[DLSJ5]

I have been reluctant to post about this earlier as I wanted to give Gintani ample time to look at the engine to try and determine what happened before I posted. We have an idea what caused it but currently the motor has not been broken down to do a full inspection. Given the current drama / speculation on the forums, I felt, along with Gintani, that we should post now and let everyone know that a failure did occur on my car, and then follow up later when we have more solid detailed information. As of now I know of no other Gintani car that has had a failure, but mine.

The engine had been making a slight ticking noise on the passenger side wheel well for about a month before the failure, it sounded like an exhaust leak, but it is difficult to pinpoint noises on this engine. It appeared to have been a bad rod bearing that was causing the noise. Eventually the bearing failed, the rod seized onto the crank shaft, broke and one half came out the side of the block. That is all I currently know for certain, when Gintani tears the motor down they can investigate further to try and pinpoint exactly what it was, then post pictures, and a more accurate detailed analysis. It appears though that the Active Autowerke car that failed, is very similar in nature to this failure.

A few things to point out -

1. I've been running 9psi for over 10K miles on the motor, currently no other kit runs this much boost.
2. When I dynoed the car, and removed the air filter, it hit 11psi, and you can see on the dyno a huge dip up top, which could be detonation.
3. The seals on my 1st blower blew out while doing some spirited driving, eventually the car ran out of oil, this could have damaged the bearing.
4. Other 2008 motors have been torn down and found to have wear on the rod bearings that could have eventually failed as mine did.

The current status is that a long block is on it's way, Gintani is covering the cost of the motor and all labor, which is above and beyond what most companies would do. I am extremely thankful to them for doing so, they have always taken care of me. Right now my plans are that I am going to keep the kit, but most likely will lower the boost, hopefully I will be up and running soon, with more dyno's, video's, vbox data, etc.