Over 30 years ago, Dick LaHaie tuned his T/F car like that. Run a compression check, pull the pan and check the bearings. I've seen him go 3 rounds and never pull a head off. It used to drive other tuners crazy, especially after winning a championship with his talented daughter, Kim as crew chief.
Just as R.D. said, checking the bearings has been around for decades (possibly since before Lahie used it). It's not wear they're looking for so much as the bearing being smashed thinner by detonation (like Steve mentioned - they mic the bearings for Thickness, the bearing will be pounded thinner quite a bit before it gets wider. Another check for detonation is to look for tiny silver specks all the way up inside the plugs - they're particles of molten aluminum caused by detonation. Seeing those up in the plugs, checking the bearings tells just how hard it was detonating. It's impossible to hear race engines rattle, so checking for detonation - especially blown, nitro, nitrous etc. has to be done by reading parts, and today's forged pistons are strong enough that it sometimes takes a while for one to show signs or break from detonation. Better to find it early than pay for its broken parts!
Had similar issue with injector connectors, I ended up drilling " in my case" a 3/32" hole through connector and injector and pinning and locking them together with a cotter pin. Was a pain but never had a problem after that.
So, remove engine, re & re all 8 pistons, all associated rings, bearings, hone the cylinders, inspect the crank journals for damage, remove the oil pan and bits of metal, check the oil sump, and replace the injector zip tie and you're good to go? Sounds like an expensive zip tie. LOL! I love it when you explain stuff. God bless.
Ah, reading engine bearings - just like the fuel guys have been doing for decades. It's good to see an engine builder hanging on to some of the old school tuning "tricks", not trying to reinvent the wheel (which works perfectly) just because it's old. Nicely done.
Possibly one of the most informative Dyno videos Steve has done without even cranking up the motor. Would love to know how that top ring fails. Good stuff.
Thanks Mr Steve... You're a great person and that's educational video. I'm not running any boosted motors or application... but this a good to look for on my daily driver. Thanks from Saudi Arabia
Insane. How the cheapest parts can kill a masterpiece of engine. Probably a thermo dynamics situation. Methanol cools. Less meth = more heat ( heat spikes), more heat = more pressure ( pressure spikes) . Combustion firing off the cylinder while the piston is still at full speed running up the cylinder smashing the rings down at the weakest part of the piston. Or something like that
I learned something as always from the master.. and it was also one of the scariest videos I ever watched ...No one wants to take their foot out of it when the car loses power - but you should
Cool info. Thanks for the explanation and the video. Fuel delivery is critical on force fed engines whether it be blowers, turbos or nitrous. By the time you say "oops" it's too late.
The good ole *bearing squish* toonting technique lol. Crazy it's squishing the bearing via the oil film/hydraulic pressure. What a time to be alive when oil film strength is this good!
I have seen what detonation does to pistons and parts running on gasoline and I have seen alcohol engines burn big holes through the head and block like a blow torch when they run lean but I have never seen that done before that is crazy. anyway great video man
Between an injector o-ring (Tom Bailey) and a injector connector on this Hemi makes you really think about how important it is to not overlook these items. Great video.
I don't build engines, but love learning from these videos... Surely a small gauge self tapping screw would be more definite to hold the injector harness on, compared to a 2c cable-tie? If "they always come undone" ?
Maybe heads can have a quick reset style serviceable detonation protection device similar to a pressure relief valve as the engine is a pump than if there is excessive cylinder pressure the device is activated cylinder pressure is vented just enough to save parts getting that bit to much force at the wrong time .
The reason you get knock from 1/2 fuel methanol is a couple reasons. Methanol engines are tuned to run really rich for peak power, sometimes under lambda 0.5. Even at half fuel your still getting enough fuel for combustion with a really high flame speed. The second reason is the loss of cooling of the intake charge. With half the fuel the intake charge temp will be stupid high. Any hot spots likely to preignite wont get the necessary cooling. I am dubious of gasoline engine with symmetrical twin injectors melting down. I think it would cause a lean misfire unless you are normally at a smokey state of affairs. Something that has primary secondary injectors that loses the minor injector would get hurt.
One time I saw an injector get plugged with a piece of rubber from a fuel line or somewhere in the system. at 30psi it instantly torched the head blowing a channel through into the coolant which made the heater core blow up in the dash. Forged wiseco piston suffered a little meltage but the head was a total loss.
