Going to the dyno tomorrow....update with bad pics 11/26 :(

cjthor · Post by **cjthor** » November 25th, 2006, 11:21 pm

What yall think...other than OUCH.

papa roached · Post by **papa roached** » November 26th, 2006, 6:14 pm

looks painful

JWMotorsports · Post by **JWMotorsports** » November 26th, 2006, 11:18 pm

Looking at the piston crowns I say it was running lean. Looking at the scuffed side skirts the piston to wall clearance is either wrong or the engine was oil starved. Any pics of the spark plugs and combustion chambers?
The only way you could scuff a side skirt that bad with proper oil and proper clearances would be to detinate the PISS out of it for really long periods of time!!!!

I've personally witnessed a BP engine SEVERELY detinated at 26psi on a Mitsu small 16G w/ talon side mount IC several times repeatedly (manual boost controller and driver that couldn't hear). After tearing down the engine many months later, with a cracked piston, the skirts had nearly zero scuffing.....NOTHING like what yours have! Hell the block was still honeable!

The Wiseco Piston's Diameter should be measured 1.300" below the bottom oil ring land. Then measure the cylinder bore diameter. Subtract the piston diameter from the cylinder bore diameter and you should have a minimum of .006" differance (.003" actual piston to wall clearance). The bore will NOT be the same for all B6 engines bored say .020" over. The pistons must be measured and then .006" added to the piston dia. This will give you the minimum correct bore dia. for the cylinders. The piston diameters do vary.

Looks like you'll need new pistons from what I can see in the pictures. Sometimes you can salvage the pistons by coating the skirts and crowns. I highly recommend Swaintech or Calico Coatings for these tasks. For example....if your bore is to large for the piston (oops you honed it to far, etc..within reason) you can have the skirts coated pretty thick and run a really tight piston to wall clearance with no damage and very little blow bye. The better practice is to set the piston to wall clearance and then have the skirts coated to bring the cleance down to within maybe a .001" of the cyl. wall.

Beware of what material your pistons are made from. Different materials have different thermal expansion rates, meaning not all pistons can run the same piston to wall clearance.

cjthor · Post by **cjthor** » November 26th, 2006, 11:21 pm

could the scuffing be caused by the cams not being set right? toooooo rich causing cylinder wash?

Josh · Post by **Josh** » November 27th, 2006, 12:19 am

cjthor wrote:could the scuffing be caused by the cams not being set right? toooooo rich causing cylinder wash?

i dont think thats cylinder wash, not at all. definatly too lean. the cams not being timed rite could cause it to not get the fuel when it was needed. it almost looks like the cylinder could have not been bored rite. but dont know that unless we actually see it. is the block still useable?

Mnemonic · Post by **Mnemonic** » November 29th, 2006, 1:19 pm

i'd say no more help from corksport

cjthor · Post by **cjthor** » November 29th, 2006, 2:08 pm

Mnemonic wrote:i'd say no more help from corksport

Im kinda stuck...the engine is warrantied by them...

Tunes67 · Post by **Tunes67** » November 29th, 2006, 2:27 pm

Can you get a pic of the block? Specifically the cylinder that piston came out of? Maybe even a pic of the combustion chamber(s) of the head? With that much scuffing on the skirt.. I'd have to really wonder if the cylinder wall didnt take some heavy damage too.

Tunes67

Steeb · Post by **Steeb** » December 13th, 2006, 3:32 pm

cjthor wrote:could the scuffing be caused by the cams not being set right? toooooo rich causing cylinder wash?

many people blow or damage their built motors well under the limits it was built to handle because of driving it untuned or tuned wrong. running to rich can wash the oil off the cylinder walls causing excessive wear to the pistons, piston rings and cylinder walls. excessive heat at the ringlands and circulating microscopic shards of metal from cylinder walls is no bueno either. while this stuff may not immediately cause your motor to fail, the damage is already done before you brought your car to the dyno.

the built and unbuilt motors that last are ones that are broken in properly and tuned properly immediately following proper break in. if it is possible, dont drive your car if its not tuned, any driving on unproperly tuned or untuned fuel and timing maps causes damage even before it shows.

cjthor · Post by **cjthor** » December 14th, 2006, 12:41 am

Steeb wrote:
cjthor wrote:could the scuffing be caused by the cams not being set right? toooooo rich causing cylinder wash?
many people blow or damage their built motors well under the limits it was built to handle because of driving it untuned or tuned wrong. running to rich can wash the oil off the cylinder walls causing excessive wear to the pistons, piston rings and cylinder walls. excessive heat at the ringlands and circulating microscopic shards of metal from cylinder walls is no bueno either. while this stuff may not immediately cause your motor to fail, the damage is already done before you brought your car to the dyno.

the built and unbuilt motors that last are ones that are broken in properly and tuned properly immediately following proper break in. if it is possible, dont drive your car if its not tuned, any driving on unproperly tuned or untuned fuel and timing maps causes damage even before it shows.

Corksport built the motor, corksport improperly set the cams. I broke it in following their guidelines. 3k on the motor all varying RPM and not going into boost until 2k miles...even then i barely touched 5lbs.

