Well my fully built motor was blown on the 5th day of use. 1/4 the way thru the 1st run . Heres the sequence of events. Whos to blame here? Pics will come later

Got the block back assembled everything, got the car running . It had quite a bit of slap. I was told that is natural for JE's and to not worry. So i dont even though i dont think its sounds right becuase the knock never went away .So i get the car tuned. The car felt great under the tune. I went to race after every thing was done.
Not even at the 1/8 th mile marker the car jolts forward on full boost and thats the end of the run ending up driving back to the pits smoking.
Checked everythin out and couldnt see anything visual . Talked to the tuner and got a well the Jolt was prob boost cut i set it for 15psi . . . . . but i stopped making fuel tables after 12 psi. So im assuming it spiked a little, but to me the boost cut should have been closer to the fuel tables or all the tables unlocked and made rich that we didnt get to **** with. So im still skeptical about things and tore the motor down , Yes it looks like the piston valve reliefs were like melted from detonation as i assume they would. But as i take the pistons out it looks like and enormous amount of blow by on the piston skirts from maybe the tolerances not being on . The pistons did move back and forth very much in the sleeves. When the builder was asked about the tolerances, it was stated that they were Dead on with JE specs and were 45 thousands over bore for piston to wall clearances. My concern with that is 2 of the pistons came out pretty easy and 2 of them were really hard to get out and needed to be tapped out with a little bit of frce. so that says to me the tolerances werent all the same. Im gonna post up pics to see what everyonje thinks. But im thinking a combination of both parties are at fault, but i wanna see what the concensus says before i make any 100% claims.
Thanks for your time.

 

blame them both...
tuner should've set boost tables all the way to 20 psi. if your builder truely didn't make the motor to spec, that could've caused ur motor to blow instead of just enduring the force of overboosting.

pics

-ryan

 

well yea IMO the slap was way outta hand , sounded like a turbo diesel car. you can see gouges in the piston skirts from blow by and piston slap . the pistons actually moved very much in the sleeves, and could visably see the gaps. which made me very curious. The builder blames the tuner.
In the tuners parts the tables were only tuned to 12psi because we didnt go over 12psi that night. but he never told me he didnt unlock the tables and he set the boost cut. But again IMO i should have known about the boost cut. And either the boost cut should have been set closer to the tables, or all tables unlocked and enrichened? Pleas esomeone tell me if im thinking wrong here and just being and *******.
My prob is im stuck with a bottom end i just spend a boatload on and am in debt upto my ears for a blown motor i didnt even get to have fun with. . Ill post pics in a bit , i thinknthey will speak for them selves. Im trying to find my damn camera.

 

Im confused on how you had the car tuned fine @12psi with out any spiking/creep, etc but then the first time you go to race it spikes to ~15

 

I wouldn't know by experience, but isn't 45 thousanths a lot of clearance? Were all your pistons melted?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by itr206 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> When the builder was asked about the tolerances, it was stated that they were Dead on with JE specs and were 45 thousands over bore for piston to wall clearances. </TD></TR></TABLE>

I'm hoping you're misquoting him, because .045 is WAAYYY too much clearance. .0045 would be about right. I've seen bad things happen with bad machine work. What sleeves are they and who installed them? We had a ton of problems like this with darton sleeves that were installed by a local machine shop. The sleeves are fine, but if they're not installed right then they'll start moving around.

 

it spiked to around 15psi as per my peak and hhold on my boost controller. they are never %100 on becuase of many vac tee's but im sure it spiked close to that . The only thing i can say that caused that is running the exhaust cut out. when racing and not when tuning . ?

 

if the pistons were too small for the bore(causing exesvive slap) and causing ring gaps to be to large thu getting blowby..oil consumption..etc..it probably caused detonation.
i would point the finger at whoever it was that bored out the sleeves for that one.

when you got the car tuned it may have not as been as bad(the blowby..etc) and than it finally took a **** @ the track

how long was the engine running before it was "BEAT"???? did ya do a vacum test and see how much vacum the engine was pulling??

maybe the rings werent even seated all the way. whatever happend washed them out.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by itr206 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> The only thing i can say that caused that is running the exhaust cut out. when racing and not when tuning . ?</TD></TR></TABLE>

that would also make the car run slightly on the lean side as well.

seems like a combo of everything...

get some bigger pistons and bore it out.. are the bearings ok still???

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by itr206 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">it spiked to around 15psi as per my peak and hhold on my boost controller. they are never %100 on becuase of many vac tee's but im sure it spiked close to that . The only thing i can say that caused that is running the exhaust cut out. when racing and not when tuning . ?</TD></TR></TABLE>
The exhaust cutout definitely could've done it. I've seen it happen many times, the car will run much leaner with the exhaust off. How agressive was the original tune? What a/f ratio?

