Mr. Samurai

Hey guys I need help deciding what went wrong with my build. I figured this would be a good place to start.

My motor blew just 2 days after it was tuned, i didnt even drive 50 miles with the head done. My block was sleeved with forged pistons, H-beams, with micropolished crank. The bottom end was balanced and blue printed and tuned with hondata s200 and has been running for almost 2 years with no problems at all NONE. Then when i had the funds I started building the head. I took my head to portflow where they ported and installed the whole valvetain. I was running all Skunk2 flat valves, retainers, springs, and stage 2 cams. I clayed the motor for clearances and I had plenty of clearance from valve to valve and piston to valve. I didnt want to risk anything with the motor so after i started it up and checked for leaks and problems it stayed parked until the day of the appointment where i left early and drove steets under 3k the whole time. Only after it was tuned did i punch it. Then one day when i was coming back from pink's the engine shut off (no cel light, no leaks whatsoever). tried cranking to no avail.

My friend took out the valve cover and I didnt drop a valve, the whole valvetrain looks fine. Took out the spark plugs and #2 spark plug is all chewed up. None of the other plugs where chewed up.

Now onto the tuning. AFR stayed from 2k all the way to 8500k stayed around 13.0 and 13.5. I didnt look at the AFR ratio when i left, but now that i'm looking at it, i thought it was suppose to go rich at WOT and under heavy loads. My friends and i are thinking that it was tune that made my block go lean and eventually blow. I need to get other peoples opinion whether or not i should go back and show them my afr and get my money back for a bad tune; maybe even more for the 1100 dollars spent in building the head. I'll post pics of the AFR and the spark plug if anyone needs to see it.



UPDATE!!!!

My head and my block were secretly seeing each behind my back. I told them not to but after all my naggin they still wanted to meet.











Anybody got an extra B16 head lying around? Bare I seem to be in the market for one.


Modified by Mr. Samurai at 7:40 PM 8/14/2006


Modified by Mr. Samurai at 4:50 PM 8/23/2006

Bense

perhaps the smaller combustion chamber raised your compression too much and you detonated.

Hard to tell when we're not sure what went wrong.

What was your base timing?

Mr. Samurai

i dont think it was the smaller chamber. My block had a 84mm pistons with 11:1 compression. When I had the block built i as running stock timing. With the new head the tuner went +2 on the intake and +1 on the exhaust.

igo4bmx

is it a n/a setup?
what block and head is it?

Mr. Samurai

yea its an N/A setup B16A2 block and B16A2 head. both the block and the head are from my em1,

JDM_Ej

Well your spark plug is chewed to ****, so SOMETHING went wrong, but I don't think it was running lean...

Mr. Samurai

I dont know what else could've gone wrong. My block was running in my car just fine for 2 years prior to this. The head was fine when i took the valve cover out, and even now I'm not leaking. I've yet to take the head out but when i do i'll take pics and post them. Im serioulsy pissed off because i'm starting to believe the tuner screwed me over. Anybody have any other AFR charts I can compare mine to?

bsixteen

are you even sure the motor is blown? you said the head looked ok and no valve drop. so what do you think could have happened? snapped a rod? you sure it can't be something else..maybe electrical?

edit: blah i just woke up from a nap lol. spark plug..hmm..


Modified by bsixteen at 7:44 PM 8/14/2006

igo4bmx

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Mr. Samurai &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I dont know what else could've gone wrong. My block was running in my car just fine for 2 years prior to this. The head was fine when i took the valve cover out, and even now I'm not leaking. I've yet to take the head out but when i do i'll take pics and post them. Im serioulsy pissed off because i'm starting to believe the tuner screwed me over. Anybody have any other AFR charts I can compare mine to?</TD></TR></TABLE>

it could have been bad valvetrain.
are the valves still intact?

Mr. Samurai

from just looking at the top with the valve cover off everything is still in place. I'm going to take the head out this week and see what the damage is. i'm not even sure if the valves are still intact just from what i could see with the cover off.

tempsohc

keep us updated...

Luserkid

What type of spark plugs were you using? Also what gas were you tuned on and who tuned you? **** happens man and you cant really blame the tuner, espeically if they have the a/f sheets that doesnt say lean. 13.5 - 13.0 is perfectly fine for all motor, thats a good richness. If the motor went 2 days after then it probably wasnt the tune.

I had a friend who went on a dyno, and didnt make it 10 miles past the dyno shop before it blew. Its all in the build. Take pics of the spark plugs then we could tell you more. If your really worried something blew pull the head. But right now replace the spark plug with NGK 7s and see what happens. Also make sure to gap them good.

