Debate Did the VTT "Spline Lock" Crank hub slip?

[veer90]

Customer car running spline lock spun hub and had to call it quits at a major racing event recently...

How is that possible if the design was so strong it broke your test rig, as claimed in the original post?

 

[Rob09msport]

Customer car running spline lock spun hub and had to call it quits at a major racing event recently...

How is that possible if the design was so strong it broke your test rig, as claimed in the original post?

How much power were they running ? Was it a money shift or something? Either way it shouldn't be able to happen but I'm just curious to circumstances as idk if I should do anything to my car with my turbo upgrade .

 

[kayzrx82]

Customer car running spline lock spun hub and had to call it quits at a major racing event recently...

How is that possible if the design was so strong it broke your test rig, as claimed in the original post?

Definitely would like more info on this.

 

[fmorelli]

Customer car running spline lock spun hub and had to call it quits at a major racing event recently...

Do we have more than a Facebook soundbyte?

Filippo

 

[veer90]

I'm talking to him now, he stated it let go during a burnout. Slipped once the tires hooked up.

They retimed in the pits and car ran fine, but did not want to risk the built engine so they stopped racing. Car is making 800+

 

[Rob09msport]

That is scary now it's like wtf do you do. I wonder if the teeth stripped ,I would think if it was just the teeth biting in that it wouldn't even be noticed the slight offset in timing.

 

[Chris@VargasTurboTech]

Really need to open her up before drawing conclusions, anything can happen in a race environment but if it did slip this would be the first one. We asked Ghassan for photos once he actually opens it and can see.

 

[Panzerfaust]

How much power were they running ? Was it a money shift or something? Either way it shouldn't be able to happen but I'm just curious to circumstances as idk if I should do anything to my car with my turbo upgrade .

It is a little disappointing if the SPLOCK let go, but let's be real here - Ghassan has a full blown RACE car almost entirely custom made for the strip and the fastest N54 out there. Custom subframe with a live axle, full SYVECS, more HP and TQ than anyone else is running. I'll stop run mine because either way you look at it, it will further *reduce* the chances of anything slipping.

Also FWIW even ghassan is willing to take a look and try the SPLOCK again so...

 

[veer90]

It is a little disappointing if the SPLOCK let go, but let's be real here - Ghassan has a full blown RACE car almost entirely custom made for the strip and the fastest N54 out there. Custom subframe with a live axle, full SYVECS, more HP and TQ than anyone else is running. I'll stop run mine because either way you look at it, it will further *reduce* the chances of anything slipping.

Also FWIW even ghassan is willing to take a look and try the SPLOCK again so...

Doesn't matter. Currently facts support that the spline lock failed to perform as advertised. This kind of thinking is why vendors get away with half of the stuff they do on N5x that wouldn't fly on any other platform.

However if VTT fixes it and there's proof of the fix being effective, good on them.

 

[doodlebro]

However if VTT fixes it and there's proof of the fix being effective, good on them.

If they "fix" it then the product never worked as they said it would. It's not good on them if they can't adequately R&D a part without someone else doing the stress testing.

 

[Payam@BMS]

If they "fix" it then the product never worked as they said it would. It's not good on them if they can't adequately R&D a part without someone else doing the stress testing.

Not really, it is what it is. I've seen built motors fail all the time, does that mean whatever was put it in did not work right? Nope, can be human error when installing.
You'll never really know.

 

[Erichale77]

First they (Ghassan) has to be 100% positive the SPLOCK was the cause of failure then, as Payam said, be sure there was no installation error before we talk about "fixing" anything.

 

[fmorelli]

Facts 1000x. Speculation 0.

Filippo

 

[veer90]

First they (Ghassan) has to be 100% positive the SPLOCK was the cause of failure then, as Payam said, be sure there was no installation error before we talk about "fixing" anything.

Here's the thing though. The crank bolt is going to be hard to prove was installed correctly (how does one measure torque then stretch applied to a bolt after it's removed?).

