Two years and 2800 laps later...

[GiannisRob]

Αντιγράφω από το www.rent4ring.de

22.08.2011

I remember reading somewhere that BMW reckon it only takes 1000 laps of the Nürburgring with a professional driver to turn a brand-new car into one only fit for the scrapheap. One lap of the notorious Nordschleife being equivalent to 200kms of spirited normal road driving.



So let me introduce the Suzuki Swift Sport known as 'YY' (pron. why-why). 'YY' arrived from the Suzuki dealers in April 2009 with just 150km on its digital display, and has served as a nurburgring rental car with Rent4Ring until yesterday. That's a little over two years of able and willing service. And thanks to Fredy's extensive (some may say a little too extensive) record keeping, we can share with you just what it takes to keep a car like this lapping the Nürburgring in Ring Taxi rivalling laptimes for over 2800 laps...


First off, let's look at what 'YY' achieved during it's 3 season tenure at the Nürburgring Nordschleife:

59000kms on the Nürburgring Nordschleife, or a little over 2800 laps.
Gave 457 different drivers their Nürburgring kicks. Some were fast, some were slow. Some were nice to the car, a few were frankly awful!
Peak engine speed of 8761rpm (you know who you are!)
Still making 133bhp on the dyno
600 hours of racetrack driving - that's around 25 normal 24-hour races!
180 million engine revolutions
168 thousand gear changes, some were nice, a lot were not!
What did it use, burn or break?

Sorry Greenpeace, but it burnt 8400ltrs of 98RON super plus gas, at an average of 14ltrs/100km or about 20mpg!
It used 55 litres of top-grade fully-synthetic Motul motor oil, and two changes of gearbox oil
27 front brake pads, 10 rears
52 super-sticky Toyo 888 tyres, and one set of four Goodyear Eagle F1 tyres.
One replacement clutch (stock Suzuki)
Three complete brake fluid flushes
One wheel bearing (front left)
One new alternator and one new battery
One set of wipers
Amazingly the car was never mechanically broken by a driver and was never crashed, one of the few cars on the whole fleet to escape either mishap. In fact, it still drives like new... Onboard video from YY with a customer this summer!

So what next for the 'YY'?

You could be forgiven for thinking this car must surely be ready for the scrapheap, as per BMW's guidelines. Nothing could be further from the truth! The little Swift is as eager and as fun to drive as the first day it got here! It really is a testament to the Suzuki's stunning build quality (and also Rent4Ring's servicing and modifications) that the car is in such great condition. In fact the car has just been bought by a Rent4Ring customer, who will now enjoy his own Rent4Ring Swift both at the Nürburgring and other tracks and events around Europe.

Goodbye YY, and see you here again soon!

10.04.2012

It finally happened. After 600,000kms of hard use on the Nordschleife, one of our Suzuki engines failed and died a 'natural' death. Or did it?

Our customer phoned us to say the car had a nasty knocking noise. We happily sent the chap out a replacement Swift and brought the sick car back to the garage.

The engine was still running, but very poorly. So we thought we'd take it apart to find out more...

In the first photo you can see the end of the crankshaft being held in position. In the second photo you can see what happens when we move the hand away!





Yes, that's utterly cracked, all the way through. It's amazing that the engine was still running!

So what caused the failure? We need to look closely at the history of this motor....

This engine had approximately 27,000kms of hard-use in 'Q', a Stage 2 Swift. But truth-be-told, we'd already swapped Q's motor after another customer revved the original engine to a number more normally associated with Suzuki GSX-Rs...



This now-broken engine first ran in the black Suzuki Swift that Gaute, from Pro vs. Joe, threw into the guardrails a few years ago. While Gaute's accident left the chassis heavily damaged from every single angle, the engine was still good. Over 40,000kms on the Nürburgring Nordschleife. Good compression, good power, smooth as silk. So we put it on a shelf marked 'SPARE'.

When the time came, and Q was shifted into second gear instead of fourth, this spare motor lived again and completed the 27,000kms we mentioned above.

So total lifespan of the engine? About 70,000kms on the Nordschleife. Or 3000 laps. If you consider the average number of laps on a rental is about 5 per customer, then it was probably driven by about 600 different customers! A great run, we think you'll agree.

But that doesn't explain the failure...

Maybe this does.



Maybe this does. Those two crescent marks on the piston are from the valves. The silver sections at the top and both sides are where the piston has been forced into contact with the cylinder head.

This is also a clear sign of some serious over-revving.

On rare occasions the dataloggers we use have malfunctioned. Sometimes they were fitted incorrectly, sometimes they were 'accidentally' removed.

So at some point in those 3300 laps (fairly recently, we think) there was a nasty mis-shift, and our datalogger didn't work. And the driver chose to keep his mouth shut.

But with over half-a-million KMs driven between total engine failures, we're not going to complain too loudly. The Swift has one hell of a fun and reliable engine!

Έχω εντυπωσιαστεί από το Suzuk-άκι!

[ghost-rider]

M13, M16, M18... Mε vvt η χωρις... Απιστευτα μοτερακια!!

Αυτο πρεπει να ειναι το Μ16Α vvt του sport, ε?

[GiannisRob]

Ω, ναι!