After thinking about it for while, the lean methanol condition is more likely PI (pre ignition) than knock. The damage looks like the result of super high PCP from the fuel igniting super early in the compression stroke. Alcohol fuels are much more susceptible to PI than gasoline due to their higher H2 content. When its lean, there is less temperature drop from the latent heat of vaporization of the methanol. This makes the everything hotter (melting the plug strap), and hot surface ignition (i.e. PI) more likely. The high pressure is bypassing the top ring and destroying the 2nd and oil ring lands. The bearing damage also is a big give away from high PCP. Alternatively, hard knock will cause pressure waves in the cylinder which will scrub the boundary layer, allowing the hot combustion gasses to touch the piston surface, making holes in the piston top or ring land. This is more typical for gasoline fuels.
Seems to me like a better style injector is needed to prevent this from happening because injector harness connectors just don’t pop off on ProMod engines but on any engine that sees periodic tear downs for maintenance. I am constantly changing injector connector plug shells because they get worn and won’t stay connected
I always thought I smashed a ring landing like that was due to incorrect piston ring gap for the temperature of the cylinder and the ring has nowhere to go and it buckles and smashes the landing…..
Some guy showed me stock Chevy connecting rods that were compressed a inch or so smaller, maybe more it was 25 years ago. from pushing a 500hp nos kit button , obviously he didn’t retard that timing... it smashed the rods but didn’t break the pistons
Could the third rail act as packup fuel system, activating when the primary rail/injector fails? when operated with proper ecu, when a signal goes off, the packup would go on. It would still be two or three cycles between the switch, but it could still minimize the damage. The piston would still probably be a goner, but the rest could be saved.
Be nice if the ECM would automatically shut off both (or all injector driver) for that cylinder when there is an open circuit in ether injectors so no damage is done.
Possible solution to a lost injector on a multi inj per cyl motor. If the engine computer uses peak and hold for injector control or any sort inj monitoring, use the software to shut off the working inj on the dropped cyl. I'm undecided as to what monitoring to use. At high speeds, amp draw would be better due to the injector being open longer, at low speeds inductive kickback would be better due to more injector cycles relative to clock time.
That was educational!! I had always thought that when it burn through the Intake side ring land like a torch, that it was too rich! But we was on NOS .. I’m assuming that it would be the same result 🤷🏻♂️ Thx Steve for the great videos!!
Does the ecm see the lack of resistance in the injector and do something to help the situation. I no experience here . I realize the ecm can not reattach the harness connections but may be pull timing or cut power to the coil . Probably happens so fast that it to late . Thanks for the videos . I also ZIP tie the injectors harness on my money pit Harleys
So how long before someone comes with a v8 with not shared throws so they can really lean on it? :-) I mean sure it will take more bore space but hey nothing wrong with that. :-)
Hey Steve, I kmow you ride dirtbikes and stuff I remember when you got hurt. But could you do some videos one day on building dirtbike engines and other mods you have done to them
@Steve B yeah I believe he rode bikes with his 2 sons quite a few years ago maybe 2015 and hurt his back or broke his leg or something along those lines
Surprised with all the current technology available you can't put safeties in place to drop timing, and dump boost pressure when this happens, I realize 1 second isn't much time to get it under control. My question is, when set on kill like this is it even possible to put enough safeties in place to prevent the damage from being so severe when they go lean and have a problem?
Oooh ooh I can field why the difference in failure mode between gas and methanol. It has to do with the amount of heat methanol can absorb vs gasoline. Ignition is still going to occur early it’s just not going to be that super heated torch that over oxygenated gasoline will be. It’s going to be an insane spike in cylinder pressure but no where near the heat.
Curious about why you didn't show the actual Connecting rod in this video? Was it a cheaper billet rod, or a Bill Miller forged rod? Kind of an important part of the equation when talking about pre detonation.
I think that if you had a couple knock sensors and an ECU configured correctly you could have caught this in time. I'm not positive on that though, maybe Steve could weigh in.
Methanol is like alcohol just more. I think the ratio for alcohol is about 9:1. Methanol is about 6:1. It’s really good for power, especially with boost. Just takes a lot of it and has its own problems with the fuel being hard on stuff.
