Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications 3.0L Duratec turbo 3L has broken piston ring lan

I know what you mean about too clean of plugs being lean, but the plugs are not burnt white for that reason. They are just brand new. The flash from the camera made them look whiter as well. The two on the right correspond to the wet combustion chambers that you see in the picture of the heads. This was caused by the oil. everything was coated in an oily film in those two cylinders. Those two pistons are the ones I am going to look at hardest.
Tuning on the dyno is the best way, but trying to get together a 3 day pass and a few hundred extra dollars to go up to Dallas (the nearest dyno) and schedule time has been a b|tch. I can't take passes that conflict with any of my platoon leader obligations and the way things change around here I can't plan personal affairs beyond next week! Plus the deployment status has made it damn hard. On that note our deployment order was officially recinded on Friday. I'm both happy and sad and things should calm down a bit.

Buckshot:
I priced the pistons and I was amazed at the price. You just explained why. How much were the forged pistons again? Can I put them on the stock rods? Do you still have any good stock pistons from your engine you could sell me? If you have a piston that survived from your catastrophe its probably pretty good.

PM me if you can help me out since I will soon need to order the rod bearings, rings and at least one to two pistons.

warmonger

Rock Auto Dot Calm has pistons for the 1999 3L Duratec at $23.55 each for .25mm, .5mm, .75mm, and 1.00mm overbores. The '00 and newer aren't listed, but should take the same piston set IIRC.

Problem with those is the exact grade of the bore they're made for isn't known and we're only talking a few thousandths different per grade with some overlap between. Not to mention he'd still have to rebalance the motor.

Rick

Don't you know the sizes of the grades??? The sizes are in the forum archives if you want to search... 3.504 inches is standard bore if memory serves. Convert to mm as you see fit.

I got the kit with just the intercooler core originally, intending to fabricate my own tanks as my turbo sits in a slightly different location than theirs and has a different exit pipe.
It turned out that the intercooler core was too small for a 3L with a highly modded intake system like mine. Stock MAF was 4.76 volts at only 5600 rpm That is a lot of CFM.

So I sent it back and got the chip instead. Then I made a sweet deal on an intercooler from a local shop with the tanks already on it for $225! Its a spearco made intercooler. These guys seem to like me out here.

Anyway I had the intercooler but didn't have everything fabbed up to work yet, I got impatient.

Warmonger

Are you sure those are the duratech pistons and not the vulcan v6?

warmonger

I would think that you should spend the money on forged pistons and while you have the motor apart you may be wise to increase the end gap on your rings. Anytime you increase combustion temperature it is better to have more endgap. I would not be surprised to see more stock piston suffer the same fate. I have had the same thing happen to a piston in my old 5 litre motor that I was running N2O on, I never heard detonation yet the ring lands were broken just like yours. Remember just because don't hear detonation doesn't mean it isn't happening.

i say get forged pistons and rods, and a bigger turbo !

give it a good 15-20 psi (that is, if the crank can hold up...) can you say fastest SVT contour. EVER