Well, I thought that I had a 100 shot successfully tuned, but the test drive home seemed to say otherwise. The first time I hit the nitrous it pulled nice and smooth, everything seemed normal. Then on the second time the it went up nice then around 6000rpm the car made a slight stutter and I got off of it. Drove a little further and tried a third run and the minute the nitrous engaged the whole car was vibrating heavily so I got off of it again. I tried a few N/A pulls and it seemed fine I didn't even really notice a loss of power which is surprising considering the plug condition. I melted cyl 1 plug as you can see, and a bunch of coolant blew out the overflow. What do you guys think? My guess is I just lifted the head gasket, but why? I have ARP head studs and they were torqued to the spec provided by ARP.

Here is my dyno and a/f ratios.



Since Hondata only allows one input for nitrous fuel enrichment it goes way rich on the top end and somewhat lean on the bottom.

 

How far is your nitrous tap from the throttle body? My friend had the same problem when he raised his shot. He started fouling plugs like crazy, all because the nitrous tap was too close to the throttle body. Hope this helps

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by HybridHatch88 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">How far is your nitrous tap from the throttle body? My friend had the same problem when he raised his shot. He started fouling plugs like crazy, all because the nitrous tap was too close to the throttle body. Hope this helps </TD></TR></TABLE>

It's almost 18" from the throttle body. I don't think that that is the problem.

 

Fouled plug, hehe.... thats a different way of describing your problem. A/f is way to fat in the end (obviously). On your dyno chart it's ok for tq to drop off after initial onset of the spray but the hp should continue to climb more. I think your phone is ringing, answer it

 

You were about to tell me something before your phone cut off....call me back....

Do you think it was too lean on the intial onset of the spray, how can I get it to be less rich on the top end?


Modified by RyanCivic2000 at 10:38 PM 12/20/2003

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by GITWIDIT &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Fouled plug, hehe.... thats a different way of describing your problem. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Yeah, I guess fouled plug is an understatement....lol. I should have put MELTED plug.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by RyanCivic2000 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
Do you think it was too lean on the intial onset of the spray
Modified by RyanCivic2000 at 10:38 PM 12/20/2003</TD></TR></TABLE>

I don't see a lean condition in your intial onset.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by lazerus &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">lean

dynograph is too lean.

ametuer tuner

blew HG from being lean

nitrous had bad atomisation, do direct port, or move further away from TB, cyl #1 is recieving more nitrous than the others, and is running leaner than the rest most likely.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I really don't think it was a lean condition. The a/f goes way fat in the end. Hondata nitrous controls only has 1 input for fuel on the nitrous map. It is a possibility that the base mape tune was off and that could have some effect but highly unlikely judging by how rich it gets. I think you would even feel that off the bottle if the problem was in the base map. I'd like to know how much total timing you guys ended up with on the nitrous map.... to much timing will create increased cylinder pressure, kill hp and blow head gaskets, hence the drop off on your hp curve instead of a climb. Just a thought

 

Is your system a wet or dry?

 

Edit:

Removed in light of bad tasted comments, see below


Modified by lazerus at 4:08 PM 12/21/2003

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by lazerus &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
nitrous had bad atomisation, do direct port, or move further away from TB, cyl #1 is recieving more nitrous than the others, and is running leaner than the rest most likely.</TD></TR></TABLE>

The nozzle is about 18" from the TB. When on the dyno checking the plugs showed no signs or indication of uneven distribution. All plugs were the SAME.

 

I agree that 13:1 af is lean, especially tuning on a dynojet. When you get on the street it will lean out a few more tenths due to vehicle weight but I still don't think thats what caused this.....it may have been a contributing factor but look at the rest of the graph, it's wacked.. hp falls on it's face and it goes rich as ****. His porcelin on the plug has a tint to it, unlike pastey chalky white plugs that are a tell tale sign of lean condition.



I've had this happen to me several times with perfect supa low a/f's across the board.



Look at the color of the porcelin on this plug. Of course this is on C16 which will leave a redish tint with proper a/f. I was running fat as hell and still melted a ground strap.

