Ive made several posts in the past week about my motor blowing after less than 15 track runs and that is a liberal estimate. We were wondering why the motor would come apart so quickly and thought it to be tuning. After we started looking at the pictures we saw that 2 wrist pins came out, and that every exhaust valve was bent. I put this post in this section because I felt it belonged here and I wanted a few opinions.
Things I noticed:
1. Every piston on the odd bank is burnt up
2. Every single piston has a perfect image of the valve on it.
3. I am in the steel industry so I know what metal looks like when its heated very hot and cooled. The pistons look like they were so damn hot, the blue tint to the pistons only on the odd bank.
4. 2 wrist pins came out-that doesnt just happen I dont think.
5. Look at the little marks on top of the pistons like something was bouncing around in there. Every piston has these marks, not just on the odd side.
Looks lean with detonation to me. What was the A/F ratio? By the way you should use a camera not a phone to take pics. They could use a BIT more resolution.
__________________ 2002 Collector Edition Trans Am 140 of 2000
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Yeah, my dad emailed them to me. He had to reduce them, but they were taken with a Canon SLR Rebel 10.2. He actually went and bought it today so he could take good pictures. Ill try to ge the original pictures, they are like 5+mb each. Really good looking pictures.
I dont know the AF ratio right now. Engine builder tuned the car. Two diferent tuners are gonna personally come and take a look and read the BS3 cause we want two unbiased opinions. Ill know more soon, but It has been bothering me and I just wanted to see what a few people on here thought.
Its a tough pill to swallow when this happens twice in a row, same problem. This time was much worse, the first time we just burnt holes in the pistons. This time the block broke, rod, pistons, all the valves, etc....We have been suspecting a tuning problem.......
Since it's only on the one side of the motor, my uneducated guess would be fueling on that side. How are your fuel rails set up? How is your data acquisition set up? (wideband locations are where? EGT? etc)
I could see if you had a restriction in the fuel on the drivers' side of the car, and if the tuning were based on sensors located on the passengers' side of the car, that you could have popped the motor based on that. Just a wild theory.
It has a complete aeromotive system. Its the complete system good to 1100 n/a hp. Its got the a1000 pump etc... We checked fuel pressure and its 45psi. The fuel system has the Y fitting for even distribution.
This is the second time in 8 months the motor has burnt up pistons the exact same way.
We aren't sure, but we think the timing was 30+, we will know within the week. That is if the information wasn't deleted off the computer.
If all the pistons were hitting the valves something was wrong in the engine build. Was the PtV checked? How do the bearings look? I've seen some blue in engines and it was usually heat due to lack of oil or oil pressure. I'd be curious to know what the a/f was also. Usually something like this can be linked to detonation. How did the car run?
__________________ 1998 Black SS Camaro #1262
Under construction
Damn, Twice in a row!!! C5r case's are not cheap either! Look's like detonation and it was lean to me also! Is this a N/A setup?
Are you guy's using race fuel also?
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You didn't answer the question about the wideband O2s or EGTs. How and where was the AFR being measured?
What injectors were you running, and was their nameplate flow rate posted at 60psi (normal LS1 pressure) or 45 psi? I assume the person who tuned the car knew the specifics about the fuel PSI when setting the injector constant.
Damn, Twice in a row!!! C5r case's are not cheap either! Look's like detonation and it was lean to me also! Is this a N/A setup?
Are you guy's using race fuel also?
If I remember right its N/A and built to kill, no pump gas for that bad boy.
Sorry about the pistions man, hope you can get that bug behined you....
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Ive made several posts in the past week about my motor blowing after less than 15 track runs and that is a liberal estimate. We were wondering why the motor would come apart so quickly and thought it to be tuning. After we started looking at the pictures we saw that 2 wrist pins came out, and that every exhaust valve was bent. I put this post in this section because I felt it belonged here and I wanted a few opinions.
Things I noticed:
1. Every piston on the odd bank is burnt up
2. Every single piston has a perfect image of the valve on it.
3. I am in the steel industry so I know what metal looks like when its heated very hot and cooled. The pistons look like they were so damn hot, the blue tint to the pistons only on the odd bank.