 

I would say that the builder is at fault. The builder should have made sure everything was within perfect tolerance.
The only way for the Tuner to be at blame is that if you went there with a perfectly built motor, and by them not tunning it correctly, or not enough, then they would be to blame. But since you went there with a pourly built motor blame goes to the Builder. Get a ******* refund or whoop sum ***
Good luck man, sorry to hear.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by itr206 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> The only thing i can say that caused that is running the exhaust cut out. when racing and not when tuning . ?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Im not sure if it will cause it to spike alot, but it will definately change things, you should have had it tuned the way you were gonna run it...Changing your exhaust to something alot more flowing is a big change...

 

the tune wasnt agressive at all , a/f was high 11's to low 12 at the leanset with the exhaust on . The timien was retrded a full degree per psi from what i rememeber. thats the tuners stadard on street tunes. ws running 94 sunoco at the time.

As far as the vaccum test, no i didnt do that . i just thought all was well , there was no smoking , no oil burning/loss or anything. and the car felt ok, just skaped like crazy. So i assumed they were seated.
All the bearings are shot including mains, the pistons need to be replaced, the sleeves need to be overbored, not sure ho9w much yet, the crank needs to be polshed again . . . .all this after 5 days of use. didnt even get the oppurtunity to give it any abuse.

 

wow...that is suprising to me...all of the bearings are shot...

who built the engine???did they "mic" or at least palstiguage it?


btw..if ya need help ....feel free to call us up.

we wont **** ya.

 

i didnt type it out in decimals becuase i didnt want to get it confused, he flat out told me he went 45 thouandths over. he said it was only a tad over JE's specs and was told by JE to go over a little more to 45 thousandths becuase of the boost i was gonna run and the cylinders expanding. . im hoping the pics will set everything in stone. . the valve reliefs were all melted on the intake side, and the skirts are all gauged looking like from slap and sever blow by.
I just need some solid evidence before truly placing blame on either party and doing what needs to be done to get my money back . I spent $1500 and change alne on assembly, not counting my bearings and other parts.
It was Darton Sleeves, Je pistons , eagle rods, and OEM bearings, water pump , oil pump ect.

 

Did you properly break the motor in? It seems like you just installed everything, brought it to your tuner and went to the track. Seems like the rings would need to be seated correctly before tuning and if there was something wrong with the build, it could have been addressed during this period.

 

he said he plastigauged it. from wehat i saw all the bearings were needing replacements. some were wose then others. but all need to be replaed im sure.
I wont name names yet. I need something solid before someones reputation ges ruined here. I dont wanna be an *******, but i want whats fair. I just wanted to see what more people who are more experienced in building think

 

the engine was broken in in 4 days and had 500+ miles on it. the tuner didnt touch it until it had about 500 miles onit. the rings should have been seated at like 20 miles if even that , but i waited a little longer to lay it saefe

 

whats up man,, why dont you tell us who tuned your motor? And who built it?? Im pretty sure i know who tuned it, and if its who i think, i highly doubt it was his fault,,,, im not saying names but you should **** the builder up or kick your own *** for not noticing something during the break-in period with the excessive slap,,, just my O

 

I agree with Tony,

Have you ever seen A:F ratios when you run open downpipes? There is a lot more going on than just running lean. Its terribly different than running with an exhaust. You really need an exhaust to tame the atmospheric pressure load on the open downpipe. An exhaust creates velocity that creates a negative pressure. Try generating an A:F curve with open header/DP and you will see what I mean.

My car was untuneable without an exhaust on it. Going from a tuned car with an exhaust to a cutout will create many problems. I blew 2 pistons last year just gutting my cat causing me to lean out and detonate.

 

well on the new set up , im not even bothering with an exhaust. its not gonna be on the street much so im just gonna run 3 inch open dp out the side.
matter of fact gruvy i was thinking opf bringin the car to you or collin next time around

 

heres an idea of the damage, look at the skirts of all the pistons and the valve reliefs. everything that can be fucked up is

 

I should hope he didn't set the piston-to-bore clearance at 45 thousandths of an inch (.045"). That's 10x too much clearance. It should be 45 ten-thousandths (.0045").

That kind of scuffing on the skirts looks like improper clearancing to my limited knowledge. I can't think of anything else that would cause that sort of wear at such an accelerated rate. Those pistons look worse than the skirts of a set of JUN pistons we just took out with a cylinder-to-bore clearance of more than .010", and they had been in the engine for more than 9k miles.

 

Damn that piston look like it has 150,000 boosted miles on it. I think your builder and yourself are to blame. If the bearing are already screwed then the clearances were off and why didn't you tune with open exhaust if you were going to run with open exhaust.

 

Damn that sux, I too am running JE pistons but on stock sleeves and my car sounds like a diesel type R too and Im begining to think the builder fuked up too, do u by any chance have any sound clips of your car before it blew?