I should shut up.

 

Have you pulled the pan yet?

 

Nope.....buddies deserted my today and didn't get it pulled. Maybe tomorrow....

 

Yep,

Damn, This is a serious mystery. Do you agree the ring end gap looks good?

I think we're all out of ideas gentlemen.

 

See if this pic is any clearer. Didn't run it throught my editor to reduce pixels for quick loading.

 

much better pic. i am all out. but those pistons still look really sh**** to me, for only being ran an hour.

 

As far as I know, you are supposed to use "file to fit" rings on the KB pistons. I suspect the internet engine builders don't have alot of time to do this so they would probably use pre-gapped rings.

I have no idea if that ring gap is good or not without measuring it. I would however expect to see more that one piston with a land busted if in fact they used off the shelf piston rings on KB pistons that didn't have the extra gap these pistons require

 

http://www.babcox.com/editorial/ar/ar80125.htm

 

Hey! I see a thumb print on that piston. Call CSI, maybe they can figure it out.

 

 

Main Site

This is the actual company. I suspect they sub out various pieces and parts of their work.

There is no telling who actually built your engine. They do seem to be working with you on this though.

Good luck

 

Positions
Check newspapers or call our Human Resource Department for actual job openings.
Production
1st and 2nd shift production at the Kearney Plant. No experience necessary. We will train. Hours for 1st shift are 6:00am to 4:30pm Monday - Thursday and 6:00am to 2:30pm on Friday. Hours for 2nd shift are 2:30pm to 1:00am Monday - Thursday and 2:30pm to 11:00pm on Friday.


Customer Service Representive
Computer skills and phone skills are a must. Need to be able to make quick decisions, be helpful and understanding. Will be responsible for doing some paper work, tracking freight and taking calls.


Warranty Technician/Trouble Shooters
Need to have a basic understanding of engines. Will be trouble shooting engine problems using problem solving manuals. Will train!


Call our Human Resource Department to find out about many other job opportunities!



Yep, makes me feel warm and fuzzy to have such "qualified" people working on my engine. Oh, I also noticed on the Marshall home page that they do not dyno every engine. Need to read all the fine print.


MsVetteman, we all support you and even if we have to work in the background, I, for one, will spread the word about these guys without referencing your specific claim agains these guys.

 

it can STILL be the ring gap, it may look good there in the top of the bore but if the bores are not freshly done and tapered, something that wouldn't be too strange looking at those bores.. it may still be too tight at the bottom and seize up, that would also explain whay the cracks seem to have started down the bore.

 

I notice a shiney spot on the edge where the chunk of piston is missing. Looks like a groove mark from the edge of a valve to me.

 

Where did the pieces that broke off go?
Did pieces that big get ground up and sent out the exhaust?
The tops of the pistons that broke do not look like they struck the pieces even once!
Did the pieces shatter into a billion tiny pieces when they initially broke off?
Maybe they were broken before he even started the "new" engine fir the first time?

 

High production business..
On the job training...
Disclaimer on dyno...
As I said earlier,doing cylinder bore work is labor intensive...think this is root of problem...that engine would have not made it on a dyno..IMO...
Come on Monday !!!

 

Not sure where the pieces are, but probably got shattered and went out the exhaust.

The tops of the valves on both cylinders damaged appear to have been hit. They both have small etchings and markings. Tops of piston appear the same, but it's hard to tell with the crud on them, and I don't want to remove it until I get the engine inspected.

I need to take some better pics of the inside bores for y'all to see. There is obvious up and down rub marks from the rings on the side of the bores.

 

It is possible the block was 0 decked when this shop got it and they never touched it, thought it was a stock deck block and the pistons hit the valves causing them to break. Can't wait to hear the exactly what happened

 

I think this is concidered "evidence" and should not be removed at all. I think if you alter anything they could say they could no longer tell what caused the problem and deny claim.

 

Interesting read...detonation process still not understood. Who ever figures it out should call NASA...they still haven't figured it out..

The detonation process
Detonation is an abnormal combustion process where some of the fuel air mix burns in an out-of-control manner at extremely high speeds. This creates a violent jump in cylinder pressure when the piston is nearly stationary near TDC and cannot effectively transfer the load to the crankshaft.

As engine load increases, if the temperatures and pressures are too high within the combustion chamber, a complex series of pre-combustion reactions begin to break down unburned fuel before the flame front gets to them for normal combustion to take place. If the breakdown proceeds far enough, there are areas in the combustion chamber that will contain very unstable high temperature mixtures of unburned or partially burned fuel and air. If a critical temperature and pressure is reached these highly combustible gasses ignite explosively rather than in the normal progressive process.

