well so far everything sounds about right.... now that i know that you can get a coulder plug through cross referenceing the **** out of it on NGKs website i will have some here before it is tuned again. My question is at this point is that the valves were not gapped corectly and being tuned that way would cause this expletive show..

 

sometimes after a valve job is done and new valvetrain is installed, i've seen the valves sink into the head/seats a little, i guess it's probably actually the seat moving up in the head. This causes the valve lash to close up because the valve gets closer to the rocker arm. Could possibly have been why it didn't show up initially and did after the tune.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by reaction360 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">


please. go make your own post.

Let me just say, since I was the one recording the dyno tune. this is what "I" saw. The owner of the car went and bought his OWN colder plugs (or what he believed was colder). He bought Boschs (for some reason). The tuner, having no experience with Bosch plugs, only NGK. went with what the customer told him. I specifically remember after the 499whp pull, we pulled and checked the plugs. and there was ZERO signs of detonation. the plugs were all clean (cleanest plugs I've seen in awhile). at this point, the owner also regapped the plugs to about .027-.028.

Now, I spoke with the tuner and he said he was down to show the customer all of his saved info. the tuner was also upset at the owner for not bringing the vehicle back to him after adjusting the valves. He would have retuned it. and said that would make a signficant difference. I don't know if this had been mentioned or not, but after the tune, the owner went to see REACTIONDC2. who then heard a slight miss. after doing a compression test. They realized that no valve adjustment was ever done to the head since it was built and recieved new valvetrain. Which is the reason why #3 cylinder was only putting out 50psi at the time. So a valve adjustment was done and 260miles after the vavle adjustment was done, is when the motor blew up.

I am friends with both the tuner and Zack, the owner. So I am not taking sides . only telling what i know.


-Zol

</TD></TR></TABLE>

Mind if I ask, how did you check the plugs? by the naked eye ?


Modified by TheWickedOne at 10:45 AM 1/2/2008

 

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

Mind if I ask, how did you check the plugs? by the naked eye ? Its virtually impossible to check plugs for detonation or heat by the naked eye. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Naked eye. I didnt know there was a cool tool or scope you could use to inspect for it.

 

I guess i have good eyes, or just know what to look for. I can see heat and detonation on a plug.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by tony1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I guess i have good eyes, or just know what to look for. I can see heat and detonation on a plug. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Probably good eyes, or because my eyes are partially slanted .. I use a otoscope, I see things much clearer..

Edit: Not virtually impossible, but things can be seen much clearer with the scope.

 

Thats one nice s2k

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by tony1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">sometimes after a valve job is done and new valvetrain is installed, i've seen the valves sink into the head/seats a little, i guess it's probably actually the seat moving up in the head. This causes the valve lash to close up because the valve gets closer to the rocker arm. Could possibly have been why it didn't show up initially and did after the tune.</TD></TR></TABLE>


yep, seen it happen on a few motors. i have seen it also with a particular brand of valvetrain and more with sohc motors. i dontknow why.

alot of time when a set of valves are off bad enough the car wont run, seen that too

 

Hmm, the ones i've seen do that were SOHC motors too. Just another reason they suck i guess. lol

 

but would it cause a engine to be effected in this way

 

I don't see how it would.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by reactiondc2 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">as Tony said, yes those plugs were no where near the proper plug. I dont even see how a heatrange number 6 was barely able to make that kind of power without some serious misfire issues even with COP.

But as quoted above, they seem to have already identified the culprit. Which if it caused a lean condition im sure it didnt see the proper boost level either.

Also those plugs dont even seem to be gapped for a boosted 500hp car.

Also he is totally correct about the log manifold and the knock/timing issues, one of the issues being backpressure and the remnants left over from the combustion cycle and where they are still located at the next complete cycle.

and with all the factors starting to come into play i see how and why the cards fell the way they did.

You cant just toss someones MAP into another guys car, to an extent references can be made between the 2 yes, but a full-race turbo kit car, and a log manifold 30R car 2 different compression ratios, and a whole slew of things different.......i dont even see how the "tuner" could charge 700+ bucks

A leaky MAP sensor???? why was this not noticed??? thats horrible.

