Well he basically said the AF ratio wasnt correct and the Timing was off. Motor is getting rebuilt and the tuner said just wait and you will see how the motor should have been running. He said it was very obvious when he looked at the tune that there was issues. He didnt elaborate (I wasnt there when he came by to read the tune), but ill post the original tunes up so you guys can see whatever he saw. Its the start of our busy time of the year so my time is limited from now until next march. As soon as I can get to the office ill post the tunes up. Might be a week.

 

Please tell me how your "tuner" can look at a file and say what the ACTUAL RUNNING A\F was and the timing way off ? The tune has 27 deg but the motor made best power on the engine at 28 deg timing.

Interesting the log file on the last dyno I sent you the A\F is 12.2-12.7 ?

Yes please post up the tunes for everybody to see.

 

Yeah just because the commanded AFR is inputed, does not mean the actual AFR are those values. A few things have an affect on that with BS3. Curious on how the tuner could have come up with saying the AFR was off.

 

I was under the impression it was from the looks of the pistons, and plugs etc...

 

A/F being fubar, and the timing a bit "off" does not account for the valve head impressions in the pistons.[Brgs knocked out?] Nor does the fact that the odd bank is toasted, and the even is not??
Someone playing "grabass" w/ the individual cyl tune values????
Why would the tuner not make his entire inspection results known?? Did he look at the data log[s] that were with the tune he looked at? [And, thus made the conclusion the AFR and timing were fubar??] Looking at the tune and not the corresponding data is pretty much a useless exercize, IMO.

 

I plan on posting what goes on, as it goes on. Before the end of summer there will be a motor running.

 

They are actually all toasted. All 8 pistons are melted, I thought originally it was just the odd bank, but its in fact all 8. Once we got the motor apart and all the pistons in good light and everything examined, thats when we realized they were all toasted identical. You couldnt tell the diference from any particular piston. Its hard for me to get information on a day to day basis because I might go to the office one time in 3 weeks. My father has been out of the country now for a week, and probably wont be back for another 2 weeks. I didnt even get to speak with the tuner, I got information relayed to me from a guy that works in the warehouse.

ALSO talked with Aeromotive and they insure me that there is no way this thing is not getting enough fuel to each fuel rail.

 

WOW, lots of broken parts! That sucks If that was the "old" build, I'm anxious to see what #'s the new build is going to produce.

 

Good luck guys, and be careful re-using that C5R block.

 

Send me a PM on the LSX Seven cracks in the block and the heads need 7 valves

 

Block would look like it has been to Bagdad after all the welding. Will not take the risk. $10,000.00 down the drain.

 

Just got the lifters and rockers back from Jesel

Cost to repair was over $2,060.00. This is only getting worse by the day. Who knows what the pump repairs will be.

 

Something else to consider is that it may have NOTHING to do with builder or tuner. It may be something as simple as a braided hose. I have burned up $100,000 gear boxes due to AN hose. (Use Aeroquip ONLY!) The quality of many brands of AN hose is suspect these days. Check ALL your fuel system hoses for flappers. Even a partially blocked hose will burn up an engine. You might even consider the new Kevlar hoses (what the heck, they'll save you a few pounds, too.)
With that being said, it really sounds like you need to verify the ignition timing and verify the reference to the BS3. The top ring land broke, not melted, from ring ends butting. (SERIOUS detonation) Pistons look WAY too thin. But this has already been stated.
Sorry about your mis-fortune. It's always hard to swallow.

 

Let me shed some light of my experience with Futral



My motor had clearance issues,under bored,piston pop-up height but you still wouldnt take the blame. Remember you didnt have time for me!!! You also attemted to tune my car but didnt know WTF you were doing. My car left your shop running like **** and I took it straight to RWTD in mobile afterwards and from that date it has ran perfect. Not to mention the tune you had in my car had a over 30 degrees of timing and you rapped the VE tables for starters. If you like I can can expose more of this...

It's time to stop ******* people over alan.

 

Valve clearance and tuning and timing? sounds way to familiar.

If anyone has a motor built by alan I recommend putting your motor on suicide watch, because they blow themselves up.

