[robains]

Geez Phil!!

Certainly worth more investigation. Valve tips breaking are a common failure for those of us that track frequently and live above 8000 rpm.

Toyota (actually Yamaha) originally designed the engine to rev to 8400, during it's life in a Celica GT-S it was reduced to 7800 twice and the final GT-S year run it was at 7800 rpm (Lotus leave the Toyota internals untouched).

You might also ask if the car ran a stand alone ECU or had been reflashed. My hunch is these are bad downshifts -- not great, but not as bad as if they were "normal" max rpm shifts under load (or extended rpms for tracks where it's faster to hold higher rpm).

Two big concerns will be valve tips and oil pump gears. You might not be able to identify potential valve tip problems with the valve cover off unless it's real obvious. As for oil pump gears -- if the car has an oil pressure gauge, check for erratic oil pressure readings (40-85 is the norm with variance for temp and oil viscocity).

And finally, since the car has been tracked a lot, does it have a Accusump and/or high capacity baffled oil pan (like a Moroso)? Since it's not Forced Induction you probably don't need to worry about fuel starvation/delivery issues that could cause detonation.

Also ask the owner what his/her lap times are at the tracks he/she frequents, that will help you detemine just how hard they were pushing the car.

Rob