The rest of the story

This is a post I made on miata.net. I felt some insinuations brewing and they needed to be answered before they were asked.

Before there are any insinuations made, here is my history w CW.
After having paid full price, I think I was the second person to have the CW on my car and I was the first from the general public to write a review. If you go back and look I was glowing about the hardware, and not too enamored with the tuning and critical of the support. I also pointed out that the instructions were error laden. This prompted CW to contact me off board and we discussed what issues I had and how to correct them. CW asked me if I would supply them w my revisions to the instructions, and I was glad to do it. They gave me nothing but a thank you. I felt that the effort I made in this would make its way to the next guy buying a SC and that guy would avoid the frustration I had w bad instructions. Good Karma was my only reward.

Right out of the box I had major detonation w the supplied tune, and I posted on what I did to correct it. I was the very first to make these MAF xfer adjustments and it fixed my car, this was while Brian was in Italy, and he contacted me off board to get the low down on what was needed as he had been experiencing detonation as well, which he posted about as well. As I understand it, this led to a revised tune being sent to those who had full exhaust and subsequently ordered a CW SC. Good Karma again.

Once my car was running right, I made a couple videos, like I have done for most mods on my car. The versus video now has nearly 20000 views and is featured on Cosworths home page and somebody selling CW SCs on eBay is using it as a prominent selling tool. I have never been thanked by anyone who may gain from it's use, but the karma is still there.

As more SCs were sold and guys were posting about the trouble they were having w the install, I realized that CW had not assimilated my revisions into their manual, and thus I started sending my marked up version to all that requested them. I also contacted CW off board and asked them to correct their instructions, as I had gone through the effort to supply them w revisions. I also informed them that I was suppling their customers w corrected editions. They said that they would get the issue corrected and thanked me. Again all I received was good karma.

I'll admit, I have been a voluntary cheerleader for this particular mod. It deserves it. Others mods I have panned. Search and see what I have said about the MS CAI. I do feel an obligation to be damned sure I am right about a negative review though. There have been a few parts that after data logging, db metering, or weighing just didn't live up to the claims. but after discussing my findings with the manufacturer I concluded that my testing methods could leave some room for error, and thus I am not going to be responsible for hurting a guys business. As a guy in business for myself I am very wary of negatively affecting a business that I am not certain deserves it.
So with that frame of mind when my engine blew in mid to late May, I did not run to the forum to start a panic. I first contacted Sniper and asked them to look over the tune I was running, and I sent them both the tune from the car and from my laptop. I also pulled the plugs and sent a pic. Pat said everything looked ok. This all took a few days.

I then contacted CW. After suppling them w the available info, whereby they told me what I already knew, I had to get the motor apart and see what happened. It took me a while to get it done (if you think putting the SC on the car was a pain, that ain't nuttin compared to pulling the motor out) but eventually I got it apart and discovered that my #4 piston had broken a ring land. I spoke w CW about this and supplied some pics, where they postulated with some certainty that it was detonation that caused the destruction, but they wanted to inspect the rods and pistons. So I sent them out, at my cost.

By this time CW had sent out their letter telling everyone to park their cars. You know the reaction everyone had at that, and you know that some people chose to quietly ignore their direction. Had I not already been "forced" to park my car, no way would I have. Brian continued to race, most other went on w life as usual. I called around frequently to see if there had been any other reports of failure, and except for the ones in Europe (likely too much boost) and a guy in Japan (CW didn't even know about this guy, and with the language barrier evidently it has been difficult to ascertain the cause) there had been none definitively detonation related.

Had CW not issued their extreme direction, I would have posted and given warning of a possible issue. However when a manufacturer, and Cosworth no less, pulls their product from the shelves costing them $xxxxxx and tells you don't drive your car and that they are working on a fix that will cost them $xxxxxx, how much more convincing do you need???

After what seemed like too long, my pistons and rods arrived at CW and were inspected with no other damage found. The rods were not damaged and showed no sign distress as had occured w the Euro cars. I was still the lone case of detonation related failure. CW assured me that they had a fix in the works though never commited to the Sniper being the issue though they did say that they were working with ECUTek in Europe already.

After conversation w other CW SC owners off board I discovered that another owner had experienced some random detonation, though not to the point of failure. This led me to conclude that the ECU, or more accurately the Sniper tune was not consistently keeping the engine parameters in check. I recalled that when I had had my car on the dyno I would get very different AFR readings with the same tune on different runs. I then became certain that the Sniper was the issue. However w 35+ ECU editions perhaps only certain cars will have the problem, as there has been no other failures nor reports of det.

I am now certain that for my car the Sniper doesn't hold the tune stably. I dread the thought of going back to their convoluted software with fuel tables that don't display correctly and user controls that are clumsy at best. I will have little confidence if the fix CW proposes is a Sniper update, now new and improved. That said, I don't know and can't be sure if your ECU holds a tune stably given the apparent plethora of ECU editions. If we were talking about a bypass valve on the supercharger itself that was an issue, and is common to all CW'd cars it'd be a different story.

I have not yet been told what the remedy to this issue will be, and through the entire last week I attemted to call Ken@CW and never got an answer. I am not worried that the issue will be resolved, but I am waiting eagerly with a disassembled car and engine.

So here I am, the lone case of catastrophic engine failure due to detonation. My car has been a celebrity of sorts in the community. My videos and stories probably put food on the table for some, and my publicly jumping to a conclusion w/o all the facts could cause unnecessary panic or hardship . I do feel that Cosworth is taking the necessary action and has issued the appropriate warnings, they are on the case.

More info on my blown engine

The car has 20k miles on it and I have less than 2000 miles with the SC install.

I hadn't had knock since fall of last year when I first got the SC on and was working out the tune. I also have not hit the revlimiter like in my video since then. In my video I hit it plenty as I had not gotten used to the extremely fast reving of the newly moded engine.

I also always run the highest octane fuel I can get, which is usually 93.

one other thing, the rods have been checked and are fine.

Where is your engine soldier? Blowd up sir!

Well she blew. Funny thing is she went at under 25% throttle, on a cool down lap. Here is a recap: The car is running great, has been running great for the last several sessions, the AFR is reading mid 11s and then all of a sudden there is some detonation. I let off the throttle and baby it for 10 secs or so, checking the gauges, everthing seems fine so I get back at it though easier on the car. I shift at 6k or so, plenty of power, no detonation. Must have been a fluke. I go another session, still going strong, I shift at 65oo, no det, maybe I imagined the det earlier. My 20min session is up, car is going strong, AFR is good, eng temp is about 200, charge air temps are in the 90s under boost. It's all OK.

I'm into my last session of the night, the brakes are toast, these Maruha pads can't take the supercharger speeds. I'm down to the metal on the front pads. I decide to make this a cool down lap, no brakes. I come around a corner at maybe 30mph and ease into the throttle when BRRRRRRP, gargle, smoke. Awww hell.

It's the next morning, my pillow is soaked w tears. I call Pat at Sniper and send him my tune. He says "looks good". I send him my dyno sheet (the one posted earlier). He says" looks rich". I send him pics of my plugs. He says "looks great except that one oil fouled plug".

Cosworth is aware of the issue, and working on a remedy. My own theory is that the tune doesn't have sufficient and reliable control of the ECU and caused the car to go lean, causing detonation.

stay tuned.............