Hey team

First ever forum i have joined so first post aswell obviously, ive posted all info cause its very interesting so please read it, but if you cant be bothered, scroll down to the ******** and thats where the info on failed components are

I own a Evo 7 and have just spent alot of money on a new engine build and tune

Old parts were
standard head
Standard valves
Sinco exhaust manifold
Big turbo
Standard intake manifold
link g4 p&p etc etc

New parts
Forged crank , rods and pistons
Big cams and adj gears
Bigger valve springs
Turbosmart fpr1200 (but second hand gauge)
Bosch 1400cc inj
Aftermarket rail
Flex fuel set up , braided lines , AN fittings etc
Radium billet craddle pump (2x450hp pumps)

ill stop there because the list goes on just wanted to give you a idea of what was changed and i tried not to take any shortcuts

Engine Was built with all new parts , the builder got it all going as you do , checked all components and everything was mint , i ran it in a wee bit and drove roughly 2 hours to the tuner (changing gears and revs consistently) all was good once i arrived
A month later the car was ready making over 600hp on e85 at 31psi , the tuner changed injectors to make sure we got the 600hp i was aiming for , once i got the car it didnt miss a beat , it was mint , usually came down to nice idle after boost but not always!! , never missed or backfired but would blow a fair amount of black smoke on boost which didnt worry me too much (more fuel is better then none)
After driving the car for rougly 2 weeks on and off we had a car event at a track here in Christchurch New Zealand
On the friday i went out on track just cruising around it and racing down the straits as everyone did and the car was mint didnt miss a beat and was still only on pump gas (NPD100)

On the saturday i went out again on pump , got the car down to fuel light and came into the pits and put 40L of e85 in it for the first time since tune (as i wanted as much ethanol as possible ) , went out and went around the track a few times and again car was perfect , very strong on boost etc and good at low revs etc. I then came into pits as cruising was over and started getting ready for roll racing , checked ethanol contents with computer and was at e47 so still had plenty of power left and still had 3 quarters tank left. After linning up each time waiting for your turn to race and after 7 roll races ( about a hour of cars engine being on and new fuel throughout system ) the car still ran perfectly it seemed to get better and better i had my last race, as i crossed the finish line at around 5000rpm the engine made a big noise , it sounded like it hit limiter almost but after investigation it wasnt . Heaps of white smoke out of car , engine still ran but had no power so i turned engine off straight away .

*********Turned out number 3 piston, bore and plug electrode had melted , weird thing is it ran perfectly the whole time even that last race , 6% fuel contaminant in oil , all 4 injectors past test, radium fuel craddle is away getting tested now

, all injector plugs look fine and were attached , no fuel leaks , engine temperature was good the whole time aswell , one thing it sometimes did was die after i had been on boost and come to a stop and was on idle , i would start it and it wouldnt hold its rev , but if i kept the cars revs alive it would find itself again and be fine .. engine isnt running a wideband sensor or any other sensors to do with fuel pressure because i wasnt aware of them during build

Tuner and engine builder dont want much to do with it at all which sucks , it literally did 1000km-1500km on new build without any missing or anything , seriously need any info that may help because i dont want the same thing to happen when it gets build again

 

My guess would be bad tune or bad fuel. Hard to say since you werent running any safeties.

good luck on the new build!

 

Lean melt or knock did that. Do you have any datalogs from these passes? Since you didn't have gauges you're basically SOL on this..

Personally, I wouldn't have been "racing" with E47 fuel in the tank..

 

Sorry to hear about your engine failing. I feel that its important to go over the tune up and know what is happening with the car. Online classes are available just so you can understand everything and make adjustments if possible. If black smoke is rolling out of the car on Ethanol its way too rich. If its too rich it can cause knock and fuel the oil down. What does the data logs show?

I agree with Sean, You really want closer to E75+ for abuse.

 

There was no data log set up (again i didnt get told about anything as far as saftey sensors , ethanol sensors , or anything of sorts ).. i was reasonably new to flex fuel and building this amount of horse power. I wouldnt have hesitated to have all of this installed.
nevertheless i wasnt racing around a track constanly it was just a drag race but from a rolling 2nd gear pull , then we would wait 10 minuts or so and then do it again , so the car was only making a pull from 2nd to end of 4th gear every 10 mins

Tuners and engine builder were also at the track with me as it was a big event and they do many cars , tuner told me to put ethanol in etc , the thing is the engine was good for the boost , revs and work and after spending the money on good parts it shouldnt melt a piston like it has

only had black smoke on pump gas , the ethanol cleaned the smoke up fine

Just trying to get info on any other engines with similar problems or directions in the right way , cheers 😁

 

It is flex fuel tuned or you just added ethanol to get E47 with no flex tuning with your pump gas map?

 

Flex fuel tuned mate , 450hp on pump , 620hp on e85 and obviously the sensor reads between depending on fuel mixture and has been tuned between .

 

Check the tune if it's melting a piston at E47. Also check for anything off mechanically that would cause it to go lean.

Most of the time, a piston looking like that is from being way too hot/lean.

I see a lot of flex fuel tunes with linear fuel curves across the %. From my experience, that is not correct. Should be more like a sigmoidal curve.