4. 2 wrist pins came out-that doesnt just happen I dont think.
5. Look at the little marks on top of the pistons like something was bouncing around in there. Every piston has these marks, not just on the odd side.
Sorry about your engine there Morgan. Just looking at the pics you posted though you could generally tell the following at least.
Obviously the engine was detonated pretty bad on that side with the melted pistons there's no doubt about that.
The piston pic with all the damage also looks brown underneath the deck which is usually detonation heat as well.
The pins coming out could be many things so that's too hard to tell from the pictures you have.
You also had some exhaust valve P to V problems from either insufficient clearance or some bad stuff happening on that side.
Of course you could have also had your Jesel belt drive slip and the cam retard which will also bend those exhaust valves as well.
As far as the damage and marks on top of your pistons go, as soon as one of those pistons started coming apart, pieces of it probably went up the intake and into the other cylinders as well, marking all of them.
I know your pain we had 2 go ka boom last year. Its a very steep learing curve, and expensive. Definitly looks very lean, as though there is very little carbon on the piston, 30 degrees seems like a lot. Those small chambers usually don't need a lot of timing. Looks like it pushed the head gasket on a few cylinders.
It has a complete aeromotive system. Its the complete system good to 1100 n/a hp. Its got the a1000 pump etc... We checked fuel pressure and its 45psi. The fuel system has the Y fitting for even distribution.
This is the second time in 8 months the motor has burnt up pistons the exact same way.
We aren't sure, but we think the timing was 30+, we will know within the week. That is if the information wasn't deleted off the computer.
Nevermind I answered my own question and just saw your other pictures Morgan with the dry sump and tank etc.
I can now see as well that your rod small end pin bushing is hammered out like extreme detonation as well in that pic of the broken rod but of course that could have occurred when the rod came off and was hammered by the crank etc.
Also you have the top ring groove pretty close to the intake relief but that may have been a necessary evil with that build. It's the thinnest part so when you have any detonation it melts there first always.
This motor was hammered by detonation. Thats the reason pins came out or bad install. Detonation killed this motor. All pistons are fried. Head gaskets were leaking between 3&5, 5&7,,2&4,4&6. This same thing happened 6 months ago and the builder blamed it on wrong plugs. Paid for a rebuild but this time Kaboom. Same burned pistons.
Thanks for the comments guys. If I didnt answer a question that you asked, its because I dont have a definite answer. I will get an answer though. Thanks Camaroholic. Its an absolute shame what has happened.
The past couple months we have been suspecting a tuning problem, well we decided that we were gonna go get the car and get someone else to tune it. We thought it was only tuning, but about 3 days before we went to get the car back, the engine builder said the motor blew. We never had any suspicions that it wasnt built perfect, but after really looking at the motor and having a couple engine builders come look at it in person, and from comments in this thread.....I dont think it had enough clearance either.
I have money at this point on lean due to fuel system stuff. Probably broke/burnt the ring lands first, then I bet the exhaust valves grew (thermal expansion) due to extreme heat and got into the negative piston-valve clearance.
How is your fuel system routed? Is it a single feed line with a crossover from one rail to another then into a regulator or do you have two dedicated feed lines, one for each rail and then into a regulator? Any kind of data aquisition on the car? Any way of seeing fuel pressure in each rail seperately? If you're running a single feed and then y-ing into each rail what angle do they diverge?
I seriously doubt your cam belt slipped, cog/polychain belts have to be grossly loose to skip a tooth, and if it does it'll usually shear a couple teeth off. I'm just having a hard time believing that two seperate tunes each caused two motors to blow up.
I assume you arn't still using an OEM style plastic intake manifold?
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I remember seein this car when it was built on here. If I'm not mistaken it's built by Futral and made 800+ horsepower on motor. That sucks that it took a crap like that. I was going to add to the detonation thing, but everyone seemed to cover that already.
He has a sheet metal intake, check the the pic link to all the pics.
Sorry not to see that car out and making passes, that's one gorgeous ride. My Camaro told me a few minutes ago he wants to look like that your when he grows up.
C5R Kaboom PICS (link to video added) 
