catastrophic failure of Evolve CSL Airbox

[eggman51]

About 12 months ago I had an Evolve CSL Airbox installed professionally. Recently and very suddenly the car began to exhibit very strange low RPM performance issues.

Suspecting a Vanos solenoid failure, I took the car to my mechanic and this is what he found:

20201001_145612 by Eamonn Glass, on Flickr

20201001_145814 by Eamonn Glass, on Flickr

20201001_145652 by Eamonn Glass, on Flickr

20201001_145713 by Eamonn Glass, on Flickr

ACK!

I am not sure if the engine suffered damage. One cylinder is showing significantly lower compression than others. More investigation needed to determine.

Quite demoralizing this kind of failure, as this could be very costly to repair, and I don't see how I could be at fault here.

I have sent Evolve Automotive an email.

I am considering:
- buying a used VAC Motorsports CSL Airbox
OR
- waiting for a new v2 Turner Motorsports airbox to come available
OR
- seeing what Evolve offers, if anything, for a replacement

Does anyone have experience with the VAC Motorsports CSL Airbox?

Cheers,
Eamonn aka eggman

[AriuSen]

Geez.
Sorry to see that man. That is terrible and scary!!

Hope evolve treats you well

[No_Dominion_2]

Hooooooly crap, that's horrible... Hopefully they are willing to help you out, considering it looks like the box just self-destructed. They've been making these for a good number of years now, and I can't recall ever hearing of someone have any sort of issue like this. Bad luck, blah.

[racerbruce]

Oh eggman!
This is terrible.

Hopeful the significantly lower compression in one cylinder is not related to the airbox catastrophic failure; if it is, this will be an incredibly expensive repair and am hopeful if the cylinder in question ingested CF, it did not score the cylinder wall.

Hate to go there, but if CF was ingested, this may have damaged some or all of the remaining cylinders.

Our hearts go out to you and we will watch for your updates.


Regards
Racerbruce

[David70]

I agree, hopefully no engine damage. The airbox would be the least of my concerns, it's a pretty simple replacement compared to worst case.

[wdb]

That is indeed catastrophic! I think my first priority would be engine health. Another intake will not be worth much with only 5 good cylinders.

PLEASE keep us updated. I have one of these intakes (+ tune) on my bucket list for the car.

[RossBMWZseries]

Oh damn this sucks, sorry to hear. Evolve airbox, being one of the nicest and priciest air boxes in the market... makes me wonder if my Turner airbox will turn out the same

[rockstar93]

Under what conditions did you first start seeing/feeling the performance issues?

I had a similar - but not nearly as bad - experience with my Streamline CSL airbox where the epoxy completely gave during high temperature track driving. Thankfully I was tipped off because the line to the brake booster gave first, causing a leak and subsequent cutting of power to the engine. It's a good thing I stopped when I did because the engine almost ingested one of the fittings.

I documented that all in this thread:
https://www.zpost.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1647439

Streamline has been really good to me and a new box is on its way to me with a fix (higher temp epoxy and fittings that are also screwed/clamped together as a redundancy).

Interestingly enough, I have heard of the new Turner boxes exhibited the same thing with the epoxy failing and pieces coming apart. They've been in the midst of correcting and resending boxes to their early adopters.

Strange to see it from Evolve though, who are one of the oldest and most tried boxes on the market. I do hope everything is sorted with your engine though, certainly a huge concern though. Keep us all posted.

[Dav3]

As others have asked, I would also like to know under what conditions the airbox broke?

[Vanne]

holy shit!!! *just saw this now*

wow, thats definitively worrying. Very interested to hear how Evolve handle this.
How much loss did the leak test show? the box is neither here nor there, if the cylinder sleeve is rooted, youll be up for an oversize which means engine pull.

Please do keep us in the loop mate, very very interested in how this develops. I am also curious as to the cause. Its possible that due to the heat that the epoxy has given way, but i havent heard of that before.. also worrying ios what is that rock of stuff in your hand? is that part of the /glue/ they used to cement the support beam in place cos that sure as shit isnt epoxy..

as a side note, as i am looking at your pics, that acyually looks like complete shit how they have ...cemented... the intake funnels into the box. my Karbionius one had them epoxied into the box. Looks very messy that cement that they have used..

My grey ebay box has them epoxied better than that.

I also have to ask, how hot did it get? how many laps (minuted where you on it when you discovered this?) I run a lot of laps , never seen this before..

As a lesson to us all, please check your airbox.

[1stw0rldpr0blems]

so what became of this? Is evolve sending a replacement or helping repair the motor or.....?

[eggman51]

It's been a bit of a crazy experience with this... hopefully it is coming to an end and I'll post a follow up soon.

[racerbruce]

Originally Posted by eggman51

It's been a bit of a crazy experience with this... hopefully it is coming to an end and I'll post a follow up soon.

Eggman!
Oh no - no resolution as of yet. Really hoping this is resolved in your best interests

[Westersund]

Yikes! Sorry to hear. Hopefully it will be resolved.

[racerbruce]

Greetings from Seattle -
Eggman - checking in and hoping this is closer to resolution....in your best interests, of course.

[Vanne]

Standing by for updates.. hope you got this sorted bud.

[0-60Motorsports]

Wow...

[Beedub]

ready for updates

[eggman51]

Yeh hehe I am terribly slow with this

I plan to make a blog post about it, but as a quick summary, after about 3 months I got it all sorted =|

[rockstar93]

Any update on how this was resolved? Just read of the same thing happening to an Evolve plenum for the S65, immediately thought of your situation.

[racerbruce]

Originally Posted by eggman51

Yeh hehe I am terribly slow with this

I plan to make a blog post about it, but as a quick summary, after about 3 months I got it all sorted =|

Greetings eggman -
We're all waiting to hear the outcome; did it cause internal damage?

[wss4]

I will also post a word of caution on Evolve/Eventuri. I purchased one of the S65 airboxes some time back, copied below is my initial email to their customer service. It took ~5 months to get returned and receive a refund.




I recently purchased an Eventuri plenum for the S65 through Vivid Racing. I am not able to get the plenum to fit properly. The rubber boots will not seat properly on the aluminum rings, and the plenum rings are visibly too wide for the engine.

Inspection with calipers yielded the following averages:

OEM plenum:

Ring ID = 52.0mm
Ring OD = 69.3mm
Ring cylinder center to center = 98.0mm
Ringer cylinder diagonal center to center = 270.3mm

Eventuri plenum:

Ring ID = 52.0mm
Ring OD = 68.5mm
Ring cylinder center to center = 98.0mm (range from 97.2 to 98.7)
Ringer cylinder diagonal center to center = 274.0mm (range from 272.7 to 274.8)

As you can see, the diagonal measurements are 3.7mm too large on average, which is over 3.0mm too wide. The tolerances are also quite large, almost as if there was no bond fixture used to bond the velocity stacks and rings to the plenum lower half.

Please advise if this is the normal level of quality of your product, or if this is a defective unit.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/eEyEtXeaREweTnd6A