Look, understanding the ins and outs of the internal combustion engines is a great skill set to have. Here at EngineLabs, we use that understanding to explain advanced concepts, calculate all facets of an engine’s design, and know the limitations of an engine. But sometimes, it’s fun to throw all that to the wind and just watch someone actually do something that everyone knows is a bad idea, just to see what really happens. Garage 54 is well known for doing just that.

In this particular “test,” the crazy Russians wanted to see what would actually happen if you jacked the compression ratio of a standard, run-of-the-mill gasoline engine to the moon. In this case, a Lada four-cylinder making just under 10.0:1 compression from the factory. Normally, to increase compression, you would deck the heads and/or use custom pistons in a performance application. But two things here: this is Garage 54 we’re talking about, and they are messing with a Lada engine.

In the most simple and visually succinct way possible, the Garage 54 crew shows how to measure the variables needed to calculate the compression ratio of the current engine. While their explanation of the actual calculation is lacking, let’s be honest… we aren’t watching Garage 54 for calculations. We’re watching for the practical demonstrations.

They start with taking a chamber mold out of clay, and then building new “domes” for the Lada’s pistons out of thick aluminum plate, ground to the approximate profile of the available space in the chamber mold. Then, after welding the plates to the piston, they remeasured the compression ratio, coming up with an astonishing 22.0:1. After something resembling common sense kicked in, they decided to double-up on the head gasket, to lower the compression ratio to “only” 16.0:1.

After rebuilding the engine, they ran a compression test to find almost equal cylinder pressures across all four cylinders. With that, they filled the engine with 92 RON gasoline (about equivalent to U.S. 87 octane) and decided to start it. After a couple whacks of the throttle and a little idling, they decided to run it on 100 RON (equivalent to about U.S. 95 octane). That gave the crew the confidence to take it out to the test field and actually put the engine under load.

Well, at 16:1 compression, not only did the wrist pin exit the chat, but the piston also split in half.

After babying the car in first gear, they decided to give it the beans. It made it about halfway into second gear before the inevitable happened. Apparently, one of the pistons cracked in half, and separated itself from the connecting rod. While that would be the end of the experiment for most people, not Garage 54. They reassembled the engine with the three remaining pistons, and removed one of the head gaskets to bring the compression back up to 22.0:1.

This time, it didn’t even make it past idle and a free-rev, before another piston lost its welded-on “dome” and then separated from the rod. I’m not sure anyone actually expected the engine to live, but to see the pistons almost immediately failing in exactly the same way, thanks to severe detonation, is interesting. While not chock-full of new knowledge or fresh research, it’s entertaining to watch exactly what we all thought would happen, actually happen.

When at first you don’t succeed, crank up the compression to 22:1 and try again. The oil pan will neatly contain all the pieces of what used to be your piston.