@@NBSV1 Yeah it i best racing fuel you can get from pump. Here in Finland almost nobody runs regular gasoline on boosted engines. Just wondering if results are similar when going too lean
Any engine will detonate regardless of the type of fuel used. Certain fuels are just more forgiving. Straight Methanol is much better than partial ethanol blends. Any time you have a situation where a cylinder sees more timing due to less fuel, you run that risk. "LEAN" doesn't hurt parts. Too much timing does.
I have seen melted pistons from pre ignition in a gasoline engine the guy had the timing so advanced and I guess he could not hear the sound of detonation that he just kept it pinned and it melted the piston to the wall of the cylinder and that was on a damn near stock 302 ford there was more then one piston but you could see if was acting like a woodpecker on those pistons
Compression ratio is the difference in the space when the piston is all the way down and when the piston is all the way up. If the cylinder is all the way down and has a volume of 800 cc's and at TDC it is 80 cc the compression ratio is 10 to 1. The compression ratio is a fixed number. Cylinder pressure is what caused it and there is no way to measure cylinder pressure on a normal engine.
@@adamss68er You asked what the compression ratio was when that happened and I tried to explain that the compression ratio doesn't change, cylinder pressure does.
So at 9000 rpm at full noise at that power level that’s 75 detonation combustion cycles in that one second!.. not much would survive that!… Thanks for sharing Steve… But please…by all means get mad at it!… but keep the parts to show us 😉
Detonation does the same thing to any engine regardless of fuel used. The extent of damage will just be different. However the damage he is showing you on the lower ring lands wasn't done by detonation, it was done by excessive boost pressure getting passed the rings. Collateral damage.
Using bearing wear as a tuning tool... talk about higher level racing! Thanks Steve😎
Over 30 years ago, Dick LaHaie tuned his T/F car like that. Run a compression check, pull the pan and check the bearings. I've seen him go 3 rounds and never pull a head off. It used to drive other tuners crazy, especially after winning a championship with his talented daughter, Kim as crew chief.
Just as R.D. said, checking the bearings has been around for decades (possibly since before Lahie used it).
It's not wear they're looking for so much as the bearing being smashed thinner by detonation (like Steve mentioned - they mic the bearings for Thickness, the bearing will be pounded thinner quite a bit before it gets wider.
Another check for detonation is to look for tiny silver specks all the way up inside the plugs - they're particles of molten aluminum caused by detonation. Seeing those up in the plugs, checking the bearings tells just how hard it was detonating.
It's impossible to hear race engines rattle, so checking for detonation - especially blown, nitro, nitrous etc. has to be done by reading parts, and today's forged pistons are strong enough that it sometimes takes a while for one to show signs or break from detonation.
Better to find it early than pay for its broken parts!
It explains why OEM pieces are so reliable. Take any engine platform Dyno it and identity every worst case scenario and tune accordingly.
Had similar issue with injector connectors, I ended up drilling " in my case" a 3/32" hole through connector and injector and pinning and locking them together with a cotter pin. Was a pain but never had a problem after that.
Please keep doing these Steve Tech vids! Your stuff is the most insightful and informative commentary on UA-cam!
Ya I hear of guys looking at the bearings to see where there tune up was, but I didn't know why. Thanks Steve.
thanks for posting - as a builder of totally different style of engines - I learned a lot! always cool to see different new thibgs
So, remove engine, re & re all 8 pistons, all associated rings, bearings, hone the cylinders, inspect the crank journals for damage, remove the oil pan and bits of metal, check the oil sump, and replace the injector zip tie and you're good to go? Sounds like an expensive zip tie. LOL! I love it when you explain stuff. God bless.
Love the information that you share, thank you and keep it coming.
Very , very interesting information. Much appreciated !!
Ah, reading engine bearings - just like the fuel guys have been doing for decades.
It's good to see an engine builder hanging on to some of the old school tuning "tricks", not trying to reinvent the wheel (which works perfectly) just because it's old.
Nicely done.
Possibly one of the most informative Dyno videos Steve has done without even cranking up the motor. Would love to know how that top ring fails. Good stuff.