I think the guy learned a very expensive lesson thru all of this.


also a GT3076R is only capable of 53 lbs/min on the most efficient motor its only gonna make roughly 530-550hp @ the best efficiency possible and somehow this s2k reached 90% efficiency@ 14psi.......cmon'

</TD></TR></TABLE>

Being that I am the one that tuned the car I will answer some of these questions that Zach and Steve will not trying to leave the blame with me.

I did not build the engine. Steve did. When the car came here, it had too hot plug and Zach was told to get colder plugs, he should have way before he made it to the shop.

You cannot look at a melted plug and see what the gap was or is. So I am not sure how you come up with that.

Sorry but I didn't just toss in someone's map and let it go. It was somewhere to start and the car would run and start. In the end it was totally different.

Not sure who said we had a leaky map sensor. It wasn't.

Now let's look at the actual facts

Zach wanted to twist and tape the injector wires together to save some money instead of using some new injector ends I had. Not even solder.

After getting the car to run, it started to run horrible, looked at the 3 bar map and found the ends they had crimped were poorly crimped and installed. Fixed that and asked what else had they wired. The cam sync wires were also twisted together and taped. So we soldered and shrinked them back together.

All I can say is cut corners... always.. it bites you.
Since everyone is blaming the tuner.. let's look at how it was put together.

$700 for a tune is cheap, $120 hr dyno time. When the car is on the dyno and I spend time re-wiring things, it takes time.

Check out RRev in Portland AEM tuners... John is a friend of mine, looked at both Tony1's tune and mine. They charge $900 for a tune.

AEM is no different than Motec, Fast, Haltech, or Big Stuff3 or anything else, they all do the same thing differently with different menus.

Steve if you want to start going somewhere else do so, I stay late way after hours, charge you guys half of the hours you are here and try to work around your schedule. How many other shops do that? How about I only have $300? How many other shops will tell you to take a hike?





Modified by TurboNova at 3:12 PM 1/2/2008

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Tony1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
sometimes after a valve job is done and new valvetrain is installed, i've seen the valves sink into the head/seats a little, i guess it's probably actually the seat moving up in the head. This causes the valve lash to close up because the valve gets closer to the rocker arm. Could possibly have been why it didn't show up initially and did after the tune.
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Tony the car sounded like it had a cam the whole time it was here. I assumed it had a different one. I was told that after they left the dyno one cylinder had 50 psi compression and the rest 150 psi, then after adjusting the valves the car ran smoother and the compression came back up. The valve adjustment has to be quite a bit off for that to happen. When I found this out I said, why didn't you at least bring it back to check the A/F to make sure it was safe? One cylinder getting all of it's compression will make a difference. Zach even said he though this might make it leaner but decided to turn down the boost a little.

For the record, the timing values were almost the same in the same boost range as Tony 1 used. We were somewhere in the 26 degree range during the pulls. Tony's were 30. If anything a little more conservitive if anything.

The plugs were looked at several times during the dyno pulls and there were no sign of detonation. The timing color was above the threads but not to the corner yet. He had 1000cc injectors, the same as Zol is using and made more power with so he was not out of duty cycle.

I am sure detonation played a part but looking at the piston, fuel delivery or ring end gap would also create the broken piston. The one piston was flat melted.
The A/F ratio on the dyno was 10.8-11.2 WOT at peak boost. I left it plenty rich because I knew Zach would start beating on it.


Modified by TurboNova at 3:43 PM 1/2/2008

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
Tony the car sounded like it had a cam the whole time it was here. I assumed it had a different one. I was told that after they left the dyno one cylinder had 50 psi compression and the rest 150 psi, then after adjusting the valves the car ran smoother and the compression came back up. The valve adjustment has to be quite a bit off for that to happen. When I found this out I said, why didn't you at least bring it back to check the A/F to make sure it was safe? One cylinder getting all of it's compression will make a difference. Zach even said he though this might make it leaner but decided to turn down the boost a little.

For the record, the timing values were almost the same in the same boost range as Tony 1 used. We were somewhere in the 26 degree range during the pulls. Tony's were 30. If anything a little more conservitive if anything.

The plugs were looked at several times during the dyno pulls and there were no sign of detonation. The timing color was above the threads but not to the corner yet. He had 1000cc injectors, the same as Zol is using and made more power with so he was not out of duty cycle.

