Brad Jones Racing has provided a closer look at the engine which failed in the #8 Camaro at the Bathurst 1000 before it is sent away for a full rebuild.
The engine in the R&J Batteries machine let go in spectacular fashion on Lap 69 of the Great Race with Dale Wood behind the wheel and, once back in the pits, would go no further.
In the Albury-based Supercars team’s latest tech video, Brad Jones himself has revealed that a conrod broke and punched holes in the powerplant.
It will now be sent to KRE Race Engines’ facility in Greater Brisbane for a full rebuild.
“[The engine has] had a serious haemorrhage in the bottom of the engine; it’s broken a conrod,” explained Jones.
“We can’t actually pull the engine apart – it’s sealed up – and besides that, it’s one of KRE’s engines, so it’s not for us to be able to pull apart.
“But if you have a look in here, there’s a hole in the side of the block and there’s another one underneath.
“So, those two holes are caused by the conrod breaking.
“We pulled bits and pieces out of the holes in this engine – or they were laying in the bottom of the car – and that’s the connecting rod.
“It’s been having a pretty hard time in that engine, totally destroyed.
“Hopefully KRE can get this engine back to us before Adelaide and it’ll become our spare. It’ll get a total rebuild, obviously.”
KRE is the exclusive engine supplier for the Chevrolet Camaros in the field, as is Herrod Performance for the Ford Mustangs, under Gen3 rules.
Every Chevrolet ‘LTR’ engine is theoretically identical to any other, and the same with respect to the Coyote-based Mustang units, with lotteries being held during pre-season to determine the allocations for each team.
Powerplants have been a great success story of Gen3, with costs to teams slashed.
Reliability has also been impressive, with just one LTR failing before Bathurst, in a PremiAir Racing entry.
While the root cause of the BJR failure is yet to be revealed, the PremiAir issue can be traced back to the failure of a gear lever tower in Car #23.
That caused an over-rev and the engine was sent off for a minor service, after which it was reinstalled for the Symmons Plains event, where a hose clamp broke.
The Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500 takes place on October 27-29, with the season coming to a close at the Vailo Adelaide 500 on November 23-26.
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