RB20det in a S13.

Guy was driving in 3rd gear, and the clutch dropped to the floor. As he passed through an intersection to pull over, he heard a massive explosion under the car. Bit of transmission flew all over the place.

The police responded to a call from a woman 100 yards away in a Ford SUV who had a chunk of metal fly off the pavement under the S13 bounce into the air, fly 100 yards and hit her hood and windshield... shattering the windshield and injuring her head.

Here's the aftermath of the tranny.

Outside of some C4 explosives, does anyone have any ideas on what would have caused this carnage?

Note, if anyone needs a used RB20 transmission, this one is for sale. It includes custom lightweight bellhousing mods!

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I doubt the tranny would torque enough to shatter the bell housing since the mount and the shifter both prevent extreme movements in those directions. Since any movement the engine mounts would allow that degree of movement.

Gear box locking up would most likely snap the input shaft or break internal gear box parts.

My guess is that during the install there was some trama to the housing either it was dropped and had a crack or came with damage like that.

Few questions, did the engine have a Flex Plate between the bellhousing the engine block?

I don't recall if the RB20 uses the block to bottom of the bellhousing brackets to stabalize the bell housing like the RB25's?

Was there enough room for the bell housing to torque without hitting the firewall and such?

I don't think that a harmonic problem would cause this, would probably damage input shaft bearing and such.

Damn

Where those fingers that are providing 2400lbs of force release causing a similar assplosion as C4?

Did it shatter and fly through the bellhousing???
Or is that that Pressure plate all torn to pieces in the pics?
I know Drag cars have scatter shields for that.

Your boy is lucky his car isn't FWD......
He needs to call up the clutch manufacturer!!!

Perhaps the spacer was undamaged and reused to get the car back on the road?

No asshatery was employed in the making of this carnage. Apparently the guy and his girlfriend were just driving down the road... no racing, or screwing around.

Happened to a guy on Hybridz, his bolts kept backing themselves off and it blew apart.

Scary $hit.

Evan

+1

I don't think the bellhousing/tranny is at fault... aluminum is more a ductile metal than iron... which iron is notoreous for cracking/fracturing...which completely shatter.. aluminum do crack.. but they can self heal as in stop the crack from growing bigger.

So I vote flywheel failure.

I wonder if it was shaved to be lightened and if they might have done a shoddy job of that? I'll ask the owner about it too see what he has to say.

Thanks for all the input guys.. it will be very helpful for him.

I've seen things like this back when I was into musclecars, but damn.

Makes me want to weld some steel plates to the floor of the 'vert!

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fo realz! If you read on the clutch boxes some say "failure of this device may cause injury or death" along those lines. At least i know the Exedy twin plates do.

I've had to help investigate one of these failures before on a mitsubishi eclipse friend of mine. His failure was similar, causing great big holes in the hood, firewall, and the pavement. After gathering all his shrapnel and examining each piece, he was thinking his Fidanza flywheel failed. I took a look at the pieces and noticed the Spec pressure plate was stretched more to one side. Almost all the bolts on the flywheel that hold the pressure plate snapped at the thread EXCEPT one. That bolt was found on the ground where the explosion happened. The neighboring bolt to the missing one was stretched outwards, indicating it failed under centrifugal stress due to handling all the load of that section of pressure plate. If the flywheel had failed first, the bolt would have been stretched towards the middle of the flywheel instead.

Best lesson to be learned is, use Loctite, grab the FSM for toque specs, and use a decent torque wrench. Sometimes it can be life or death when a flywheel explodes.

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Shocker are those more pics of the same guys car???

I think the flywheel was damaged prior to installation.
Or extremely Lightened....
That's why I have an Aluminum Flywheel.
My flywheel weighs 11lbs.

I used Locktite on my flywheel bolts.

Yeah RB20's have those 2 brackets that connect the Block and the Trans.

I'd go with kevlar... good reason why the military uses it.

we need scatter plates under the car. LOL

i hope that woman doesn't sue

"The bitterness of poor quality remains after the sweetness of low price is forgotten"

Different car, pics were posted on supraforums maybe 8 months ago. Not entirely sure reason for failure. My guess was misshifted (3rd to 2nd) with a cracked/badly imbalanced flywheel, or loose flywheel bolts and a similar scenario.

Scary for sure, and could have definitively killed/****ed his legs.

I considered this. http://store.summitracing.com/...w=sku

lol..... Look how that thing separated, my bet goes to the flying wheel of doom.

my garage Project= 383 sbc + booooooooost

Quote, originally posted by matafied »

i hear SSAC is going to be making light weight flywheels for rb's, Who wants in on a group buy??

I'll take a baker's dozen!

RB20 T04E

I actually am the one in possesion of this transmission, those pics were actually taken at my shop lol. Gear box is still good, no shaft play at all.

FS: RB20DET Part out
http://forums.nicoclub.com/zer...d=227

Oh and btw he bought another XTD clutch

So what failed? the pressure plate bolts not being tight? Or the plate came apart itself internally?

Quote, originally posted by nissans13240sx »

Oh and btw he bought another XTD clutch

I guess some people just need to catch on fire or cut their feet off before manning up to buy a real clutch...

Did i win?

And i thought he wasn't *** hat driving? 8k RPM isn't a walk in the mall.