Left bank is running lean...


When Sway is under the Ferrari, as Memphis approaches he says, "Sounds like the left bank is running lean."

You can hear the engine of the (a?) car revving and then shutting off, as she rolls the creeper out from under the car.

I'm not a mechanic, so don't know a lot about cars, and even less about Ferraris, but it seems odd Sway would be on a creeper under the car working on a running engine. I know you can start an engine with a remote, but why she would be working on the intake / ignition / carburetion (since Memphis mentions it is "running lean", that would be where the trouble would lie) from under the car makes little sense.

It makes even less sense that she would be able to "rev" the engine from down there. Throttle linkages would be very difficult to reach between the exhaust manifold(s), fender, firewall, etc. This might be different if it were an inline engine or transverse mounted, but since Memphis says "left bank", that indicates it's a longitudinally-mounted "V" engine.

It makes sense that, if the engine is running, the mechanic would have their head under the hood, not under the whole car.

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i guess the director didn't know squat about mechanics either. The term is correct though, as the Ferrari V12 has two banks of 6 cylinders. i checked the movie, it's a Ferrari Testarossa 512TR.

as for revving the engine, could there have been someone in the car?

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Reality is a nice place to visit, but i wouldn't want to live there

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This is just the writer's and director's crappy understanding of auto maintenance.

She was inspecting the brake rotors. Her comment to another off-screen mechanic when Memphis walked in was something like "He warped the rotors he must have been riding her pretty hard" or something to that effect. She wasn't doing anything to the engine at the time. So Memphis' statement doesn't make any sense, unless he knows for sure she'd be paying attention to the engine sound while at the same time she's doing something else under the car.

The sound effect of the engine running was always weird to me. It always sounded like a different car was being revved, as it sounds far away, but when Memphis mentions the left bank thing, he's referring to the car she's working on, so the sound was added in post-production as it's clearly not loud enough to be this car. Anyway, that being said, I can imagine several people working on the cars at the same time, as in someone might be revving it while someone else is doing another task.

Lastly, I don't know of many shops that would allow a mechanic under a vehicle to do a non-engine related task, while the engine was running and revving. Something like that would require a mechanic that was focused on the task on the engine, not dicking around with the brake rotors.

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Aside from all that, the motor in a Ferrari is in the rear.

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I don't think Memphis was necessarily talking about that Ferrari(or any cars in general) when he said that. Personally, Memphis seemed like the kind of guy who spoke in gearhead metaphors when dealing with relationships. After all, he starts throwing around similar metaphors when he's flirting with Sway later on in the scene where they are waiting for the couple to get busy so they can steal the car in the driveway.

In any case, the hypothetical motor he's talking about here is actually their relationship and he hasn't been doing his part to make it work i.e. "the left bank is running lean". In other words, it's his way of saying, "I screwed up. Can we talk and try to work this out?".

Besides, as other posters have pointed out, she was working on the brakes/rotors instead so he obviously wasn't referring to the actual Ferrari's motor anyway.


And, if fate sent me here to save Earth, then Howard the Duck is ready to fight!

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^^ This.

He was breaking the ice, not being literal. Gearhead jargon, nothing more.


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wait for iiiit

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I am pretty sure the running lean comment was in regard to another car he heard reving in the workshop and not the one sway was working on.

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