Worthless thread #133: What broke on TF&TF '70 Charger?

[bull]

Ok, it's my Friday so I'm up late screwing around. Anyway, so I'm sitting in the lunch room at work today and myself and a coworker are watching the last few minutes of The Fast and the Furious where the Charger and the Mitsu are racing. We're both diesel mechanics (with what now appears to be too much time to contemplate stupid things like this) and my coworker (knowing I'm a Charger fan and owner) asked me what happened to the engine during that race and how it kept running just as good as it did at the beginning. I told him I just thought it was a bunch of Hollywood phony baloney and that if something broke bad enough to cause that much smoke the engine probably would have seized, or at least started running crappy. So anyway, long story short we looked up the scene on youtube and came up with no definitive answer between option A: The bozo Hollywood crew that made this movie just showed us a phony little explosion that had nothing to do with a possible scenario, and option B: The scenario was legit, I am a dork for not seeing the obvious and the car would have kept performing the same despite the enormous cloud of smoke it was creating. So what's on what looks to me like the left side of the block, near the front of the exhaust manifold (why manifolds and not headers on a blown 440?) that would pop, shoot flames and then make the engine start smoking? Did the power steering pump seize? Did the blower belt pop?

Here's the vid if you care to analyze it and respond to this waste-of-time endeavor: http://youtube.com/watch?v=bjo0wugXy-4

Extra credit: It looks like he's shifting (ie. manual transmission) during the race so why is there a wide brake pedal for an auto trans and no clutch pedal?

[Mefirst]

This is the scenario I came up with after watching the short movie... -I was bored ...

Charger launches in 1st Pulls the front wheels up, when the front wheels come down there is a drop in RPM, but he hammers the engine again, then shifts into 2nd and 3rd... So that Hollywood got right.. -Hmm, or maby not, cause right before the engine blows, he pulls on the shifter again, then again if the 727 came with a reverse VB, he might have just checked that he really had 3rd gear in to me it sounds like there is no drop in engine RPM...

The engine threw a rod, looks like it was the # 3 that let go and came through the engine block... There was also a supposed drop in the Oil pressure gauge that they show for a moment... Of that happens at lets say the 1/8mile mark, if your not running a Top Fueler or similar, you would not have great chance in making it to the 1/4 mile finish line... and the engine would not keep up the power like that... Purely Hollywood....

IF that situation was real, here is what I think would have happend seconds after the engine granaded.... The Charger would have spun off the road.. Reason is that most of the engine oil would have poured out from the hole in the granaded engine block, then the rear wheels (slicks) would have rolled over and become covered in oil, loosing grip a fraction of a second later and then spinning...

My

[Charger_Fan]

I'm going with "A".

[bull]

Yea, I told my coworker that if something broke bad enough to cause that much fire and smoke it would not keep running good enough to stay even with a beefed up ricer on nitrous. According to the scene it looked like he windowed the block.

[1BAD68]

actually it looks to me like its an automatic and he's ratchet shifting, also if you watch closely the oil pressure doesn't drop, it goes up right before the explosion, and you can see the explosion right below the headers but above the block.
I think the head gasket leaked coolant into the cylinder which increased compression enough to blow past the rings and cause the oil pressure guage to jump right before the excessive compression blew the side ofe the head apart. All the smoke was coolant, so the car would have been able to stay on the road. So other than just losing one cylinder, he would've been able to keep going. It looks like he mashed the pedal and downshifted before the RR crossing to make up for the loss in power.

[1BAD68]

shifter...

[Ponch ®]

I'm actually diggin' this thread, so it can't be all that worthless. It's like the Charger version of "Forensic Files' or "Seconds from Disaster".

[Mopar440+6]

The Hurst style shifter obviously gives away the fact that the car is (supposed to be) an auto with a manual VB. There were WAAAY too many shifts if that car is supposed to have a 727. I counted four where a 727 would only have two (1-2 and 2-3).

First, when he leaves the line. The tires wrinkle and smoke, then keep smoking while holding the nose in the air. NO. Those are street slicks. There are two options, the car hooks, wrinkles the tires and pulls the nose OR the tires smoke and you sit there for half an hour.

Second, the motor throws a leg out of bed. If you watch the explosion closely they show the "rod" moving in and out of the block. Had the engine grenaded as shown the car would have stopped darn near immediately or it would have dumped all the oil onto the tires and Vinnie boy would have gone flying into the ditch.

I called bullsh*t on all this the first time I watched the movie. Movies will never get anything right. I hate hollyweird...

[Mefirst]

This is what the block would have looked like... This is Moparts member Al Alguires granaded block....




EDIT: Another thing. The shifter is a ratchet shifter, but if he pulled on it a 4th time (3rd time in the real world) it would have shifted the trans into Neutral, atleast thats how my Hurst shifter works. The one in the movie car is a B&M Mega Shifter and if my memory serves me right, it works with the same principal as my Hurst shifter....

/Tom

[bull]

I'm actually diggin' this thread, so it can't be all that worthless. It's like the Charger version of "Forensic Files' or "Seconds from Disaster".

Yea, CSI Charger.

I will credit them with one thing, the engine does sound like a big block Mopar at high rev so I happen to think they used real audio during the race.

[Mike DC]

   
I've seen some footage of the raw stunt when the Charger was flipped and a few minutes of the aftermath.  The 1st-unit crew and the principal actors were nowhere in sight. 

It had to be a smoke bomb they added under the hood when Vinne was shown climbing out of the wreck later.