FOR YEARS MY DAD WOULD TELL ME A MOTOR RUNS BEST RIGHT BEFORE IT EXPIRES.

TRUTH OR FICTION? 

Seen it happen a few times

I can go back fifty plus years to my days at The Reading Fairgrounds and I heard that many times back then.

I agree with John Mc. I think it's just something we say to lighten the mood after blowing an engine.

ABSOLUTE B.S. !!!!!

Since I play tennis twice a week despite my advanced age, I can tell you that you hit the ball the best right before the strings (especially if natural gut) break. Same thing. In order to satisfy the moderators and say something about racing, who else will be at Bridgeport Sunday to honor the 60 Over?

That is Bull!!

I may not have the credentials to really weigh in on this one, but since it's a Message Board, why not..., so here goes:

I think there is a situation where this could be true, that "an engine runs better right before it blows...." and that would be if a motor was a little fat (rich), but then for some reason (low fuel pressure, air leak effecting multiple cylinders, carb issue, the mixture became leaner... and leaner.... and leaner... and then even leaner still and eventually "too lean!", I do think there is a point somewhere between even leaner still and too lean!" where the engine would actually make more power for a little while (since it wouldn't be as rich as it was)... but because a lean mixture burns hotter than a fat mixture, the leaner you go, if you go too far... the more likely that you would burn a hole in a piston or do some other pretty expensive damage....

If the problem was low oil pressure, or overall engine overheating, then I think the engine would run worse on it's way to blowing up.

One last point:  does anyone remember how those COX Sand Dragon's or whatever they were called, how they would have a high pitch to the engine and right as they were running out of fuel, the rpms would rev up for about 10 seconds before it finally stalled.  I'm thinking that was where it was going from a little rich (normal) to a little lean and that was the cause of the "running better" for a little while.

It's like leaning out a McCullough kart engine, the faster you made it go, the quiker it siezed! Proving the saying, it runs best before it breaks.

I don't know if that saying is true or not, but my engine builder always ran HIS best right after it blew up.

Yea I raced Karts with Macs for 4 years and I can vouch for that Kevin...They dont live long...I always ran a richer oil mixture as it saved from a lean out and it pumped up the torque a bitt... 

Speaking of McCulloughs: we tried alchol once.   I carefully mixed the fuel and promptly went out and stuck the motor.  Since we had an extra motor with us, we tried it again and, defining insanity, stuck the second motor.  My Old Man, who was the motor builder, swore us off alchol forever!

I ran alcohol too, pain in the ass, finicky and purging it after the day was not fun.

One of the smartest thing I learned, racing with Ron Shook, was pace real rich, lean it way out for the first two laps, make all your passes than fatten it up and ride. I followed him for two years until he finally told me how to do it. Dumb kid!

As we said in the 270 Class. Mean is lean but cost green.