I am sure detonation played a part but looking at the piston, fuel delivery or ring end gap would also create the broken piston. The one piston was flat melted.
The A/F ratio on the dyno was 10.8-11.2 WOT at peak boost. I left it plenty rich because I knew Zach would start beating on it.</TD></TR></TABLE>

As far as the twisting of the cam sensor and the pooply crimped map wires that is my bad, but that stuff was all fixed before i left the shop. along with the injectors. as far as the valve thing gos after it was fixed i dont think that you would have wanted to me calling you christmas eve morning on the phone telling you what happened + i diddent have the cash to get it straped back down.

Im not here to hurt your reputation im just looking for answers...There is no way i can have this thing break on me again like this, the downtime is gay

 

pritty sure is what the guys at horsepower connection told you that 10 to 1 was just going to blow up zach and that looks alot like ring gap to me anyway. if you adjusted the valves why would you not take the car back just to check if that might have messed with the tune. why would all the falt be placed on the tuner if you guys dont even know how to pull the tune off the ecm i have personally seen the tune myself and the timing less then the full race s2 plenty safe

P.S. its a honda not a diesel you should of heard that long before the pistons looked like that.

 

Zach, I would not have charged you to strap down the car and make a pull to make sure it was safe. Engines blowing up are not good for anyone. I always error on the safe side of everything other than my own stuff.

You could have called I would have made time the day after christmas.

The thing I don't like is everyone is pointing the finger but no one knows the facts. You are leaving out a bunch on your story, like the plugs. I did tell you to get some. You should have had them long before you were here.

 

Turbonova

I was never pointing blame at why the engine failed, if you look back at my posts i said from the begining there were quite a few factors that would eventually surface as to how this would turn out, and why. Also the first point i made was that the particular turbo used was almost not ccapable of doing what it did, at such a low boost level. that was my major point. which in turn led to tons of other things coming out about the engine/build/turbo set up/tune the snowball effect took over and this is what we have here in front of us.

I do however have a couple questions:

Was the car ever street tuned before or after the dyno session?
Also why was the AFR set to 10.8-11.2 what was the point of that?
If the car sounded like a subaru why was it put on the dyno???

Once again im not bashing the tune or tuner just some questions i have rollin around in my head thats all.

Im glad you took the time to try to correct cut corners as for what you could

 

The car was not street tuned ever. I asked Zach to take it for a drive and see if anything felt weird or stumbled. He did not buy the wideband option for the AEM which personally I think is stupid, I would not have a ECU without a wideband.

Zach told me it ran great and that was the last I heard about it. Until someone later told me later it blew it up.

There is no point to make extra power that rich but I knew Zach would be beating on it a left it richer than I normally would just in case.

I was not the engine builder, I have had other hondas that had cams that ran the same. I assumed that the car ran normal. It started right up and everything looked good.

I have also seen boosted V8 engines that had similar looking pistons where the ring end gap was too tight and cracked the piston in the valve notch area.

We had told Zach that 10:1 on pump with that much boost was not something we would do. I only went to the parameters of boost and RPM that the customer wanted.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by TurboNova &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">The car was not street tuned ever. I asked Zach to take it for a drive and see if anything felt weird or stumbled. He did not buy the wideband option for the AEM which personally I think is stupid, I would not have a ECU without a wideband.

Zach told me it ran great and that was the last I heard about it. Until someone later told me later it blew it up.

There is no point to make extra power that rich but I knew Zach would be beating on it a left it richer than I normally would just in case.

I was not the engine builder, I have had other hondas that had cams that ran the same. I assumed that the car ran normal. It started right up and everything looked good.

I have also seen boosted V8 engines that had similar looking pistons where the ring end gap was too tight and cracked the piston in the valve notch area.

We had told Zach that 10:1 on pump with that much boost was not something we would do. I only went to the parameters of boost and RPM that the customer wanted.
</TD></TR></TABLE>

I agree that not having a wideband in a boosted car is a big mistake. Nevertheless i do feel it was a little on the rich side, i mean in the 10s @14psi kinda rich if you ask me. I mean too rich can have just as adverse effects as a lean condition same goes for timing.

