b18u power loss

[doingitsideways]

Hope it's not chewed the bore mate!

Did you change all three rings on each piston?

Steve

[Anadinolin]

Yeah, all 3 rings, they came in a set for all 4 cylinders.

Just got Off the blower to them, going to get a set arriving on Saturday morning

[doingitsideways]

Did you bore the block??

[Anadinolin]

No, when I did the hg and new pistons they sat flush with the block if you get what im describing? Pressure was balanced when I first put the rings in

[doingitsideways]

Just can't get my head around how you've killed a piston's worth of rings in so little time.

You did put the pistons in the right way round??
May sound like a stupid question, but they usually have a front "face"

Can't remember now, were they new pistons too??

Steve

[Anadinolin]

im not sure either, the car has been ok for 30k miles. iv been having a bit of electrical trouble recently, so that might not be helping much i did notice it was running very rich in the morning before all the trouble bubbled up to this.

as i wasnt using the car i took the head off last night - it is infact a blown piston ring - the bore looks ok, checked it this morning before my 3 hour train journey into work (3 hours vs 1 hour by car, they wonder why no one uses the bloody trains) in low light levels - the bore looked ok under torch light. there is pieces of the rings all over the place.

had the piston out, it seems fine. got the patio heater through the house ready for work on the car tomorrow lol :P - this time we get it right!

yeah i put in new forged pistons and rods with a new crankshaft and had it balanced by the formula 2 tuners next door to the scrapyard i frequent.

[TurboZutek]

Blocked exhaust will overheat and fracture rings very quickly, each and every compression stroke hammers them into bits a tiny amount at a time: I'm not seeing a big mystery here at all.

Good luck in the repair job!

Chris...

[doingitsideways]

But I thought the exhaust turned out to not be blocked after all??

Steve

[TurboZutek]

Originally Posted by doingitsideways

But I thought the exhaust turned out to not be blocked after all??

...I don't see that anywhere?

But if that's the case, then yeah that is odd! I guess the other causes of ring death:

1. Wrong oil (not likely)
2. Rings installed incorrectly (again, that can be checked)
3. Extreme detonation (but it'll show other signs like burnt valves)
4. Failure of the bore or poor honing on installation (but this normally doesn't cause rings to shatter, just wear to the point of being useless)
5. Extremely rich running leading to bore wash, ring overheat and failure (pretty rare on an EFi car unless the injectors are leaking very badly and then you'll know all about it from poor running)

So maybe the rings were just bad from the factory?

Some pics of the bore and piston would be good

Chris...

[Anadinolin]

Right, shes all done. New rings arrived as stated by the guys that manufactured them. These ones look a little less flimsy - so I guess poor manufacturing and rich running where contributing factors.

The car is running again, the bore and pistons are fine, I think I got away with it, luckily

I washed out the engine parts and channels with engine oil flush.

She is still running slightly rich though, which is a concern. Im going to have avnice bath after working in the friggin cold.

Any ideas on solving the richness would be appreciated, although I think I am fairly accurate with my earlier suspicions.