder why the hell do we bother with cliosport...we give them good discounts and as soon as something goes tits up we get slagged off and told our products/tuning side is kak

yes we have all seen the clip but it could be a factor of many things simple or not..but to **** someone off without not knowing the full reason and just speculating is rather sad.....

rant over

 

[Ryan k]

Because when they put this 'kit' on your car they wont touch the bottom end either.

Does this really need spelling out for people? These are bolt on 'kits'. They have bolted them onto an engine that could be in any road car. This is what they do for a living. And it has failed. That should raise alarm bells to anyone with any sort of basic common sense.

This is a great illustration of why 'kits' are not good. Bespoke engine built /tuned to an individuals requirements is the only way to go.

The box is not part of the kit.

 

[ct172]

I agree with this guy^^ (spongebob)

You know what they say about assuming.
I say fair play to K-tec they've gone out and given there car some death yeah it did not all work out great but at-least they can improve on what went wrong.