Steeb · Post by **Steeb** » December 14th, 2006, 4:14 pm

driving it untuned for 3000 miles is still driving it untuned. while many people use that same break in method not every motor will handle it the same way. to add in that your cams were improperly degreed does not help a/f ratio, egt's, or cylinder temps for the 3000 miles that you drove like a grandma. i agree with corksports break in instructions except the 2000 miles part. if a motor is built properly it doesnt need more than maybe a quick drive to fully warm up the motor and drive it around the block then immediately do a couple of oil changes to flush out anything that may be in there.

i have had friends do the same as you and i have also had friends tow their completed car to the dyno to tune and break in the motor on the actual dyno while tuning.

a very well known tuner shop down here in so cal that my friend work at have tuned hundreds of cars and recommend this proceedure.
1. start up the motor rev it up and around varying rpms
2. immediately change oil and filter
3. drive around the block
4. immediately change oil and filter
5. drive around the block
6. immediately change oil and filter
7 dyno tune.
8. charge customer 450-550/hr for tuning and 200 for motor break in.

very unfortunate that corksport is having bad luck but at least its not your fault. hopefully they will do better next time...

JWMotorsports · Post by **JWMotorsports** » December 17th, 2006, 11:32 pm

If they charge that for tuning they are RAPING the customers!!!! You don't need to change the oil that much either!

If an engine is properly cleaned, lubed, & assembled correctly with ALL the clearances properly set you only need to start it and let it run for maybe 20-30min. then change the oil & filter. Initial start up is where you want to do some tuning to get the car to idle at a decent a/f as well to prevent washing the cylinders and excessivly wearing the rings, bearing, etc...

The next thing you want to do is some base line street tuning or dyno tuning at moderate throttle and rpm ranges. The best way to get the rings and bearings to seat is to moderately accelerate to about 30-50mph and then just quickly let off the throttle allowing the car to engine brake back down to about 15mph lower than what you accelerated to. This loads both the bearings and rings but allows cooling between load changes when done moderately. After doing this a few time and driving the car for about 30min you can change the oil again, filter if you really want to (if your getting large debree at this point your screwed anyway). Drive the car moderately avoiding high speeds if possible for a day or two.

Now the engine is mostly broke in and you can run it pretty hard but not for long durations of time (a drag stip pass would be a good referance of the longest run you want to make a hard run) Most rebuilds should be run about 500 miles like this before running it hard for long periods of time. The reason is becuase most engines are not running opened up clearances like most full race engine and require a little more time for the parts to wear to and equalized state. The larger the clearances are opend up from stock, the short the breakin period required because the engines internals will wear next to none while breaking it in even on initial startup up if properly assembled. The longer you run the engine the hotter the parts get. The hotter the parts get the more they expand...expansion rate depends on material parts are made from. The more they expand the more they wear causing more heat and more expansion. This is why initial breakin is critical to an engines overall life.

As Steeb metioned before and I also can not stress enough.....initial tuning is absolutely critical as soon as the engine fires even for the first time!

Steeb · Post by **Steeb** » December 18th, 2006, 4:25 pm

jwm, the shop prices i listed is not a shop that many can afford. only the top cars go there scca and nasa race cars etc. the reason its so expensive is because they have the experience and the knowledge in complete chassis and engine tuning. ive been asked not to mention the name of the shop by my buddy cuz he prefers too remain only known to the locals at this time.

there are many shops that charge half of his prices but imo most shops are not even close to half as good.

jarid, it is even more crucial that you tune immediately after break in because you did not start with a bpt w/ecu that had maps for boost that would have been closer to "optimal" fuel and timing maps than the dohc n/a b6 that came in your mx3. even if you had the bpt i wouldnt run more than stock power levels cuz many oem tune will dump the same amount of fuel after a certain psi.

for example, the normal stock boost on my mr2 turbo is around 5-8psi but the ecu will tell the injectors to dump the same amount of fuel @ anything over 10psi. oem ecu is only optimal for oem settings, anything higher than stock boost on a stock turbo'd motor is not optimal even tho it will run for a long time.

cjthor · Post by **cjthor** » December 18th, 2006, 7:39 pm

Steeb wrote:
jarid, it is even more crucial that you tune immediately after break in because you did not start with a bpt w/ecu that had maps for boost that would have been closer to "optimal" fuel and timing maps than the dohc n/a b6 that came in your mx3. even if you had the bpt i wouldnt run more than stock power levels cuz many oem tune will dump the same amount of fuel after a certain psi.

for example, the normal stock boost on my mr2 turbo is around 5-8psi but the ecu will tell the injectors to dump the same amount of fuel @ anything over 10psi. oem ecu is only optimal for oem settings, anything higher than stock boost on a stock turbo'd motor is not optimal even tho it will run for a long time.

i should close this post until i get answers...you guys are helping but beating a dead horse. boils down to CORKSPORT said to drive the car at varying RPM for 3000 miles...THEY set my RRFPR and super AFC and said it was ok to run. THEY set the cams and THEY dyno tuned the car..THEY blew it up on the dyno..THEY are fixing it.

JWMotorsports · Post by **JWMotorsports** » December 18th, 2006, 7:46 pm

Amen

MX-3.com

Going to the dyno tomorrow....update with bad pics 11/26 :(

Pics of the damage