We spent 3 and a half years with endless delays and excuses. We have a fucked c5r block, jesel rockers, lifters, etcc.......the tuning, its all terrible. When ive made the comment that our motor was a 55k dollar motor we got corrected really fast that it was only a 38k dollar motor (which makes it less important I guess), so I hope that you were able to get some sort of customer service, because we sure as hell didnt. Please expose more of your story, im curious!!!

 

 

Holy cow...just took a peak at this...

Just my observations...for what it is worth. I have tuned a few turbo cars in my time...and have seen pistons that look like what you have.

1. If you own a car of this caliber...and allowed it to have a #6 NGK heat range plug in it..... You need to bend over and pull your head out of your ***.. Or get someone to help you.... If you cannot remove your head from your *** sell the car and seek medical attention as soon as possible.

2. It is fairly obvious that whomever is tuning your car telling you it is fuel related either has not seen the pictures of the pistons...or has his head stuck in his ***. If you get your head out, maybe you can help him with his. The pistons show no signs of scalloping.... Primary cause of failure was not AFR related.

3. This does not mean that it was not the engine builders fault... But your conclusions are far from correct. Blaming everyone who has worked on the vehicle in the past will not fix the problem...it will only created pain. Lets calm down a minute.

For what it is worth, I am very sorry about what happened. I have no personal experience with Futral so I cannot vouch on his tuning. If you send me a tune I would be glad to look over it...but at this point I would think a call to meaney would settle your nerves. I would ask meaney what his experience has been with your current tuner...if it is negative, I would ask him where to go. John is very straight about who can do what. By looking at the pictures I would say that the top ring fell under some serious heat (sitting on the brake, running on the limiter, wrong plugs, improper designed hot side -- on second look it most likely is not header related..what is the primary length and collector length?... from your one pic the exhaust pad looks real good for a higher compression N/A motor), extended past designed minimum gap and popped the top (it is also very possible that top ring gap was tight). The melting that you see where the "piece" of piston is missing is most likely aftermath.

eitherway, at the end of the day stop pissing on each other and fix the problem!


Hope you guys get it figured out without someone getting shot.

Just another thought as I am sitting thinking.. How old was the fuel you were using? I just ran into a similar problem with some sun drenched VP... But again looking at the pistons... It really looks like the top ring got REAL hot, or was too tight. I see pistons all the time in the bigger turbo stuff that look like yours...but the tuning gap believe it or not is less for you. N/A big power is a VERY TOUGH DEAL!

Dennis

 

Bad stuff for sure, but we will definitely learn from this!!

 

Builder/tuner started out with C-16 VP fuel, then went to C-19. We all know going to a higher Oct fuel is one way to control detonation. I think he was having serious detonation problems and did not know what to do because he also wanted to drop compression, another way to control detonation if you dont know how to tune a motor of this caliber Understand my only imput was money. Everything from build to tune was left up to Futral. He was given the opportunity to build the fastest NA in the nation no limits on the cost for the motor. By the way $38,000.00 does not include the block and machine work. C5R block was $6,500.00 bare.

After a total tear down of the heads (8 bent exh valves and 4 intake) seats in 4 exh and 2 intake beat out or damaged. Block has been sent off for repairs by OEM.

 

+1 when the piston started to heat up and expand, it may be that they smacked the valves.

28 degrees should be max. I don't give a rats *** who's tuning my car I want to look at the tables before it's fired up. I'm paying for the service and I want to make sure it's right. I'm not pointing fingers but I've seen and heard of many tuners throwing in their magical ticking timebomb. To clear up the air here I'm not saying anybody here has done it, I'm just saying some flamers have been accused and caught doing it.

Everything being said, if the previous engine failed due to the tune I'm pretty sure Futral was extra cautious with this. The main issue is the TR6 spark plug. If someone blew up an engine and the electrode burnt off it means the plug is to hot for the engine, so why would someone use the same spark plug? Didn't it cross anybodies mind to go colder? Who's fault is that?

If a plug electrode starts glowing detonation and pre-ignition can happen. Then the electrode falls off and is bouncing around the combustion chamber and possibly gets stuck between the piston and the valve or the valve and the heads. This is another possibililty for the bent valves, broken pistons and damaged skirts. Pre-ignition, bad plugs and the wrong heat index spark plug. Everything went south after that.

Buy some HR7 stuff... hell buy a HR8 plug, make sure it's safe then goto a HR7 if it looks to cold.

This is an unfortunate situation and sure would suck. Good luck with the next engine.