i had to remove the head on my sr20det redtop again after just doing my head gasket and my 4th piston has all of these little dings on them...they were not there before I installed the head...any ideas what could have caused this? am i screwed? these pistons are wiseco 87mm...

Detonation.
Let me guess, exhaust side?

actually my exhaust cam broke...where do i go from here...replace piston? what should i do?

Well, it doesn't look too bad, you could probably polish it out and keep using them.
It really depends on how hot it got exactly, since the ring land may have got hot enough to deform.

LOL back pressure caussing detonation on exhuast side. When I pullled my stock block apart after running a gt2871 that's what every piston looked like except worse

I'd personally pull that piston out, and have a machine shop (or yourself if you trust yourself) clean/polish that surface off and reuse it. So long as the ringlands are ok, and it's not detonated into the upper side of the piston (or any marks on the block itself) you should be ok. You probably will have marks atop the head too, these too can be massaged out by a machine shop.


Having a broken exhaust cam also sucks, but be sure your tune is good/timing is set and that all other systems are good before reassembly.

I've seen too many pistons like that with compromised ring lands. I would have a shop look at it and make a final determination once the piston is out of the block. The last thing you want is to spend money trying to polish that pitting out, only to have a ring land break apart on you.

mikesr86 wrote:i had to remove the head on my sr20det redtop again after just doing my head gasket and my 4th piston has all of these little dings on them...they were not there before I installed the head...any ideas what could have caused this? am i screwed? these pistons are wiseco 87mm...

It looks like it went down the side too, might be fubared. Was there excessive crank case pressure before you pulled the head?

i am going to have to bring this to a machine shop to have them look at the damage...i called wiseco and they said I can purchase a single piston if necessary...