Well, I don't know if you all remember the post I posted in hte late summer of 02 when I talked about my nitrous solenoid sticking. Well, the car seemed to run fine after the incident. In the Spring of 03 I dumped the n20 because I was sick of only having full power when the bottle was open so I went to a supercharger.
Car ran fine for 3 months, then after a race I blew tons of white smoke out of the exhaust. Thought it was a simple head gasket failure.
After taking the heads off I saw what the solenoid sticking actually did. It burned back part of the piston which made that area really brittle. The boost application just took advantage of that weak point and blew along the edge of the burn then blew another hole big enough to stick my finger through on the side.

http://www.marvb3.com/pistonside.jpg
http://www.marvb3.com/pistontop.jpg
http://www.marvb3.com/pistonunder.jpg

The blown pieces scored all eight cylinders. I had to get a new block. Oh yeah, piston #2 had a cracked ringland.
These were forged SRP "Nitrous" pistons.

 

Did you ever check the plugs after your noid got hung open ?? Seems like if it got that hot the ends of the plugs would have melted off.


JK

 

I didnt change the plugs right away. Not until spring of 03 when I put the blower on. Thats when I saw the melted plugs. I never knew because the car still ran on all 8 cylinders, so the plugs still had some spark coming from them.

 

How did you conclude it was the N2O and not the boost that was responsible for the piston damage?

Rich Krause

 

That was what ran through my mind too. What do the plugs look like now...

 

Yeah....a friend of mine broke some SRPs with a lean big shot..

 

Because I changed the plugs one day before putting the blower on and thats when I found two melted plugs. The plugs that were on when the final damage happend are still in perfect condition.

 

Well if you run straight nitrous in without additional fuel, ANY piston is going to melt, even the best "nitrous" piston. I knew a guy that had his nitrous system wired up to a button only with no WOT switch. One run he let off the gas like 1/2 second before letting of the nitrous button... He melted 2 pistons... Stock bottom end however. Are you sure those are SRP's nitrous pistons??? I've got new JE (SRP) extreme duty inverted dome pistons, (nitrous applications) and the top ringland is twice as big as the one on those pistons. Also, what compression ratio was your engine, and how bigga shot??? Also, what kinda nitrous solenoid???