94: Acura Integra
GSR: B18c1(stock internals)
Simple bolt-on: Turbo kit
turbo: t3/to4e .57trim(oil restricted)
Hondata s100
Tuned on 10lbs made 310whp

3 weeks after tuning my car ran fine, well great!!! after those 3 weeks of tuning i started noticing a little steam from the valve cover, so I changed my headgasket, which helped a little with the steam. so as days passed, steam got worse, but was not a huge concern because I still had power.. so I finnally grew a pair and sucked it in and admitted I had a case of "BLOW-BY", so, after that, I purchased a 68mm throttle body from a bud, took my old TPS off and switched it to my new throttle body, car ran fine .., so I decided to do a rebuild on the cheap-bay turbo... replaced all seals etc made sure there was no shaft play and installed it back.. after that i lost 2 screws for the t3 flange and i needed a new wastegate gasket didnt have one around so I had to do what i could until I could purchase one.. so I took my car out for a spin after the rebuild and i notced my turbo wouold spool before I would go and when it wouold go around 7500rpm's the car would break up but the pulls didnt seem strong as before.. so i changed plugs and wires and it did a little better.. i thought it was my tps soo i had it adjusted but after adjusting it, it would stay still. so im leaning towards, boost-leak, wastegate, distributor,vacuum leak, or compression lost... but it doesnt feel slugginsh at all.
anyone with these symptoms?

Ps i dont hear my wastegate as much anymore like i used to... and my blow-off valve is kinda louder than before...

 

Do a compression test

 

ok

 

tha cause of power loss & blow by were broken ringlands/skirts

 

*was*

 

That sucks major D. Is the entire motor trashed?

 

Not at all, cylinder walls have no scars what so ever just #4 piston ringlands cracked eveerything else is a go.. thanks for the concern..

 

So your "Tuning" job was **** poor is the real cause of the failure here. Find a new tuner. If you are low on money, replace the one broken piston with an OEM unit and go again. If you have money, build the bottom end, find a tuner, and shoot for more.

 

how can you base that off of "tuning" alone and not other factors as in mileage and maintainace? as stated, a proper catch can would have helped severly in this situaton! my pistons had 290,000+miles on them before this happened, i have sprayed nitrous and then turbocharged this motor....

 

Exactly my point. How can you sit there and tell me that its not your tuning? I have NEVER seen a piston break ring lands except with castastrophoc engine failure or detonation. You didn't say anything failed, you said you found broken ring lands. They broke from excessive pressure caused by detonation. You ran lean, you pushed it, they failed. I've broken them before for the same reasons. Face the facts and take some action to correct it or its going to happen again.

Here, better yet. Help me prove my point. Replace that one cylinder with a stock piston and then do nothing else. Don't retune, nothing. Go run the car hard for a while and lets see if it holds up.

 

Actually, there are many cases ringlands fail due to fatigue or weakness with "conservative" tunes by experienced tuners. It's very common in the subaru/WRX community when guys put large turbos on stock motors and push them past 400whp for a while. In fact, a close friend of mine just pulled his block apart this last week and found that's exactly what had happened. No detonation, and the tuner was the best in the business.

Without seeing anything, it's impossible to say what the cause was in the OP's case. If he pulled it apart, I would think there would be signs of detonation if it was severe enough to cause that failure. Oh well. Good luck

 

Uhh this isn't a Subaru we're talking about so your post is a bit redundant.

 

actually it isnt.. tuning is by far the most important thing.. but there are plenty of tuner's who have pulled floss out of their ***'s monitoring air/fuel to perfect it... like i said due to the mileage and added stress on my motor there are way more factors to look at than a tuner.. mileage, engine life before and after i turboed etc... crankcase pressure can also harm rings... with that being said, I will not blame my tuner/ based on your opionated fact.. yes you are right in terms of agreeing with yourself, but i dont feel its fair to blame the tuner for my past present and future driving conditons or motor conditions.. thanks for the input. P.S this is not to argue, if it leads to arguing, im just going to admit your right and leave it at that