If you were worried about him beating on it, making it richer it than optimum isnt really gonna save much i mean the motor was built was it not? stock compresison is higher than that on cast pistons and we boost the crap out of them everyday. Why not just set the boost cut on it if you were scared he was gonna get silly with it? why not narrow the boost rows on the AEM and tune it a few psi more to secure a safe zone in case of creep or customer error(turning up the boost when you tell them not to)

As far as the cam goes, the primary intake and exhaust lobes arent affected much at all for vtec motors very minor if so, not enough to make a car sound like a subaru or idle like complete crap, as a prior honda owner & tuner this should have been aparent, UNLESS it was an LS motor, or had pushrods


I do however think highly of you for coming onto the board and speaking on your shops behalf


Just sounds like a big mess IMO

 

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

Being that I am the one that tuned the car I will answer some of these questions that Zach and Steve will not trying to leave the blame with me.not once did i ever point the finger at you,i actually was thinking the fuel pump failed untill i was told differently
I did not build the engine. Steve did. When the car came here, it had too hot plug and Zach was told to get colder plugs, he should have way before he made it to the shop.correct i built the engine and yes i told zack as well to buy colder plugs..i assumed he had untill his motor blew
You cannot look at a melted plug and see what the gap was or is. So I am not sure how you come up with that.

Sorry but I didn't just toss in someone's map and let it go. It was somewhere to start and the car would run and start. In the end it was totally different.
zol and zack both told me you didnt touch the timing so i assumed they were correct..im not sure how the rumor got started that you added 8 degrees across the board but several times i defended you thereNot sure who said we had a leaky map sensor. It wasn't.

Now let's look at the actual facts

Zach wanted to twist and tape the injector wires together to save some money instead of using some new injector ends I had. Not even solder.

After getting the car to run, it started to run horrible, looked at the 3 bar map and found the ends they had crimped were poorly crimped and installed. Fixed that and asked what else had they wired. The cam sync wires were also twisted together and taped. So we soldered and shrinked them back together.yes zack cut some corners when i wasnt around but all those things were fixed prior to tuning
All I can say is cut corners... always.. it bites you.
Since everyone is blaming the tuner.. let's look at how it was put together.

$700 for a tune is cheap, $120 hr dyno time. When the car is on the dyno and I spend time re-wiring things, it takes time.

Check out RRev in Portland AEM tuners... John is a friend of mine, looked at both Tony1's tune and mine. They charge $900 for a tune.

AEM is no different than Motec, Fast, Haltech, or Big Stuff3 or anything else, they all do the same thing differently with different menus.

Steve if you want to start going somewhere else do so, I stay late way after hours, charge you guys half of the hours you are here and try to work around your schedule. How many other shops do that? How about I only have $300? How many other shops will tell you to take a hike?the reason zack went to you is because you were willing to finance his tune and that i admire about you...the reason im going to start going elsewhere for my tuning needs is this..when you tuned my nalsvtec you charged me $390 for a crome tune you spent maybe 1 hour on..yes the car was on the dyno for 4 hours but it was not my fault..you had issues with your ability to get the software to work and getting the data logging to connect,then you sat a bsed with some other customers about building suby intake manifolds for 45 minutes..i dont mind hanging out and listening to people shoot the $hit but when im paying you 120 hr i dont expect it to be on my timeModified by TurboNova at 3:12 PM 1/2/2008</TD></TR></TABLE>

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by what0771 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">pritty sure is what the guys at horsepower connection told you that 10 to 1 was just going to blow up zach and that looks alot like ring gap to me anyway. if you adjusted the valves why would you not take the car back just to check if that might have messed with the tune. why would all the falt be placed on the tuner if you guys dont even know how to pull the tune off the ecm i have personally seen the tune myself and the timing less then the full race s2 plenty safe

P.S. its a honda not a diesel you should of heard that long before the pistons looked like that. </TD></TR></TABLE>im sorry but im pretty sure you are an idiot...10.0:1 may be agressive for a street car but its not the sole reason this engine failed,people have been boosting higher compression engines then that for a long time..my b series engine from last year was 10.1:1 and it worked great with stock sleeves and 24lbs of boost..i sold that motor and the new owner,last i checked is still loving it daily at 15lbs on pump gas......i have not seen a improper ring end gap melt a piston/pistons.....but since you seem to be an expert please enlighten me as to what you think the ring end gap should have been on a 87mm bore...figure it out for yourself dont ask brian or britco

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by TurboNova &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Zach, I would not have charged you to strap down the car and make a pull to make sure it was safe. Engines blowing up are not good for anyone. I always error on the safe side of everything other than my own stuff.