I think there will be a lot of finger pointing and speculation before any conclusions are drawn.

 

[Panzerfaust]

Doesn't matter. Currently facts support that the spline lock failed to perform as advertised. This kind of thinking is why vendors get away with half of the stuff they do on N5x that wouldn't fly on any other platform.

However if VTT fixes it and there's proof of the fix being effective, good on them.

It does matter imo. This is an easy 8 second car. Theres plenty of built LS cars that'll spin the hub or similar at that power level, but no one is going to say LS engines are an inefficient product because of it are they? Ghassan is in a whole different ballpark than the rest of us, and I'm still a firm believer this will prevent the issue for 99% of N54 owners.

 

[Chris@VargasTurboTech]

Here's the thing though. The crank bolt is going to be hard to prove was installed correctly (how does one measure torque then stretch applied to a bolt after it's removed?).

I think there will be a lot of finger-pointing and speculation before any conclusions are drawn.

We are definitely not in the finger pointing business. As stated before... here is where we're at. Ghassan had an issue at the event, and until it's looked at the cause is not known, which means it's currently speculation. I'm not saying it didn't slip. I'm saying we don't know that it slipped, yet.

During development with the spline lock install on our car, we believed we slipped the hub MULTIPLE times at the track on multiple occasions. Every time we got the car back to the shop and did some inspecting, the hub was indeed NOT slipped, and we had discovered other issues that had caused the problem. I'd get a text from Tony... "I think I slipped the hub, WTF" and then a day or two later "Good news, hub didn't spin, bad news, I broke XYZ". We have yet to see a single spline lock slip and have sold well over 150 of them now, I would say prob 50% installed, and our car is running one at over 900WHP.

We will of course work with Ghassan, see what happened, and go from there. We love seeing what he's doing and want him to succeed too! That said, let's also keep it real, we have not once, not twice, but three times driven to events close to 20 hours each way from us only to have something on the car break on the first pass. Welcome to #N54LIFE, or more generally speaking, racing. A race car doing race car things with an N54 at its heart. Issues can and will happen. This will not be the first time they break that car, and I'm pretty sure we're not done breaking ours.

Chris

 

[doublespaces]

"Good news, hub didn't spin, bad news, I broke XYZ".

This is a great segway, do you sell an upgraded XYZ by chance?

 

[GhassanAutomotive]

Everyone, please calm down , this is a full blown "street" race car, racing involves breaking parts and building things better, we are still working with Tony to find out what happened and how to prevent it. No speculations please, all we know is that the hub slipped about 20*, our ATI damper was set TDC with the crank at TDC, after the burn out and the car dying, we pushed the car back to the pit, put piston one at TDC and the damper was not at TDC which was an indication of hub slippage. We do not know why the hub slipped, we will do our best so that VTT and our selves can provide better products to the community as a whole.

 

[SlowE93]

Everyone, please calm down , this is a full blown "street" race car, racing involves breaking parts and building things better, we are still working with Tony to find out what happened and how to prevent it. No speculations please, all we know is that the hub slipped about 20*, our ATI damper was set TDC with the crank at TDC, after the burn out and the car dying, we pushed the car back to the pit, put piston one at TDC and the damper was not at TDC which was an indication of hub slippage. We do not know why the hub slipped, we will do our best so that VTT and our selves can provide better products to the community as a whole.

Thats great and hopefully no engine damage. Still, this product was supposedly tested to extreme scenarios and was not supposed to fail. Its barely been out, tested to the extreme in real world, and it has failed. Yes, hopefully this will be addressed in some way. However, what happens with the people that spent the money for the product plus install (if they were not able to do it themselves), and is proven to NOT do as advertised ?

 

[gmagnus7]

I wonder if the bolt backed out, since the ATI damper is incompatible with the bolt capture kit. Gotta pay to play I guess.