Closure

[B C]

I pulled the pistons from 5 and 6.

The problems I had were never about head gaskets and they were never about tuning. It was all about ring gap(thermal expansion makes the ends touch, buckle, and break out the ringland).

The smooth pieces were found in the recess by the wrist pin, so they had dropped out below the oil ring and got rock-tumbled between the cylinder wall and wrist-pin recess for some time.

I had made sure the engine builder knew this was for a boosted application and he acknowledged it and told me "The rule of thumb is ___ " wider per psi. But after checking the build sheet, he had set the gap to stock size.

Stock cast pistons don't help the situation at all, but they weren't the root cause here.

If I ever do a boosted setup again I will definitely spring for forged pistons, and will set the ring gaps myself.

[KaiserRolls]

[jc43089]

Should have done it yourself. Bummer.

Sent from my 831C using Tapatalk

[GunMetalGrey]

Sucks man, I know the feeling. 
I didn't properly gap my first rings in the NV and I know that's what lead to it's demise. 
Live and learn!

[Boris3]

Glad you solved the mystery!

[B C]

A little bit beyond the scope of some engine rebuild in a bottle

But thats what a piston can look like and still hold 70 and 90 psi

[YoungCR]

As much as it sucks at least this chapter can be closed now as far as your build goes.

[straight6pwr]

might as well email this to your builder with a 'friendly' message.

glad you got an answer.

[Daggerty]

See this is why cx racing turbos are junk

[patsbimmer1]

Well that is damn impressive.

[HipMF]

run it

[B C]

Ran it.

now errbody in the hood has lung cancer

[Jeff]

Jesus and it only smoked a little?

[B C]

Jeff said:

Jesus and it only smoked a little?

Smoked like a Snoop Dogg concert on April 20th.

When i limped it as slow as possible you could still see and smell a cloud of burned oil behind the car . Any sort of throttle left a solid lingering cloud

[Jdesign]

Should have just added some of this. Would have sealed it right up!

 

But all jokes aside, Im glad you figured it out. Knowing what the actual problem was , and that it wasn't your fault is a nice piece of mind.