What's Wrong With This Picture?

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

In this vivid demonstration of how steel differs from aluminum, we see how a junkyard-turbocharged Mitsubishi V6 eats one of its own pistons.

This Dodge Shadow, which won the coveted Index of Effluency trophy at the ’09 Goin’ For Broken 24 Hours of LeMons race, showed up to the Buttonwillow event with a hooptily installed remote-turbocharger setup (complete with intercooler in the passenger-seat area) force-feeding its Mitsu V6. It worked just fine… for several hours.

Hey, what’s that terrible noise? Better come in for a pit stop!

When the team got the head off, they discovered that the #6 piston was just gone. The rod and wrist pin were still there, but the aluminum piston got vaporized. Hey, maybe it ran a little lean?

The only remnants were some tiny metal particles on the other pistons. Yes, racers, ghettocharging your engine can result in unpleasantness when your kludged fuel-delivery system doesn’t work exactly right.





Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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  • Gardiner Westbound Gardiner Westbound on Dec 23, 2010

    Not enough Slick 50!

  • Itsgotvtakyo Itsgotvtakyo on Dec 25, 2010

    Ahhh, the ghettocharge. I have fond memories of my first. Exhaust manifold gasket made from the cardboard back of a three subject notebook, junkyard mitsu turbo with more shaft play than I had as a hormonal teenager at the time and only the vaguest understanding of air/fuel ratio and the role it would play in keeping the engine's insides inside. Car was fast until it puked it's guts all over the street... a 1/2 mile away from my house. A necessary sacrifice though, car was in desperate need of an engine with two bump sticks.

  • ToolGuy This might be a good option for my spouse when it becomes available -- thought about reserving one but the $500 deposit is a little too serious. Oh sorry, that was the Volvo EX30, not the Mustang. Is Volvo part of Ford? Is the Mustang an EV? I'm so confused.
  • Mikey My late wife loved Mustangs ..We alway rented one while travelling . GM blood vetoed me purchasing one . 3 years after retirement bought an 08 rag top, followed by a 15 EB Hard top, In 18 i bought a low low mileage 05 GT rag with a stick.. The car had not been properly stored. That led to rodent issues !! Electrical nightmare. Lots of bucks !! The stick wasn't kind to my aging knees.. The 05 went to a long term dedicated Mustang guy. He loves it .. Today my garage tenant is a sweet 19 Camaro RS rag 6yl Auto. I just might take it out of hibernation this weekend. The Mustang will always hold a place in my heart.. Kudos to Ford for keeping it alive . I refuse to refer to the fake one by that storied name .
  • Ajla On the Mach-E, I still don't like it but my understanding is that it helps allow Ford to continue offering a V8 in the Mustang and F-150. Considering Dodge and Ram jumped off a cliff into 6-cylinder land there's probably some credibility to that story.
  • Ajla If I was Ford I would just troll Stellantis at all times.
  • Ronin It's one thing to stay tried and true to loyal past customers; you'll ensure a stream of revenue from your installed base- maybe every several years or so.It's another to attract net-new customers, who are dazzled by so many other attractive offerings that have more cargo capacity than that high-floored 4-Runner bed, and are not so scrunched in scrunchy front seats.Like with the FJ Cruiser: don't bother to update it, thereby saving money while explaining customers like it that way, all the way into oblivion. Not recognizing some customers like to actually have right rear visibility in their SUVs.
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