Bad News My Engine is BROKEN!!

[Got Venom]

I got the bad news yesterday from Dan Cragin at DC Motorsports. 5 of my cast pistons are toast. Probably from the time my water/**** hoses blew off my ROE S/C and I did not notice detonation under WOT. I have a couple of dumb questions. I tried doing a search, but it did not work well. What compression ratio are the stock cast pistons? What are some of the lower compression ratios of the forged pistons you can buy for our cars? I think I am going to have him toss the water/****, and go with as low as possible compression ratio forged piston, so I can run a conservative amount of boost, and still use the lower octane 91 gas out here in California, with out having a detonation problem. If he does not think this will work, I guess I might go back with my polished stock manifold, and have him pump me up in a naturally aspirated setup??? Anybody out here in California have a Roe S/C setup without water/****, and using lower compression forged pistons? If I do go back to naturally aspirated, I guess my polished Roe S/C and water/**** will be available if anybody is interested. Thanks in advance

 

[Mccarlin]

That's the #1 reason why i dont have water/**** on my car. there is no fail safe for the system and if something fails under load, BOOM goes the motor.

Sorry to hear about it, im sure she will be better than new when all done

 

[99 R/T 10]

You can buy any ratio you want. They are usually custom made. Stock compression is 9.6, I had Greg Good build a set of heads CC'd at 79 which will drop it down to 9.0 for my Roe charger. I like the water/**** and it's just like any other part of the car. You must check it out once in a while. I bet that the damage did not occur with just one throttle jump, but many. As always you must be in tune with your car. If something sounds different, it needs to be checked out. I go under the hood of my car every chance I get(just because it looks cool ) and always check the oil, water/**** lines, PS and brake fluid. I say keep it and enjoy the extra power, otherwise you'll be disappointed by the loss of the power when you get it back. My $.02

 

[Joseph Dell]

Sorry to hear about your issue. This is a KNOWN issue and it is a shame that it still happens to people.

The best defense is a wide-band Air/Fuel meter.

 

[Shelby3]

You can buy any ratio you want. They are usually custom made. Stock compression is 9.6, I had Greg Good build a set of heads CC'd at 79 which will drop it down to 9.0 for my Roe charger. I like the water/**** and it's just like any other part of the car. You must check it out once in a while. I bet that the damage did not occur with just one throttle jump, but many. As always you must be in tune with your car. If something sounds different, it needs to be checked out. I go under the hood of my car every chance I get(just because it looks cool ) and always check the oil, water/**** lines, PS and brake fluid. I say keep it and enjoy the extra power, otherwise you'll be disappointed by the loss of the power when you get it back. My $.02

Good post. my sentiments exactly.

 

[Got Venom]

You guys don't know me, but I am kind of anal towards this car, as you can see. I check everything. I admit, I probably was only on WOT once when the water/**** blew off, so my problem was from other detonations. I have this one problem. I can hear detonation and back off, when I have the roof on and the windows rolled up, but when I have the top off, and with headers, and no cats and 3" Corsa out the back, when I am on the throttle, I can not even begin to hear if it is pinging. So I need a failsafe setup because of our 91 octane gas out here. Sure I did the routine where I would go fill up with a little 100 octane, and or have 106 octane fuel at home, that I would add a few gallons of, but that got to be old real fast. Especially if you were going on a road trip. I had 7:1 compression pistons in a twin turbo Capri I had many years ago, and ran 20lbs. of boost. I'm thinking if I go with a low enough compression ratio, and run about 8 lbs. of boost, shouldn't I be able to run 91 octane gas, and not worry about detonation?

 

[Warfang]

I just started hearing detonation in my snake yesterday after a year without it. Better get that checked out soon.

Sorry for your loss. It'll be good as new soon!

 

[apun]

Was your car tuned with the w/m? My previous car (Toyota) had 9:1 compression forged pistons running 20 psi on 91 octane. It was tuned for that and then I ran water injection on top of it for safety.

JD, don't the wideband O2 sensors have limited life? On my Toyota, I only had it in for tuning purposes.

Alex

 

[Shelby3]

You guys don't know me, but I am kind of anal towards this car, as you can see. I check everything. I admit, I probably was only on WOT once when the water/**** blew off, so my problem was from other detonations. I have this one problem. I can hear detonation and back off, when I have the roof on and the windows rolled up, but when I have the top off, and with headers, and no cats and 3" Corsa out the back, when I am on the throttle, I can not even begin to hear if it is pinging. So I need a failsafe setup because of our 91 octane gas out here. Sure I did the routine where I would go fill up with a little 100 octane, and or have 106 octane fuel at home, that I would add a few gallons of, but that got to be old real fast. Especially if you were going on a road trip. I had 7:1 compression pistons in a twin turbo Capri I had many years ago, and ran 20lbs. of boost. I'm thinking if I go with a low enough compression ratio, and run about 8 lbs. of boost, shouldn't I be able to run 91 octane gas, and not worry about detonation?

It's all in the tune. Who tuned your car? If you were frequently hearing detonation, the tune was too lean regardless of any mods you have.

 

[plumcrazy]

That's the #1 reason why i dont have water/**** on my car. there is no fail safe for the system and if something fails under load, BOOM goes the motor.

Sorry to hear about it, im sure she will be better than new when all done

i cant agree more. and if i DID have them, they be of a much better material !!!

