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

Well I got the engine on the stand today and stripped it down.

At first I couldn't find anything wrong with it except the combustion chambers #2 & #4 were oily, and the plugs for those two were oily and dark while the other four cylinders were clean and white. Tops of all the pistons looked good, no signs of pitting or detonation. Heads looked perfect.

I pulled the pistons and the first thing I noticed was there was hardly any noticeable wear on the rod bearings. The rods looked good and the pistons looked good.

I began by examining piston #2 the one with the most oil in the cylinder. The top compression ring exhibited pitting in its outer edge and would have explained the blow-by. #4 also showed the same pitting. I twirled the ring on piston #2 and about 1/4 of the total ring lan fell out. It looks like a flaw in the casting of the piston. There was some parts of the fracture that were dark with soot and some parts that were freshly exposed aluminum. What I noticed first was the crack was not sharp or brittle, indicating there was a defect in the piston that finally had enough force exerted on it so it cracked the rest of the way.
The broken part would explain the little rattling noise I heard and of course the significant amount of blow-by and oil. I also found what may be a crack in the nubmer 4 piston ring lan so I will have to deal with this as well.

I'm thrilled that the rods looked great and the bearings did not exhibit any kind of stress marks or wear. Some of them looked brand new and all of them were acceptable for a block with 17K hard miles on it. The cylinders looked great except for some scuffing at the top of two of them. Could have been carbon chunks that got at the edge of the piston or maybe from the pitted upper compression rings.
I don't have any idea what caused those rings to deteriorate that way so I am opening the forum up for ideas or questions.

I don't have access to my old web page 'cause Earthlink is starting to suck. I have the pictures that I took of all these things but I can't host them anymore.

The bottom line is what to do now?
1.) Were the pistons good and the high cylinder pressures were just too much, or are the cast pistons just not good enough. Or was I the victim of a bad luck with that particular piston?
I.) Should I spring for forged pistons or buy two new ford pistons?

2.) What about the rods? They looked great. Bearings are fine. No one has blown a rod due to too much force, the failures seem to be spun rod bearings, then lots of friction and finally failure.
My gut says don't worry about the rods.

Pistons concern me and if I get forged pistons then I suppose I'll have to have the whole mass balanced again.
What does that cost?

warmonger