There is so much energy stored in various parts of our cars sometimes it can be scary. We see incredible things happen with engines that burn nitromethane fuel and those that are built to tackle hardcore accomplishments in motorsports, but even the stuff we hot rod ourselves is sometimes more powerful than we can imagine. Take this video for example. There’s a guy in Australia with a hot rodded 13b rotary engine who was out just having fun with his friends at a rotary event and at over 8,000 RPM (not too much for these guys) the clutch blew apart and it did a tremendous amount of damage to this poor guy’s car.
There are two videos here. They are in order. The dude is correct when he says that he is lucky that he still has his feet because when you see the holes the clutch parts tore through the subframe and body of the car, you can only imagine what it would have done to his human parts.
The bell housing of the transmission is completely vaporized and the damage goes beyond the merely external. Whole components like the clutch linkage were blown off, the brakes compromised, and the list goes on and on. The flywheel itself seems OK it was the clutch disc that did all this.
Wild stuff. Blow-proof bell housings, even on stuff that isn’t insanely powerful are never a bad idea.
Press play to see the wreckage left after this 13b suffered a clutch explosion