The actual detonation process is still, some 50–100 years after it was first examined, not entirely understood. What is clear, is that this highly unstable pocket of gas can undergo detonation (a very rapid supersonic combustion), which can push cylinder pressures to very high levels and cause severe shock to the mechanical parts of the engine.

Studies done by NACA (predecessor agency to NASA) on aircraft engines following WWI and during the WWII time period tried to understand the process. They were performed using ultra-high-speed cameras with frame rates of 40,000 to 200,000 frames per second. In those studies the detonation process frequently went to completion in only a few film frames, indicating very high combustion speeds. Photographic evidence indicated the detonation process occurs in a time interval on the order of (5×10−5 seconds) and computed speeds of 6500 to 6800 ft/s (1980 to 2070 m/s). [1] [2] [3]

As a result of this very rapid release of energy, cylinder pressures briefly spike to several times normal, causing a characteristic sound which gives engine detonation its common names. When it occurs under low rpm high load conditions it produces a brutal knocking rattle sound (hence the common name). As engine rpm increases the perceived pitch of the sound would increase often described as sounding like rocks shaken in a tin can. At high rpm it could progress to a sharp ping or tink sound that leads to the other common names of "ping" in the U.S. and "Pink" or "Pinking" in the UK and Europe. The sound was caused by the ringing of the entire engine due to the sudden hammer blow of high pressure to the piston and cylinder head, caused by the detonation. These photographic studies demonstrated that auto-ignition of the unburned or partially burned gasses often occurred along with detonation but were not pre-requisite conditions for detonation, as knock events were observed where no auto-ignition preceded the detonation.

Detonation can range from a low order form that an engine can endure for hours to an intense form that can destroy pistons and crack cylinder walls in a matter of seconds. [4]

The ultimate limit for power production in an internal combustion spark ignition engine is nearly always determined by the maximum cylinder pressure you can develop without producing destructive detonation. This came to be known as "knock limited performance". Nearly all high performance internal combustion piston engines are limited in their maximum power output by the octane and knock sensitivity of the fuel they use.

Research to understand engine detonation or knock resulted in extensive research in high octane fuels. The octane rating system was set up to allow different fuels to be ranked according to how sensitive they were to detonation. From this was developed a standard method of octane ratings based on mixtures of two specific pure hydrocarbon fuels that would give the same sensitivity to detonation as the test fuel. This allowed fuels to be rated up to 100–120 octane. During WWII this index was extended with Performance Numbers for aircraft fuels, by computing out an approximate effective octane number for a fuel based on how much TEL (Tetra-ethyl lead) needed to be added to the fuels.

Up until the 1970's TEL was a common octane increasing additive added to both automotive and aircraft gasoline. Due to environmental concerns, it has been replaced by MMT, a magnesium compound (Methylcyclopentadienyl Manganese Tricarbonyl), or by changes in fuel blending which add very knock resistant chemicals to the fuel. High octane unleaded fuel, frequently contains high percentages of aromatic compounds like Toluene to enhance the fuel octane. Some other chemicals like ethanol and MTBE (methyl tertiary-butyl ether) have also been used in many locations both to reduce emissions of CO, HC or NOx compounds in the exhaust gas, and to enhance fuel octane. MTBE is currently being phased out in many areas due to its potential to cause pollution of groundwater.

The most effective methods found to control knock were:

To raise the octane level of the fuel.
Speed up the combustion process by using multiple spark plugs in each cylinder.
Reduce combustion time by increasing engine rpm.
Improved combustion chambers that came to be known as "fast burn" chambers.
Lowering the intake air temperature of the fuel air mix, for example with an intercooler, and the use of water or water alcohol injection to cool the combustion gasses were also effective.
Cooling the combustion chamber with water injection came to be known as ADI in WWII aircraft standing for "Anti Detonation Injection". In the modern performance automotive community it is commonly known as Water injection or simply WI.

In recent years as more high performance turbocharged and supercharged automobile engines have become more common there has been increase interest in compound fuel systems in the form of Alcohol injection where a water alcohol or straight alcohol is injected into the engines intake air stream under high load, this both cools the combustion process but adds additional high octane fuel to the fuel air mix raising the effective octane to levels high enough to push knock limited performance to new limits.