Thanks Steve I look forward to your videos always learn something
Thanks Mr Steve... You're a great person and that's educational video. I'm not running any boosted motors or application... but this a good to look for on my daily driver. Thanks from Saudi Arabia
Steve, I learn a lot of stuff from your videos! Thanks!
Wauw, the knowhow in this video is amazing. Loved it. Thank you.
Insane. How the cheapest parts can kill a masterpiece of engine. Probably a thermo dynamics situation. Methanol cools. Less meth = more heat ( heat spikes), more heat = more pressure ( pressure spikes) . Combustion firing off the cylinder while the piston is still at full speed running up the cylinder smashing the rings down at the weakest part of the piston. Or something like that
Very informative video. Thanks for showing us what happens.
You are supreme, build motor do you know? Master Stephen, you are!
I learned something as always from the master.. and it was also one of the scariest videos I ever watched ...No one wants to take their foot out of it when the car loses power - but you should
Cool info. Thanks for the explanation and the video. Fuel delivery is critical on force fed engines whether it be blowers, turbos or nitrous. By the time you say "oops" it's too late.
amazing how strong that film strenght is. (even in normal conditions really)
Awesome video. Thanks for the knowledge
Crazy good info Steve, thanks!!
Thanks so much for sharing this inside info. Very interesting
thanks again for taking the time to do this.
THANKS and l mean THANKS FOR YOUR POST OLD TIME RACER LOVE HOW FAR TECHNOLOGY HAS CARRIED US. DantheMan
Love these vids Steve!
Great video Steve!
I love engine science Monday. 😎👍
Nice explanatioin . Steve very interesting
It's amazing how flat the bearing is hammered on a four-second pass in a nitro motor! That would be a great pass on that bearing.
That’s because it was detonating
The good ole *bearing squish* toonting technique lol. Crazy it's squishing the bearing via the oil film/hydraulic pressure. What a time to be alive when oil film strength is this good!
Yep, they have Bugs Bunny back there measuring bearings to check the tooning.
Awesome info. Thanks!
I have seen what detonation does to pistons and parts running on gasoline and I have seen alcohol engines burn big holes through the head and block like a blow torch when they run lean but I have never seen that done before that is crazy. anyway great video man
Fascinating 🧐 I need to get on this level. I want to know so much more 🤤
Between an injector o-ring (Tom Bailey) and a injector connector on this Hemi makes you really think about how important it is to not overlook these items. Great video.
Great content thanks for sharing
There was a recall on GM block marine inboards when the failing injector clips were causing FIRES 🔥
I don't build engines, but love learning from these videos...
Surely a small gauge self tapping screw would be more definite to hold the injector harness on, compared to a 2c cable-tie? If "they always come undone" ?
I'm dying to see the AFR and EGT traces.
Great info
Thanks for the video
Maybe heads can have a quick reset style serviceable detonation protection device similar to a pressure relief valve as the engine is a pump than if there is excessive cylinder pressure the device is activated cylinder pressure is vented just enough to save parts getting that bit to much force at the wrong time .
The reason you get knock from 1/2 fuel methanol is a couple reasons. Methanol engines are tuned to run really rich for peak power, sometimes under lambda 0.5. Even at half fuel your still getting enough fuel for combustion with a really high flame speed.
The second reason is the loss of cooling of the intake charge. With half the fuel the intake charge temp will be stupid high. Any hot spots likely to preignite wont get the necessary cooling.
I am dubious of gasoline engine with symmetrical twin injectors melting down. I think it would cause a lean misfire unless you are normally at a smokey state of affairs. Something that has primary secondary injectors that loses the minor injector would get hurt.
One time I saw an injector get plugged with a piece of rubber from a fuel line or somewhere in the system. at 30psi it instantly torched the head blowing a channel through into the coolant which made the heater core blow up in the dash. Forged wiseco piston suffered a little meltage but the head was a total loss.
After thinking about it for while, the lean methanol condition is more likely PI (pre ignition) than knock. The damage looks like the result of super high PCP from the fuel igniting super early in the compression stroke. Alcohol fuels are much more susceptible to PI than gasoline due to their higher H2 content. When its lean, there is less temperature drop from the latent heat of vaporization of the methanol. This makes the everything hotter (melting the plug strap), and hot surface ignition (i.e. PI) more likely. The high pressure is bypassing the top ring and destroying the 2nd and oil ring lands. The bearing damage also is a big give away from high PCP. Alternatively, hard knock will cause pressure waves in the cylinder which will scrub the boundary layer, allowing the hot combustion gasses to touch the piston surface, making holes in the piston top or ring land. This is more typical for gasoline fuels.