 

IMO. What I see is detonation, black pepper-shaker spots on porcelin.
What fuel were you using?
How much total timing were you running. When spraying.

One thing to keep in mind is if your running a single fogger wet at 18" from the T/B you will get fuel fall out. When this happens it will make certain cylinders go lean and some will run rich. Fuel is like water as soon as it goes to droplets it will start collecting itself in bend areas. Now this is of course only if your running a wet.

If you are I can show you a simple way to test your nitrous to fuel ratio. Takes the guess work out of it.

One other thing the plugs your running are not a very good nitrous plug. You want a plug with a very fat and short ground strap, and shrouded electrode.

 

Yeah, there is some pepper on the porcelin from detonotion but it still looks like it has a tint/hue, maybe it's just a shadow, IDK. I believe he told me he was on 93octane. I don't believe hes sure what his total timing was set at on the nitrous map. He runs a dry system controled by hondata.

 

This is a NGK R5673-10 Its a great nitrous plug.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by RA166E &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
One other thing the plugs your running are not a very good nitrous plug. You want a plug with a very fat and short ground strap, and shrouded electrode. </TD></TR></TABLE>

I agree, look at the differences between a BKR7E a R5671A-9.

 

I bet the plugs are definately a problem, however, if only one plug is burning up the electrode, wouldn't you suspect a problem?

I would still consider re-tuning with a richer afr on nitrous, otherwise the next thing to go wont be an electrode...

sorry about my earlier posts that were kind of rude, i was in a bad mood. im better now though!

 

 

I would agree with you the A/F is all over the board. I think its a combination of things. Plugs, A/F ratio,fuel octane, and timing. A 100shot on this size motor is what a 450shot is like on our 540 BBC in which this plug came out of after about 6 to 7 passes.
When your spraying that much you have to good fuel, timing retard, and the correct plugs.

 

The problem with the a/f ratio is when tuning with Hondata it only allows one imput for fuel enrichment you can't tune a whole map. I don't know how it would be possible to smooth out the curve. I believe, but am not 100% sure that John (my tuner) said I was at 20 deg of total timing. In the field for nitrous controls timing retard it said 6 deg.

Took the head off today, here is a closeup of #1, it looks good.



Some of the black material on the headgasket came off and stuck to the head, I'm not sure if that's possibly where it blew.

 

and a plug that with take the heat without melting the ground strap.

Champion or AC Delco's.

 

I have had great luck with NGK's.
One other thing I tell my customers is when running a large shot of nitrous make sure you know longer run the pvc back to the intake.
The smallest amount of oil durning combustion when spraying will cause detonation big time and it dosen't matter what fuel you run.
Make sure all your plugs are tight also this is the main way heat is removed from the chamber.
Did you do a leak down and comp test before you pulled the head? People think when they run nitrous they can run it real fat and not have to worry about what fuel they're running or timing. But running a system rich on the bottle is the highest cause of engine failure do to lifting a piston ring land.
I personally don't know jack about hondata tuning. I run Haltech and SDS and Tec3.
Good Luck

 

I don't have the tools to do a compression or leakdown test. I could see where the headgasket blew though, right by #2 there was discoloration on the gasket material leading from the cylinder to the water passage. Also, what exactly do you mean by "lifting a piston ringland" and how would running rich cause that?

Thanks,
Ryan

 

Running too rich you can actually can break the ring
land off because the fuel gets under land and it explodes,popping
the land upward.
In your case you might of been detonating and caused the head gasket to go. I was wondering more about the leak down in the case of cracking the ring land do to detonation. When this happens its hard to see even with the head off. Looking down at the piston everything looks ok. But it will crack or break the land under the first compression ring.
I hope that makes sense.

 

Thanks, you've been very helpful. A compression test should be able to tell me if a ring broke to wouldn't it? I could go out and buy a tool to do that, I know how, once I have the motor together. It's almost back together now except I lost the cam gear keyway. Wouldn't the cylinder walls possibly show scratches if the rings had broke?