Mr. Samurai

I was using NGK's, same ones i've been using since the beginning; I was tuned on 91 octane. They were gapped to 38th thousands. I detonated I'm positive about that thats how teh #2 spark plug looked like when my friend pulled it out. all the other spark plugs didnt look like that, they looked normal. My friend stated that they plugs looked likei was burning lean. I am going to pull the head out I KNOW there was damage, but im trying to figure whether or not it was a bad tune or not

Luserkid

Thats a pretty impressive blow up. Sadly to say theres nothing you could do about the tune even if it was the tune. All this stuff we do like this is for off road use only and not suppose to be used on the street. All you could do is find another tuner if your 100% sure it was the tune.

But note, if it was the tune this would have happened to all cylinders, not just one. Before you pull the head run a compression check and see if removing the head is needed.

92redhatch

same thing happen to me. I broke a intake valve. And piston #3 hit the spark plug. When i took the motor apart piston and rod #3 where stuck still and would no longer move.


BTW: it happened to me because i went lean on N20(75 shot) at 8500rpm in 4th gear.

Syndacate

Doubt fire did that kinda damage, had to be the piston or something - the rods are in check?

Sleepy_Red_hatch

i think you snapped a valve, th flat part dropped into the cylinder and hence the damage to the sparkplug.

Mr. Samurai

i''ve yet to take the head apart, so i dont know what kind of damage is done, hopefully the block is salvageable and i can just get a new head and slap it on. if the piston hit the spark plug it would've done it on all 4 so im pretty sure it wasnt that. I was thinking about a faulty product aka the valve breaking off but I wont konw for sure until i take the head out.

igo4bmx

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Mr. Samurai &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">i''ve yet to take the head apart, so i dont know what kind of damage is done, hopefully the block is salvageable and i can just get a new head and slap it on. if the piston hit the spark plug it would've done it on all 4 so im pretty sure it wasnt that. I was thinking about a faulty product aka the valve breaking off but I wont konw for sure until i take the head out.</TD></TR></TABLE>


remember the spark plug is recessed in the head and can't easily been hit by the piston.

most likely a valve snapped and caused all this to happen.
also individual cylinders CAN go lean, since i believe the #4 cylinder goes the leanest generally.

92redhatch

it happened to me. I know you snapped a valve. Do a compression check i bet that you have no compression in that cylinder due to the snapped valve. And trust me that spark plug didnt happen because of heat it happened because the piston hit it. Im teling you because the same thing happened to me. The car still turns on right?

B18C5-EH2

Yes I'd say you dropped a valve man. The shitty part is I seriously doubt the head or block is even salvagable now.

I think the damage to the spark plug is more of a result in a piece of a valve being smashed a thousand times (until the engine locked up) into it. The clearances between the piston and valves is already pretty tight, but add in a chunk of metal there and the clearance becomes zero.

I've got a 00 Civic Si with only 115,000 miles on it with the exact same problem, and it was caused by someone grabbing 3rd gear instead of 5th when he was already redlining 4th gear. It was mechanically over revved. I'm not saying you did that, but wither way it looks like a dropped/broken valve just like this guy has.

igo4bmx

I'm gonna give my opinion and say skunk2 parts are crap.
i don't doubt there was a quality issue with one of their valvetrain pieces that made this happen.

JDM_Ej

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by B18C5-EH2 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Yes I'd say you dropped a valve man. The shitty part is I seriously doubt the head or block is even salvagable now.

I think the damage to the spark plug is more of a result in a piece of a valve being smashed a thousand times (until the engine locked up) into it. The clearances between the piston and valves is already pretty tight, but add in a chunk of metal there and the clearance becomes zero.

I've got a 00 Civic Si with only 115,000 miles on it with the exact same problem, and it was caused by someone grabbing 3rd gear instead of 5th when he was already redlining 4th gear. It was mechanically over revved. I'm not saying you did that, but wither way it looks like a dropped/broken valve just like this guy has.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Definatly agree. A friend of mine did the same thing in his 2000 ITR. Neither the block nor the head was salvagable. We actually found the valve bashed into the metal of the cylinder dome. We couldn't even get it out.

B18C5-EH2

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

Definatly agree. A friend of mine did the same thing in his 2000 ITR. Neither the block nor the head was salvagable. We actually found the valve bashed into the metal of the cylinder dome. We couldn't even get it out. </TD></TR></TABLE>

This engine dropped a valve, the valve pieces smashed repeatedly into the piston, combustion chamber, spark plug, and then the debris cracked the cylinder wall/coolant jacket and the engine dumped it's coolant out the exhaust in the form of a huge white cloud of smoke.

The block and head are not usuable at all. you've got to think if the spark plug looks that bashed up, then what does that aluminum combustion chamber look like? The block may survive though - that's literally a 50/50.

turbotime

that looks like a dropped valve buddy.

sorry, it sucks, i just went thru this process, time for a rebuild

Pull the actual cylinder head and youll see whats up, valve face prolly snapped off and left the stem intact with keeper in place, making it looks like all the valves are fine from the valve-cover view....