Knock is the sound that pre ignition makes so I didn't read any farther on your the thesis.
Seems to me like a better style injector is needed to prevent this from happening because injector harness connectors just don’t pop off on ProMod engines but on any engine that sees periodic tear downs for maintenance. I am constantly changing injector connector plug shells because they get worn and won’t stay connected
The soft bearing is a good way to validate a warranty claim. One eye peek an you can say yupp this failure isn’t my fault
Maybe some kind of billet cap cover on injector plugs, so much reliying on them, market for something better to retain it.
I always thought I smashed a ring landing like that was due to incorrect piston ring gap for the temperature of the cylinder and the ring has nowhere to go and it buckles and smashes the landing…..
Thanks
Amazing! I’m going to be wondering how much pressure it takes in cylinder to push out a bearing like that?? Blows my mind.
Some guy showed me stock Chevy connecting rods that were compressed a inch or so smaller, maybe more it was 25 years ago. from pushing a 500hp nos kit button , obviously he didn’t retard that timing... it smashed the rods but didn’t break the pistons
@@cardboardboxification probably hit the button at low ram and overfill with to much nitrous. I did it and bent several rods.
Could the third rail act as packup fuel system, activating when the primary rail/injector fails? when operated with proper ecu, when a signal goes off, the packup would go on. It would still be two or three cycles between the switch, but it could still minimize the damage. The piston would still probably be a goner, but the rest could be saved.
Could you fasten that wire connection better with heat shrink tubing? They make clear heat shrink tubing so you could see if it was connected or not
Be nice if the ECM would automatically shut off both (or all injector driver) for that cylinder when there is an open circuit in ether injectors so no damage is done.
Possible solution to a lost injector on a multi inj per cyl motor.
If the engine computer uses peak and hold for injector control or any sort inj monitoring, use the software to shut off the working inj on the dropped cyl. I'm undecided as to what monitoring to use. At high speeds, amp draw would be better due to the injector being open longer, at low speeds inductive kickback would be better due to more injector cycles relative to clock time.
Luv these videos. Not that it matters but a little bit of meat could be taken off the first ring land considering what it survived.
V - Cleavite is the Vandervell Lead Indium Bronze Trimetal Bearings
Interesting! Thanks super Steve hate ev1 connections prefer ev6 connections
That was educational!!
I had always thought that when it burn through the Intake side ring land like a torch, that it was too rich!
But we was on NOS ..
I’m assuming that it would be the same result 🤷🏻♂️
Thx Steve for the great videos!!
Good info Steve thank you. Did you say v or b bearing? Just curious want to research those bearings
V
little J-B weld, be good as new!
Does the ecm see the lack of resistance in the injector and do something to help the situation. I no experience here . I realize the ecm can not reattach the harness connections but may be pull timing or cut power to the coil . Probably happens so fast that it to late . Thanks for the videos . I also ZIP tie the injectors harness on my money pit Harleys
I don't come to just drool over these motors...honest.
46👍's up Steve Morris thanks for sharing
We shorten ed few rods back in the day using blowers
Cool stuff. Probably with half the fuel no intercollegiate iat’s go sky high and knock knock. Lol
So how long before someone comes with a v8 with not shared throws so they can really lean on it? :-) I mean sure it will take more bore space but hey nothing wrong with that. :-)
I'm surprised the fuel injectors don't have bolt on connectors for these high vibration/energy applications.
Hey Steve, I kmow you ride dirtbikes and stuff I remember when you got hurt. But could you do some videos one day on building dirtbike engines and other mods you have done to them
@Steve B yeah I believe he rode bikes with his 2 sons quite a few years ago maybe 2015 and hurt his back or broke his leg or something along those lines
Surprised with all the current technology available you can't put safeties in place to drop timing, and dump boost pressure when this happens, I realize 1 second isn't much time to get it under control. My question is, when set on kill like this is it even possible to put enough safeties in place to prevent the damage from being so severe when they go lean and have a problem?
