pistons or headgasket?

[TheOne]

setup:97 ka24de with ~90k miles57 trim T3/T04aem ems50lb injectors~11psi

would it be the headgasket or the piston ringlands?seems engine blew while getting it dyno tuned, did compression numbers, got #1 - 110#2 - 160#3 - 70#4 - 110

added a lil oil to piston #3 and it didn't change compression but the car is smoking blue out of exhaust, the spark plugs look fine, no oil on them, it is also not overheating, which leads me to believe the rings are worn or damaged.

my guess is rings are gone, tho the car felt fine driving back home.

the car made ~300rwhp on a dynojet @ 11psi.

btw the culprit was that the tuner never changed the timing map(stock ka timing + 11psi is no good @ all, and i think it was running higher than stock)

side question: the wastegate dump tube is dumping the exhaust straight to the block(it wouldn't fit the other way, its 1 of those ebay dump tubes that doesn't really fit), the tip is about 3 or 4" from the engine block, would this cause higher coolant temps or any effects due to the high temps coming from the wg?, coolant temp is usually 170+/-10.


Modified by TheOne at 9:38 PM 6/7/2008

[240sxvaj]

my piston ring on #2 piston blew. smoked all over the place. Did oil come out of the valve cover breather hole? hows your oil color? when my motor blew it didnt overheat at all too, maybe its the koyorad that i have. Well get ready to stripp it apart and ready for the real ka build. Your tune must of been reallll bad or something. GOOD LUCK!

Edit: We should make a thread of bad tuners. so that others wont go through the same thing. But then again they do learn from their mistakes and get better.
Modified by 240sxvaj at 1:22 AM 6/8/2008

[480sx]

I would be pretty pissed at that tuner, wow. Who tunes a car with AEM EMS to 11 psi and doesnt mess with timing.. Dude i would be raising hell. At least get your money back from them.

Idk about your engine, you should prly do a leak down test and see what you come up with.

[esahuque]

Well if you put oil in the cylinder and it didn't change your compression then its going to be the head gasket or a bent valve. If you add oil to the cylinder and it raises your compression than its your ring-lands.

[TheOne]

I would be pretty pissed at that tuner, wow. Who tunes a car with AEM EMS to 11 psi and doesnt mess with timing.. Dude i would be raising hell. At least get your money back from them.

Idk about your engine, you should prly do a leak down test and see what you come up with.

yeah this shop claims to know alot about the ems, but when i went back home to check what the tuner did to the map, all i saw was that he tuned the fuel map a bit and then did boost fuel correction, but then i went to check the ignition map(timing map) it was still stock.

Well if you put oil in the cylinder and it didn't change your compression then its going to be the head gasket or a bent valve. If you add oil to the cylinder and it raises your compression than its your ring-lands.

yeah i was thinking that too, could be the headgasket part where the oil flows through blew, but am sure its the piston rings that are broken, since there's quite a bit of smoke coming out of the exhaust.

anybody have an answer to the side question?

[WDRacing]

The side answer is a no brainer dude...ask yourself this one question...is having 1000-1400 degree's of exhaust blowing onto iron a good thing?

WD

[TheOne]

i don't know, i mean cast iron melting point is ~2200F(pure iron melting point is 2400F)

so i didnt really think it would do much, specially since it would be cooler than 1400F coming out of the dump tube, i'd be able to see a rise in coolant temp before anything would happen to the block.

but eitherway the dump tube is gonna get re-routed, this was just a startup patch.

[WDRacing]

The spot that gets more heat the rest because of the extra 1200-1400 degree's is going to have problems was my point. You're not going to notice any specific spot getting hot looking at a coolant temp gauge bro. Does the dump tube happen to be near the cylinder you just popped?

Not to mention having exhaust gases vented under the hood is just retarded on ALL levels.

WD

[TheOne]

3 of'em popped, but that was due to the tuner not changing the timing map for 11psi, that + it bein on the dyno all the way to 6ksomefin rpm popped them.

the dump tube is pointing to the bottom of the block, right above where the oil pan starts, it is getting rerouted though, as i said that was just for starting purposes more than anything.