You guys are all wet with the spark plug color thing. The plugs look like any other brand new set of plugs with a few hundred miles on them when you see them in person. The flash makes them look whiter than they are. The brownish plugs you see are actually dark brown and oily where the other plugs are normal. Most of the time I had a rich condition and was setting off the codes for front and rear bank rich condition.
You are entitled to your opinions though I warn you I didn't just fall off the engine turnip truck yesterday, AND I have the parts that you are just seeing medium resolution pictures of. Running lean leaves other telltale marks in the combustion chamber, MOST especially the exhaust valves and the piston domes. None of these other parts show any sign of running lean or detonation.
AS far as the other guys who are swearing up and down about detonation...hey its possible.
However, you can't just yell "detonation" without looking at all the evidence on the parts.
Don't you think its just possible that the pressure was too damn high and the force alone pressing down on the ring was enough to break the ring land? Can you argue and say:
"No its not Possible!" "IT IS detonation!"
I don't think so at this point.
First and foremost you have to understand that I have nothing to gain at all by claiming there is or is not detonation or a lean condition taking place.
My car is still broke! Why would I care to cover my eyes to the truth of the matter when I have to fix it. I gave up all diagnostic evidence to this forum both for its value to others and for YOUR help. Your opinions are important and your help is invaluable to me. I won't just argue blindly, I just came to my own conclusions based on the data.
Yes, a dyno tune is in order anyway no matter what the cause and so is an intercooler.
Forged internals? When I have dyno and A/F evidence that I have my car well tuned and afterwards I'm driving it around and the same thing happens, then I'll believe the stock internals aren't up to the task. Right now as BNOON implies, the fault could have been caused by a poor tune. I'm ok with that and I'll drive on to get it right.
I promise, if it breaks again the same way and I have already had it dyno tuned, then I'll park it and order forged rods and pistons!
I can't afford 6 weeks and $700+ dollars for forged pistons when the stock internals may be just fine. I think that with proper equipment and tune this 3L motor will sustain the 7psi I am going to run for everyday driving and the occasional 10psi sprints I am going to run.
No one is even mentioning that the rods that were supposedly the weakest link have sustained all the pressure that caused pistons to break...whether detonation induced or just high cylinder pressures caused it. Hell if it was detonation induced then you could say the rods are even stronger! I am more comfortable with the stock rods now than I am with the stock pistons. There are others that are proving now that the rods can sustain 8K RPM...hell vortech runs them at 7600.
I think we can look at this incident in a positive light as it is letting us define the limits of the stock hardware and helps other people avoid the pitfalls. I don't need to have the baddest 3L SVT ever, just for now its nice to be first and would be nice to make the most power on the street for a little while,
until one of you ups the ante with more goodies!
Thanks all for your input,
Tom
J/K 3000 miles and counting! When I get to 5000 I'll start thinking its all going to work well together 