Oooh ooh I can field why the difference in failure mode between gas and methanol. It has to do with the amount of heat methanol can absorb vs gasoline. Ignition is still going to occur early it’s just not going to be that super heated torch that over oxygenated gasoline will be. It’s going to be an insane spike in cylinder pressure but no where near the heat.
I think I'd figure out new connectors and or injectors!
What do you think about piston coatings for nitrous applications?
I'd like to hear about the oil film
Better for soft parts to break before hard parts break.
Is there such a thing as pre-ignition oil pressurization?
Thats a reeeeeeeally expensive Monday Stevie. #LAME lol
That’s how jack hammers and impact guns do their jobs. Once you detonate you’ve got a jack hammer.
Speaking of oil film. What oil are you running in these engines?
how much oil pressure do you run and what viscosoty?
Why don't the injectors have tabs to safety wire them together, or use the screw on military style connectors
Th injector manufacturer should use a GM style connector with a CPA style lock. They should know better.
Heavy braided fishing line might be a better lock.
Curious about why you didn't show the actual Connecting rod in this video? Was it a cheaper billet rod, or a Bill Miller forged rod?
Kind of an important part of the equation when talking about pre detonation.
...maybe because it's already back in the engine?
Bet that rod was a little hammered too
Would an ecu with a safety cut of some kind react fast enough to save parts like this?
I think that if you had a couple knock sensors and an ECU configured correctly you could have caught this in time. I'm not positive on that though, maybe Steve could weigh in.
Interesting stuff! Is it way different with ethanol?
Methanol is like alcohol just more. I think the ratio for alcohol is about 9:1. Methanol is about 6:1. It’s really good for power, especially with boost. Just takes a lot of it and has its own problems with the fuel being hard on stuff.
@@NBSV1 Yeah it i best racing fuel you can get from pump. Here in Finland almost nobody runs regular gasoline on boosted engines. Just wondering if results are similar when going too lean
Any engine will detonate regardless of the type of fuel used. Certain fuels are just more forgiving. Straight Methanol is much better than partial ethanol blends. Any time you have a situation where a cylinder sees more timing due to less fuel, you run that risk. "LEAN" doesn't hurt parts. Too much timing does.
Steve, do you think the piston that melts on gas is from pre-ignition vs. the one that breaks on meth during post-ignition, I.E. detonation?
I have seen melted pistons from pre ignition in a gasoline engine the guy had the timing so advanced and I guess he could not hear the sound of detonation that he just kept it pinned and it melted the piston to the wall of the cylinder and that was on a damn near stock 302 ford there was more then one piston but you could see if was acting like a woodpecker on those pistons
Ahhh zipties. I sincerely hope the guy who invented those things is amazingly wealthy.
This guy is like KSR’s dad
What’s the compression ratio of something like that when it starts to squish the rod bearing …. Just curious 🧐
Compression ratio is the difference in the space when the piston is all the way down and when the piston is all the way up. If the cylinder is all the way down and has a volume of 800 cc's and at TDC it is 80 cc the compression ratio is 10 to 1. The compression ratio is a fixed number. Cylinder pressure is what caused it and there is no way to measure cylinder pressure on a normal engine.
@@jimandskittum that wasn’t the question but thanks for the answer ..
@@adamss68er You asked what the compression ratio was when that happened and I tried to explain that the compression ratio doesn't change, cylinder pressure does.
So at 9000 rpm at full noise at that power level that’s 75 detonation combustion cycles in that one second!.. not much would survive that!…
Thanks for sharing Steve… But please…by all means get mad at it!… but keep the parts to show us 😉
Does he ever use turbos
Murder nova has a big small block is what Shawn is saying how does he come up with that combo
Bigger bore spacing = more cubic inches.
Does it look like that on e85 or does it look like gas if you have the same Failure.
Detonation does the same thing to any engine regardless of fuel used. The extent of damage will just be different. However the damage he is showing you on the lower ring lands wasn't done by detonation, it was done by excessive boost pressure getting passed the rings. Collateral damage.
Detonation = Napoleon Blownapart
1-2 second for a engine , at 7-8k rpm, is like a work week to us, alot happens at that speed, and ppl wonder why 20k rpm isn't that easy,
Darn the luck
can i have the burnt piston? that would make a cool monument lol
Try replacing ring bearing
Then reinstall