It would be great to see you again Steve. I had a sound engine before I went and screwed it up.....ahhhh well, fun fun When I come back to get the car I'll let you know and see what you got goin' on...maybe we can hook up at SVS or a track or whatever...I'll have a bunch of time to do whatever I want What oil filter are you running?
NAPA filters are a good choice...they are private labeled WIX. I use K&N, mainly because of the removal nut. Mobil 1, K&N, and WIX...all good choices.
Its a high quality filter......unfortunately if you look at a WIX and compare say to a Mobil 1 the inside and ring are too high or close to the mating filter. I have had them leak and literally blow off. Again, I have always run them because of the quality, but no more.....I am now using the Mobil1 without incident. .
Blow off?!? I have never heard of this before. The shear strength of the threaded portion is very large. What happened???
First i've ever heard also. Wow. I've used them in the past with success. Now use the K&N with the 1" removal nut...so much easier to remove, plus it's very comparable to all other high end filters (comparing internals) Jon, keep us posted holmes.
no detour Ron just wants some sweet Wyoming love for the night! there is only one left turn in New Mexico and it all ends at Rons place
Lol...I like turtles...errrrr, driving. Thanks Alex...I planned on bringing my wife BTW, Ron grabbed my Schwartz last SF, so be careful...
Little update: Cam the Maniac opened up my motor a while back to find 7 of 8 pistons looked like this: Each piston was missing a 3/4" chunk and that is the top ring you can see in the gap. What closed my #1 spark plugs was probably the piece of top ring that broke off of the #1 piston after a few weeks of starting/shutting off, AFTER the damage had already occurred to the pistons. I talked with Wiseco after learning of more than just a #1 piston failure. Cam grabbed a bunch of measurements with his tools and clay and I forwarded them on to the Wiseco peeps. Wiseco has been AWESOME, and recently 8 new pistons showed up at the Cammaniac shop. Compare old design with new: Old New Old New The above post is a brief summary of quite a bit of discussion with a few people, but I'll keep you informed as things progress. Once this is done I will lay it all out there, unless Cam has a week's spare time on his hands in the meantime to post up Cam, you are one helluva mechanic and machinest. I'll drive 900 miles one way any time for your ultra-top quality work. I actually feel like I'm smoking Marlboros vicariously through you over the phone! lol
damn, huge difference between the two pistons. Sounds like Wiseco has stepped up and took care of business?
Upside is that you know a/f is consistent across all cylinders, that's a good thing. Whatever you do, don't let Cam put the car up on those rollers! It'll just get moved around the shop every now and again for eternity Start writing now. We're really looking forward to pages of detail. You could roll up the trip report in there at the same time and kill 2 birds with one stone. (Cam doesn't write up anything any more... heh, you wouldn't mind a teeny tiny hole in your manifold would you? temporary, it would be filled in afterwards).
They have Ron. They basically gave these to me. I was so impressed by the amount of time they spent talking back and forth with me, calling me back out of the blue, etc. Cam was instrumental in getting me data that they could USE. They wanted to know quite a bit about what I was doing for the short life of the previous pistons. Lol Dave...AHHHH! Not the rollers! I am so looking forward driving the thing again. I learned a LOT this go around. I will tell ya that you can torch pistons N/A by not paying attention to WTF you should be paying attention to. I fine tuned my WOT to 7000' altitude...dropping 2400' and not taking it seriously (or data logging) can have consequences at the track. I'm pretty sure 15 runs with a full catch-can, can make it worse. I have a dozen vids before I emptied it (Saturday) and after (Sunday). The random quick puffs of smoke while winding out in 3rd gear were 100% gone on Sunday. I'm pretty sure I intruded on the weak point of the previous pistons...at least I hope so. Did I mention what I learned about piston squirters and their effect on piston dome temperatures yet?
Thicker pistons FTW! I'm trying to understand why they sent you free pistons, if your negligence caused the others to pop? They must have felt liable in some way?? Look forward to hearing all the details...looking more forward to you tearing up the roads again!
I don't think Jon said "free" although that might have been the case. Maybe at cost? Maybe it's like Levi's used to be. You rip em, they replace them. So if you fell in the wood chipper you could get a new pair of jeans for free.
That's in Cam's hands brudda Thick-to-Kick! Wiseco seemed genuinely concerned about their product coming apart, regardless of what I did or didn't do. I was totally open because I do NOT want to do this again...3 summers in a row now. I was expecting to pay the full custom piston price. In fact, I had only scoped cyl #1 so was expecting to replace one hole. I had to buy 4 so ordered and received them. It wasn't until Cam opened it up that we saw the carnage. That's when I called them back again and they chose to redesign them. Dave nailed it below...I paid their cost...something just over $200. So I will have 8 broken pistons and 4 unused of the same design for the Wall-of-Shame. LOL...You nailed it bro!
I got a little to add here. Please blow off the attiitude, but I'm fricking livid over this right now, have been for a few days since I noticed it. I spent over 30 hours on the tear down of this motor, a majority of the time on the heads and the issues with them and the geometry problems. Tons of measurements on the piston and what could be done to strengthen these units up. To which Wiseco completely stepped up the the plate. So the other evening Jon and I are going thru the spec's of the new design. And after we hung up, I noticed something in the upper left hand corner of the build sheet. Now let me remind you, my measurements, my time and effort. And what to my suprise do I see????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Made exclusively for: Performance Werks Racing. Are you fucking kidding me, Andy couldn't engineer a decent turd if he had too. He's the one that calls me when he can't figure out a build issue. Gawd damn this pisses me off. Sorry for the rant, I'm now going back to kick shit around the shop.