OMG WTF happened to my motor??? HOLY **** (7G 4g64)

[peanotation]

ok so as some of you know about February of this year, cruising down the highway at my standard 70mph (love that needle straight up), my motor went out. lots of shaking, resisted any throttle. checked oilstick and there was coolant all over that mother. ran a compression test, #2 cylinder dead. the motor, all original from 1994, had 199K miles. i have no idea what happened until today.

and i still have no idea! i swapped my old motor for a 96 4G64 from a 7G with 111K on the clock. so far, after 5K miles, no problems with the "new" motor (big, heavy knocks on huge pieces of oak wood).

the only thing that was different before it went out, was i decided to add "combustion chamber cleaner" (LMAO) that was meant to help cars pass smog that were having trouble. at the time, i was. about a day later was when 'ol betsy threw in the towel.

so today i finally get around to pulling the head off my old motor.

WTF HAPPENED:




and there's the piece that ended it all:





these pictures were taken moments after the head was removed. all those oil spots were already there on the headgasket, none of that dripped off the head. notice there's oil spots consistently around all the holes for the headstuds. but wtf happened omg. how could all that material stay in the chamber after every combustion?

THOUGHTS? IDEAS? SATANIC RITUALS? WTF. thanks

[ZigenScarface]

man doing the back to N/A mod really fucks up a galant

[kamenfaiz]

have the same problem when I was working on this Honda. There are these little piece of material all over the piston, and the motor was die of lack of oil and overheated. So i dont know if it is related.

[Poison457]

all that crap the little sliver's of stuff is a combo of that "combustion chamber cleaner" and the carbon buildup that normally happens in engine's, what happened is that you used that crap it started to break up the carbon, and it eventually choked out your engine, I'd guess a catastrophic rich situation, which in turn blew out your head gasket, you should never use any kind of "cleaning" chemical in a older high milage engine i learned that on my 79 z28 before i was "forced" to build a new engine.

I had heard about a "engine flush" thought hey that would just be great this old thing has alot of miles on bet the engine is pretty gunky lets do that, yea after the 3rd time using it "on 3rd oil change" not even a week after i blew out my front AND rear main seals,oil pan gasket and left bank head gasket, I'll NEVER touch anything other than fuel system cleaner again, if i feel it needs to be de-carboned that bad I'll take it apart and have it polished.

[Stewi]

I have to agree with poison. It looks like a combo of years of carbon buildup and a chamber cleaner. When the headgasket went it appears it just went a little and got a little coolant onto that piston and caused the edge to break off.

The only fairly safe solution to clean out a combustion chamber is to run meth injection on a turbo'd engine. The meth acts as a cleaner when its in the chamber and sorta steam cleans the inside of the chamber. Again its not wise to do this on a high mileage motor due to the amount of buildup it can have already from all the years of wear and tear.

[Poison457]

agreed stewi the only remotely safe way to scrub an engine, is to use methanol injection or H2o injection, both will "steam" clean your engine keeping it nice and shiny on the insides, HOWEVER again i would not under any circumstances recommend this on a severely used motor such as 199k miles, and again these techniques are only useable on F/I engine's due to the added compression, air charge, and air speed due to the turbocharger. There is no safe way that I know of to "clean" a N/A engine internally without tearing it down.

if H2o or Meth injection interest you, i would suggest your read
http://www.key-ideas.com/2ndWaterInjection.htm
It is a very in depth write up and Tut on making your own home made H2o injection system.

[skrap]

I used the ZMAXX engine cleaner on my G and when I pulled my head off when I skipped my timing belt and In my opinion it did a really good job of cleaning everything up. I have had problems with other cleaners but I have never had a problem with the ZMAXX cleaner... I wasnt turbo either... That looks like the cleaner started to flake off all your old carbon wich could of shot into your head gasket to make it go... That is my educated guess....

[RedLine DOHC]

I wonder what the #3 cylinder wall looks like, ouch

[DOHCstunr]

filling the cylinder with ATF does a good job of cleaning the combustion chamber

[krispy03]

there goes my idea of spray painting my pistons

[RedLine DOHC]

there goes my idea of spray painting my pistons

nice... you would have gained 56WHP to.

[Stewi]

filling the cylinder with ATF does a good job of cleaning the combustion chamber

LOL


Dude ATF smells sooo bad when it burns.....its nearly as bad as hypoid gear oil.....

[hk20000]

Just don't add anything that's not oil into your engine.

If you need to pass smog, go race your car around the track at 110% the limit the day before, probably work just as good. If it does blow up at least you'd have a smile on your face while it happens LOL

[4-G-rim]

Maybe because my motor doesn't have "extreme" high milage, but I have run seafoam cleaner through the motor and I do a compression check every 6 months and I still at or around 190ish on all 4 cylinders.

I know Matt you had that particular motor on NOS prior and not sure how often you sprayed..but could of contributed long term wise to its eventual death.

[Spartan251]

I am with kevin on tthe sea foam. I have used in on all my cars for years its done a great job every time, and all of my cars have had at least 170k on the clock, several over 200k.

[peanotation]

yeah i've learned my lesson. i believe you guys have had good luck with the sea foam, but i'm too scared now on any oil additive. this caused too much money, a motor to be unnecessarily destroyed, and just plain old time to be wasted.

i guess the nitrous days and all the turbo time (which was never, EVER running a good tune, lean as all hell) took it close to the edge and this crap i poured in took it over. you can see the pistons on the right side of the motor (closest to firewall) are chewed up on the top, probably from all the detonation and overly lean condition.

this carbon buildup mystifies me. when i blew a headgasket back at ~140K miles, my pistons looked brand new on top. not a spec, not a blemish, not a trace of carbon. when i tore apart DOHCStunr's motor to pull the head off the block, pistons were flawless. im wondering if my black flakes of glory are residue from this crappy combustion chamber cleaner.