Christina Lam's Car Tampered With at CMP - $30K Damage

Screen Shoot from Face Book Post.  I have been racing for decades and have never seen anything like this.  Christina is a good person.  She was here on GRM (I have not seen her post in a long time).  Here is hoping those that did this are caught and Christina is made whole.  This makes me sad to think there are people out there that would do this especially if it is someone from within the racing community.

I remember the GRM articles on her racing.  What a crazy thing to happen.

Bunch of jackwads. 

People suck.

bobzilla said:

People suck.

Seriously.  I won't speculate but I would be interested to know the motivation(s).

I vaguely recall an issue at a BMWCCA CR event at VIR back in 2009-2011 where several people had cars messed with.  

It's also possible this was a simple accident.

I have accidentally received diesel from a gas pump.

My buddy accidentally poured water in my truck and racecar after somebody else left the top off the fuel jugs in a rain.

I'm not saying it wasn't malicious.  Just that there are other possibilities.

30k in damage seems a bit inflated (imho).

wvumtnbkr said:

30k in damage seems a bit inflated (imho).

Two engines, two fuel systems, and one fire-damaged race car. Could be a reasonable value

wvumtnbkr said:

30k in damage seems a bit inflated (imho).

A junkyard S54 is $6-8K minimum, and not everyone is DIYing engine swaps so it's reasonable to include the labor to install it.  If it was a built motor with high compression pistons, cams, etc in it then that could easily be a $20K motor.

In reply to wvumtnbkr :

Really good points you point out.  

I was convinced the cable company guy stole my new drill from my basement and then I found it in a tool box drawer weeks later in my garage.  

Doh!  E36 M3 happens. 

What could be put into a gas tank that would destroy the engine and cause a fire?

In reply to jfryjfry :

Most things in a normal car would just cause it to shut off. But if it's water, or diesel or turpentine and the engine is singing halfway beyond 7k rpm I could see it tossing a piston out the side of the block?

Racebrick said:

What is this claim based off of? Got any proof? Interesting choice to bring this topic up publicly and then turn comments off.

People 'theorizing' in the comments of something like this doesn't help (especially Facebook). As well, most people don't feel comfortable coming forward publicly with any information to anything if everything they say is going to be scrutinized by a bunch of people who (usually not directly involved) will twist what they say to fit their personal theory narrative. 

Yeah I expect the engine fire was caused by an oil hose being severed after something took an exit from the block.

The fact that law enforcement is involved has me thinking that it being a simple accident has probably been ruled out already. 

What would happen if you put nitromethane in with the fuel?  We were discussing this at the office this afternoon trying to think what it could be. 
 

Also I can understand turning off comments. I am actually surprised she posted at all due to it being investigated. But I am betting she wanted to give other cars owners a heads up. (All this is 100 percent speculation on my part). 

cyow5 said:

wvumtnbkr said:

30k in damage seems a bit inflated (imho).

Two engines, two fuel systems, and one fire-damaged race car. Could be a reasonable value

Add in the expense of coming to the event. I can easily see 30k between the two cars. 
 

I just want to express my support during a obviously bad time to her and her team.
 

This just sucks and I feel for them.

If this was indeed intentionally I hope the perpetrator gets what's coming to them. 

dean1484 said:

What would happen if you put nitromethane in with the fuel?  We were discussing this at the office this afternoon trying to think what it could be. 
 

Also I can understand turning off comments. I am actually surprised she posted at all due to it being investigated. But I am betting she wanted to give other cars owners a heads up. (All this is 100 percent speculation on my part). 

Would Nitro even get the car running on a stock/mostly stock fuel system with the volume needed? 

GRM tested Methanol, but not Nitro. Methanol required almost double the amount of fuel.

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/fuel-truth/

EDIT: I'm sure it doesn't directly scale, but based on typical stoich ratios between pump fuel, methanol and nitro, nitro would need at least 3x the amount of fuel as pump gas?

z31maniac said:

EDIT: I'm sure it doesn't directly scale, but based on typical stoich ratios between pump fuel, methanol and nitro, nitro would need at least 3x the amount of fuel as pump gas?

I would expect this would only apply if you drained the tank and refilled it with pure nitromethane.

Imagine instead that the car has 8 gallons of 91 in it and someone adds 1 gallon of diesel.  Diesel has an octane rating of about 20, so that's going to lower the octane of the now-blended fuel to about 83.  Run that through a high compression race motor that's tuned for max timing and you'll get a lot of detonation.  It'll probably start and idle OK, but go wide open out on track where the driver can't hear it and holes in pistons, broken valves, broken rods, and holes in the side of the block are all quite plausible.

GameboyRMH said:

Yeah I expect the engine fire was caused by an oil hose being severed after something took an exit from the block.

Just the act of windowing the block can get flammable liquids on very hot things.

Depending on what kind of engine it was, used motor oil in sufficient quantity can cause an engine to detonate itself to death, DEF in the fuel can destroy a direct injected engine's high pressure fuel system components, stop-leak in the fuel can also do amazing damage but the filters may get to it first...

PS - Saw an alky SBC that removed all of its mains from the webs of the block on a dyno. Caps were still holding the crank but the block just sort of came apart.  The shop helper had used a methanol jerrycan to hold used motor oil, and didn't flush it out before using it for methanol again.  On a ragged edge engine that absolutely requires high octane fuel, it does not take very much, and you are not going to hear the detonation.

I know Christina personally.  If law enforcement is involved, it was not a light decision. She's good people, and would not instigate a witch hunt without cause.

ddavidv said:

I know Christina personally.  If law enforcement is involved, it was not a light decision. She's good people, and would not instigate a witch hunt without cause.

I became aware of her because of GRM.  I have watched her racing from a far via Facebook. I think we may have even chatted briefly on FB about dogs. I don't remember why. I absolutely don't know her at all but from this very limited sample size but she (and all her team) seem like good people.   Please let her and her team know that we care and support her. 

I was hoping for something innocuous caused the issue.  

Seems that it is pointing towards deliberate.  

That sucks.

I don't have the kind of money to build an old bmws engine for that kind of money. I didn't realize people would spend that much in this type of racing!  Dang.  

I hope they get this solved.