Gents,
So my first foray into Novarossi ownership did'nt end well. After careful running in (with help from local experts) for around a Gallon we changed the rod ready for the local GP. Warming up after 4 round of qualifying, this occurred (see pictures)

From my initial root cause analysis my current assumption is a slightly imperfect casting(cavity)/miss-machining/sloppy original bearing install, caused a small chip to eventually release in the area of 1 o'clock (engine upright) position of the front bearing. This chip made its merry way down the crank and up into the piston and liner. I found some small metallic chunks after flushing the engine (combo of different alloy materials).

My question is, is the little piece of missing material usually placed here as some sort of oil slot? It doesn't make sense to me and it's shape is more consistent with a small localized material release.

So the engine is toast all the way through, not really economically repairable. Funnily enough the other mito sold at the same time died of loosing the crankshaft counter weight during operation.

Please note I'm not having a 'chip' at novarossi here, these are highly toleranced and highly strung racing engines, this is just bad luck and manufacturing something like this is something of a dark art form! It's just a shame as the engine was awesome to drive, really smooth and knocked my lap times 0.5secs as I was much neater out corners. Luckily my old faithful reds wcs v3 (12 months old and zero maintenance except a few rods) kept its head up for the final (Thanks Mario Rossi!).

So happy for any expert opinions. Air filter was new and sticky, tie-wrapped to the carb, new fuel filter too. No signs of any distress there.

Kindest Regards,