 

[GTS-R 001]

Dennis,

Sorry to hear about your engine, My Y2K GTS is at Cragins right now getting a complete engine rebuild as well. I am going paxton with an AEM and a Kevin Singleton built 9.2:1 engine, Maybe you should sell the Roe and just go NA with JM cylinder heads and a 708 cam. Dan says he gets 600+ HP on that everyday of the week, you probably only have that now with your roe ( or did till it blew up ). Good Luck with your engine.

 

[ROGUE]

Was your car tuned with the w/m? My previous car (Toyota) had 9:1 compression forged pistons running 20 psi on 91 octane. It was tuned for that and then I ran water injection on top of it for safety.

JD, don't the wideband O2 sensors have limited life? On my Toyota, I only had it in for tuning purposes.

Alex

a 3L 6 isn't exactly the same as a 488" V10, you can't even make a direct comparison to the boost levels.

And a wideband O2 doesn't have any shorter of a life than a regular one, all the guys running the AEM standalone leave them in full time and it hasn't been an issue yet. After a few hundread gallons of C16 it might have a little buildup but nothing to write home about.

 

[Warfang]

i just reset my computer and the detonation went away... is this normal?

 

[Jack B]

JD:

The new Innovate DL32 has an analog out that can be used to alarm or provide input back to the VEC. It should be easy to set up so that the signal activates under WOT - that should be close to fail-safe.

I am now setting up my car with two EGT's and two O2's that will be logged, but, also set to drop off the nitrous at a preset a/f. My attempt to log timing is complete and successful, I have several wot plots of the viper advance curve. I haven't logged with the stock card yet, but, when I do I will post the two curves juxtaposed together.

 

[Joseph Dell]

Jack - That's good info! I'll have to check out the DL32. I'm in the process of adding some EGT sensors as well. you and I will have some good info to share pretty soon!

JD

 

[FrankBarba]

GotVenom: The only person you should be asking these questions to is:
Dan Cragin, he is a very respected person in the viper community. I'm sure he has the answers to all of your questions.

 

[Joseph Dell]

Frank -

You are right. the rest of us are all idiots.

JD

 

[BlueGTS]

Frank -

You are right. the rest of us are all idiots.

JD

HAHA

Frank, have you ever heard the saying you can't ask the butcher about the beef? I am thinking that is why he is asking people that have no $$ to gain from the answer.

As to answer his initial question I am guessing the hose "blowing off" is due to install error. If installed correctly they will not blow off. That is not say the fitting can not be upgraded from the plastic ones in the kit to compression fittings but I would suppect it was not a fault of Sean's kit.

 

[Got Venom]

I am not blaming anyone. Mine has been an interesting journey, and it does no good to say he said she said, so I am only looking forward. I originally had "Apex Motorsports" do the original install, and there were numerous problems. Then I had Valaya Racing fix all of those problems, but not quite get it totally right. So then at VOI 9 , Sean Roe did a tune and replace the PCM in the parking garage. Then I needed more definite tuning, and I sent the car down to DC last year. They did a great job, but then of course I wanted more. So when I put the water/**** on it, and took the cats off of it, Valaya did the tuning, and then I started having problems, so I guess I was too late sending it back down to DC. I just live in the wrong part of the country for this kind of install??? That is why I am asking anybody what kind of success they have had, so I can determine with Dan Cragin which direction I should go next.

 

[Burt G]

Dennis,
Sorry to hear of your setback, You have an Incredible RT/10 with lots of options
to entertain. I recommend looking into whats most important H.P or reliability? With that being said & knowing our limited resources here in Ca. I fully agree with Steve P. going N/A & maintaining reliability while still having plenty of H.P. Best of luck & see ya soon. Burt

 

[1TONY1]

I got the bad news yesterday from Dan Cragin at DC Motorsports. 5 of my cast pistons are toast. Probably from the time my water/**** hoses blew off my ROE S/C and I did not notice detonation under WOT. I have a couple of dumb questions. I tried doing a search, but it did not work well. What compression ratio are the stock cast pistons? What are some of the lower compression ratios of the forged pistons you can buy for our cars? I think I am going to have him toss the water/****, and go with as low as possible compression ratio forged piston, so I can run a conservative amount of boost, and still use the lower octane 91 gas out here in California, with out having a detonation problem. If he does not think this will work, I guess I might go back with my polished stock manifold, and have him pump me up in a naturally aspirated setup??? Anybody out here in California have a Roe S/C setup without water/****, and using lower compression forged pistons? If I do go back to naturally aspirated, I guess my polished Roe S/C and water/**** will be available if anybody is interested. Thanks in advance

That's unfortunate. The main problem you "had" was the cast pistons. They just will not tolerate any detonation. I would bet that if you had forged pistons you would have been fine. I put my s/c on when there was not even a vec2, all we did was turn the timing down depending on the fuel. Since that time, playing, experimenting, etc. I have detonated my engine on many occasions. Once you get the forged pistons in you will be fine. To ease your mind (and for safety) you should also get a pressure switch and LED that will show you that everything is OK. The light you probably have now only shows power is applied and will not tell you a line has blown off. My w/m system is my own design because it was on there long before Roe started selling them. I do not have the pressure switch on yet, but I do have:
1. An LED showing power is applied to the pump.
2. A gauge showing water pressure.
3. A wide band o2 that is very easily seen.

Don't give up, with the new pistons you will be fine.