You could have called I would have made time the day after christmas.

The thing I don't like is everyone is pointing the finger but no one knows the facts. You are leaving out a bunch on your story, like the plugs. I did tell you to get some. You should have had them long before you were here.</TD></TR></TABLE>

As i said earlier i thought that a colder plug was not somthing that was even made because of all the search i did and comeing up empty handed. Now i know how to find them, so that is out of the way. the ring gaps were set at what arias pistons said to set them at so idk what to do about. guess i could call them and see if the peice of paper was corect. I cant remember what the tune was at near the end but i just remember saying to make it safe. If that is safe then so be it.

Thanks for saying you would have made time, but unfortionaly i did not call you to see what you thought about valve gapping. regardless its all done and over with now and would just like to come to a conclusion about the engine.

-Zach

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by TurboNova &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">The car was not street tuned ever. I asked Zach to take it for a drive and see if anything felt weird or stumbled. He did not buy the wideband option for the AEM which personally I think is stupid, I would not have a ECU without a wideband.

Zach told me it ran great and that was the last I heard about it. Until someone later told me later it blew it up.

There is no point to make extra power that rich but I knew Zach would be beating on it a left it richer than I normally would just in case.

I was not the engine builder, I have had other hondas that had cams that ran the same. I assumed that the car ran normal. It started right up and everything looked good.i guess i can see your point there since you tuned my na car that had pro1's in it so idle was a little on the rough side
I have also seen boosted V8 engines that had similar looking pistons where the ring end gap was too tight and cracked the piston in the valve notch area.those pistons are not cracked they are melted..they just happened to melt in that location because that is the thinnest part..if you noticed the side of the pistons you would see they got really hot hence the scuffing from overexpansionWe had told Zach that 10:1 on pump with that much boost was not something we would do. I only went to the parameters of boost and RPM that the customer wanted.again in our little 4 cylinders 10.0:1 is not exceptionally high,our motors are fairly efficent and people have been boosting more then 14lbs with pump on higher compression setups for awhile...imho the compression is a non factor in this mess...i dont really see why you would be calling my ability to assemble an engine into question,have you ever see any of my engines fail like this?any time my car was on your dyno it was powered by an engine i assembled....you know i built zols motor too right,it would be running still if he hadnt dropped a valve</TD></TR></TABLE>


Modified by reactiondc2 at 6:45 PM 1/2/2008

 

Sorry you feel that way Steve but you were on the dyno for a lot longer than 1 hour. I guess I should just work for free.

I did take in account phone calls, other people and other stuff going on.

We did have com problems that night that ended up being your ECU, Zol's worked fine. How is that my fault? I have run into this with several other peoples ECU's.
It depends on who chiped their ECU and how good of a job they did.

I think over the last two years I have given you the fair shake on dyno time and then some. What time was it at night when we were tuning your car... several hours after closing. So I charged you for 2 1/2 hours for something I was here until after 9:00 PM.

You didn't have to point any fingers, the comment that he should have taken it to someone else was enough.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 140sx &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

As i said earlier i thought that a colder plug was not somthing that was even made because of all the search i did and comeing up empty handed. Now i know how to find them, so that is out of the way. the ring gaps were set at what arias pistons said to set them at so idk what to do about. guess i could call them and see if the peice of paper was corect. I cant remember what the tune was at near the end but i just remember saying to make it safe. If that is safe then so be it.

Thanks for saying you would have made time, but unfortionaly i did not call you to see what you thought about valve gapping. regardless its all done and over with now and would just like to come to a conclusion about the engine.

-Zach</TD></TR></TABLE>the rind end gaps were a non factor imho(set at bore x .0050 top and x .0055 second)...in the end alot of the responsibility rests on you..you took a few shortcuts when you lost patience during installation(i.e. twist tied wires)you knew that you didnt have the right plugs and you knew the engine began misfiring sometime between the time i left you and the time it took for the tune..its your motor so in the end its up to you to take initiative and say ok stop something isnt right let me check this out...brian really is a nice guy and if i had any questions about a domestic id definately go to him,im hoping this can all be water under the bridge with no hard feelings since this is a small town and there are only so many of us gearheads around here