Oh so now we find out....

Ughh this is not pretty, and a bunch of badly built motors buy people who don't understand all of what is going on, not that they build BAD motors, it's just there seems to be a lack of info here.

Not to get off on a bad foot but the second quote in the sig really pertains to this situation.

First, if the end gaps on the rings caused a engine failure then we are not talking a expert mistake here. Anytime rings butt together in a motor will cause a big boo boo. That is an Engine Builder fault because he should know the bore specs, piston specs and should have file fit the rings, plain and simple.

Ok now onto the pistons....

"pistons tolerances are not as good as they should have been."

Big misunderstanding on tolerances, he is talking purely about skirt design, not if the pin bores or ringlands are in their .0001+/- tolerance. Big difference here.

Piston skirt design is another area where you piston companies put a certain shape to the piston for durability, wear, friction etc...

Only way to tell what's going on is with a set of mics, wear marks are only going to show you where the piston was loaded, not if there are high spots or not.

"The the skirt section of the piston should be completely flat and you can see how its not."

In some circumstances the piston skirt is not going to be compeletly flat, it has a oval shape when looking down on it and the skirt will have different shapes also. Tappered, barrel shaped etc...

"The second flaw of the JE piston is how thin the area is from the top of the ring to the top of the piston."

Now I'm willing to bet that these were the out of the box catalog pistons, if we are talking about WRX EJ20 2.0L motors then the 205090 pistons are what you are talking about. They are the piston you are talking about, the top ring land depth from the top of the piston is setup for certain power and boost levels. If the ring land is too far up then he either tuned the thing too lean, put the wrong ring gap in or was running the wrong rings for that heat level. (They use a "OE style ring"). On top of that if he found out they were too far up the piston then why use an out of the box part? Those pistons should be able to handle some good boost and HP levels, if all else is done properly.

So now that I am done sounding like the bad guy, welcome to Chevyland.

There has been so much time and development, along with engine building experience in the SBC, LT1 motor and we build them from the ground up, not just change "bolt ons" that mistakes like the one encountered by your Scooby counterpart are probably chalked up to builder error. It's just very uncommon to see a built bottom end WRX vs. one with better intercoolers, turbos, downpipes, ECU's etc... Then look at what's going on here, fully built 355's, 383's, 396's NA, Blown and on N2O the combinations out there are usually done from the oil pan to intake with all the bolt on's on top.

One more thing, this board doesn't accept "those parts are junk because my buddy said so" very well. In fact the mods will get on your case more than we will. Personally JE makes good parts, they have screwed up the valve reliefs on custom set that I ordered before, but they do make GOOD PISTONS. Every company will make mistakes, that's a given. Please if you are going to state that parts are bad give actual measurements and not the commentary of some guy who screwed the pooch on a build up. I'm sure there are more WRX JE pistons out there running well then ones that are not.

Now If I don't sound like a [*****], good to see you are coming over to the no replacement for displacemnt realm.

Bret

 

well then, lol. i take offense to nothing and you do not sound likea [*****] at all. you just proved everything i said wrong and for that i give you much respect. i thought i knew a decent amount but learned that i really do not and have a lot to learn from you guys. and yes, i can not wait to ahve fun with a nice big v8

and i hope i did not irritate or bother anyone, i retracted and edited my first statement.

it was just odd to see as this engine go as fast as it did as it was still in the break in period with a smaller turbo at low boost levels to break it in. enough with my ignorance, continue