Seems as though you had multiple issues. The crank gear issue, which could/was causing bearing failure, and a broke piston.... You said it was piston #1 that broke and the piece that broke ended up in #8? How? Though the intake? What were your A/F, timing readings at time of tune? Were you getting much KR? You said your knock sensors were "off" until 212 degrees...are you running a 180 stat? Sounds and looks like you may have been detonating and got temps up to high, and that was the first piston to let go. I think the responsibility here lies with the installer/tuner...any contact there?
You guys have NO idea how much iron/steel is grinding inside that oil pump sending it directly into the engine oiling system. My engine looked identical and with the rings, pistons and cylinder walls grinding I would think he had plenty of oil in the combustion chamber. I'll agree though his first tune was WAY off. .
Had to have been very small metallic particles though, oil goes from sump through pickup screen, then to pump, from pump to filter then into the rest of the system. The pickup screen and filter should catch most of it. but with time and continuous happenings, this WILL cause your bearings to shit the bed. I can't see this being the cause of the piston breaking like that. Maybe i'm wrong, but just my thoughts. Another question comes to mind...dunno if you've taken the pisons out yet to look at the rings...but if the ring gaps were to much, or installed incorrectly, and was getting alot of blow-by in that cylinder, you could have been detonating in JUST THAT CYLINDER...Lots of pieces to this puzzle for sure. Ever done a compression check in all eight? Ever smoke on that bank?
Good questions Dookie and most are at the forefront of what we will look at/for. -Car never smoked, ever. -Yup, piston #1 broke, Cyl head #8 showed chunked damage passing by and saying Hi. -I never did a compression test on this motor, never felt the need. Wish I would have!!! -I drove the first 6k out of the total 7k miles on this motor with my knock sensors inactive below 100 degrees Celsius. It was in the tune...I saw the entry in the CMR software window. I left SVS in Sacramento with an awesome tune...driveability was perfect, no stalling, surging, nothing. -Yup, always had a 180 degree T-stat. -At this point, I agree I probably had a couple of things going on, and all were negative. Once the pistons come out, things are examined and measured, I will know more. One other thing I will say about the install and tune...I left the original install shop with my idle ridiculously high, my fan settings at 170 degrees (always on.) and a HUGE vibration from my exhaust laying on my tunnel brace. I should have had an idea there might be more in there than just those things. But, the shop doors closed and people headed home. No test drive, no "what do you think?" Nothing. Just a 22 hour drive staring me in the face. I just didn't know any better at the time. Until I can say with total confidence why my motor failed I will just post what I am seeing. The metal in my oil was horrible and anyone can make their own deductions about the improperly ground crank gear and the results of that...others have had similar negative results from that issue. I will definitely post my findings once I can get some measurements!!!
Not so awesome as you may have first thought. Attention to detail, and communications with customer....SOOOO hard to trust anyone these days. Not saying anything definitive, but i'll stand on my thoughts until proven otherwise. Keep us posted Champ...
Just to clarify...I was tuned initially May of 2008, which is where and when I had my 426 installed. This was PPPs former install shop The Modular Depot. It still exists...it just doesn't do PPPs work anymore. I drove to Sacramento May of 2009 and had my Mondello ported intake manifold installed, as well as a few dynos and a new tune at SVS...and this was truly a great experience. I can say with confidence my knock sensors were working when I left THAT shop. I am sure the majority of damage had already occurred before I made it to Sacramento as there were a few subtle tell-tales noticed as they got into my car. Either way I am plugging forward. I need my car running so I write the checks as needed...lol.
definately watching this story....... very interested to hear some concrete reasons why there was so much catastrophic failures!! hope you get things up and running soon jon!! btw, in case i missed it, who is tearing things apart and will be putting it back together, tuning, etc.????
Chris, a local machinest is doing the work...Leibee Precision Machine...top notch but expensive. All I am doing is rebuilding the short block...same cam and compression ratio so my tune will be the same one Bob @ SVS did, which was perfect. One thing I will get is the chance to install my cleaned up exhaust manifolds! Once I am running again I am grabbing my wife (well, I always do that, but you get the idea ) and heading to Sacramento for another dyno...then it's race time. I would really like to meet up with some of the locals so I can get, ummm, pointed in the right direction!!!
Disassembled the short block yesterday. Cylinders 1 & 3 were the worst. Piston 1 had the broken ring land and 1 & 3 had pretty bad scuffing in the bottom part of the cylinder bore. .005" will clean it up though. The piston skirts were thrashed. The machinest said there was nothing wrong with the piston/cylinder clearances nor the ring gaps. His comment was "this damage was all tune." The accelerated overall cylinder wall and bearing wear was probably the extra metal in the oil system. My crankshaft and connecting rods are fine and can use stock bearings. I am ordering Wiseco 4.085" X 4.08" pistons today...custom size means more $$$ but wtf do ya do? I am also going to give the Manley timing set a whirl and see how it performs. I'll use the same cam I had as it made great power and driveability was perfect...plus I won't have to do anything to my tune to get me back on the road. A question for the true gearheads: The Wiseco piston says it's CR is 11:1 with the stock CC volume head. What do all y'all think about running that versus the 10.3:1 I assume I had?
Dammit Cam. I spent all night talking myself into 11:1 being ok and you go f'in it up. Would it be easier to get a thicker head gasket and get me to around 10.5:1?
You can, but then your into custom pushrods too. And that moves the heads further away from each other and you'll need to double check your manifold alignment. So depending on how close your port work was gasket matched, you may need to do some very minor work there. 11:1 isn't bad bud. But always make certain you run good gas. No more truck stops for you buddy, leave the lot lizards alone..LMAO.
Man, lot lizards...you see some funny shit when you drive your badged/antennae'd cruiser through a large truck stop... That is just wrong man, plain bad mojo.
Keep in mind, 99% of available fiters have a internal by-pass. So cold starts and high rpm's will by-pass oil and never filter it. www.jomarpeformance.com if you want a 100% filtration filter. part#9025
You could run the 11:1 with less timing and good fuel, but what's the purpose? If you're custom ordering them anyway, get 10.3's Good pernt.
