Just out of interest, what caused the belt snap?

Bloody hell Alexis. Totally gutted for you.

Whatever you decide, let me know if want a hand taking bits off for repair or to flig. Happy to help you do both with the spanners

Gees, belts can be such bad news

Gutted for you mate It'd be a real shame to break it, it's such a great car. Even with a more basic engine setup installed, it'll be quicker round a track than all but a few coops out there... Give it some time and thought.

You seen this begbie?

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=251794440766

Be aware that this is a Kappa 16vt engine with lots missing so not a direct replacement for the Coupe 16vt with out some fettling.

My heart sank reading this Alexis

Take the time to clear your head, if you can tuck the car away whilst you decide.

Heart breaking news to hear for any owner. Just to confirm what model is your Coupe?

Reason I ask, along with collecting coupes over the years i've also collected engines, although to date never required, I may be able to help.

What damage exactly has this caused? I can't see anything in the above text. Surely you need a ball park figure for a repair in your head before you can even begin to ask if it's worth the spend...

At a guess:

- 16 bent valves (expensive ones too for a fully forged Guy Croft Engine)
- Damaged valve inserts x 16 (from bentness): requires recut or new inserts (copper beryllium ones on exhaust?)
- Damaged piston tops (new pistons would be £1k plus)
- Shock to the crank so maybe new big ends & main bearings
- Damage to head meaning it might just be scrap (after all the headwork = )
- Upper head damage, cams could be ok, valve guides could be ok, springs, collets, reshim?

All on top of removal, refitting, plus a new cambelt kit and headgasket set/seals. And maybe some mapping to check the new set up is the same as before.

This doesn't strike me as likely to have lunched the engine as above, Nobby. Mine let go at the redline and, although I needed 20 new valves (needing a new head because it was cheaper that way), everything else was good to go afterwards.

That said, I'm not sure how the 16v engine deals with this type of thing.

16s lunch the engine, top and bottom. The bottom damage is not immediately obvious, but bites you in the backside at some future inconvenient moment.

As you may have noticed I've been a bit absent of late on here, because, well, I honestly didn't know what I was going to do, but thank you to everyone that shown support in some way or another.

They say bad luck comes in 3's, well in my case it's been 5. First of, cambelt losing its teeth, then had a low speed bump in the Clio which ended up costing £140, then AutoGlass filled in a chip, which caused the screen to crack and cause a circular crack taking up 2/3rds of the screen, Halfords autocentre dicked me about by sending me wrong tyres, then to top it off, the garage got broken into and my Halfords toolkit and Clark trolley jack got stolen.

In more positive news the Clio is going and we've just taken delivery of a Nissan Juke Nismo RS as of yesterday, so a new car with lots of toys and 215bhp

Today, I spent the day up at Torque Automotive changing the cambelt to do a compression test and see what the damage is. Well, results are:

Cylinder 1 - 10 bar
Cylinder 2 - 10 bar
Cylinder 3 - 10 bar
Cylinder 4 - 5 bar

Bugger, at least it's damage limitation in some respect. The head wasn't taken off, need to speak to Mr Croft first to see what to do next, but at least I know the bill won't be that bad.

I had a look through the data logs and yep, the belt went whilst at idle, so it could have been a lot worse. As for the state of the belt, well, there are 2 sections of the belt where it is missing a whole bunch of teeth and the rest of the teeth on the belt are all split along the main edge, that's every single one! Mr Croft is going to send the belt to Gates for analysis as the belt was only on the car for 20 months or so.

Good to hear it's not as bad as you probably thought but on the flip bright side maybe a few little mods as it goes back together again

Hope to see it back on the road soon begbie

Are Gates belts rated for a 400+ hp coupe then Alexis?

Please correct me but surely Gates wont even entertain any responsabilty of bad belt manafacturing.

Glad all is not as bad as thought before. I hope to see it again someday.

Hi Beggars, i hope you and Becky are well? Can i just ask, have you got any cam-belt protection in place at all such as JBT's or Flea's devices?

Best thing to do is wait a few weeks then decide.

Most of us have considered beating the cars with a stick at some point.
Fiat are doing cracking deals on new cylinder heads at the moment for the 16vt so might be worth considering.

In terms of Bhp rating for belts,I can't see why that would cause an issue unless your running ridiculously high compression.

So fiat still sell the 16vt heads ??

They were available last year yes.

So, bringing this back up and it seems lady luck (to a certain degree) has been nice to me after a couple of crap months.

Head was taken off last weekend and dropped off with GC. In under an hour GC had already most of the head stripped down, grinding and doing some leak testing which seems to provide some comfort, but the email confirmation from himself yesterday evening was just what I wanted to hear:

That's excellent news Alexis.

Jammy bar steward!

Nice one, pleased for you!

You did bloody well there, Alexis - thirteen bent valves when mine went!

You're telling me, I didn't fancy spending £80+ for 1 exhaust valves, let alone 8 of them

That's excellent news Alexis

So your name is going back on the Spa list then

Fab news! Happy for you.

Just read this, excellent news.

I think your coupe dosen't want to go back to coupe hospital.

Glad it went this way

Great News, that must have put a smile on your face

Excellent news Alexis!