Re: PIctures of Cylinder Walls

I cannot see pictures at work, but judging from the numbers I would say either they fudged up Cylinder #1 and you don't have a perfect cylinder, more like an oval or the piston rings were not properly seated to begin with. Total Seal offers a variety of rings, and according to the them:
"Ring to piston groove back clearance should be a MINIMUM of .005" deeper than radial wall dimension of piston ring. If piston ring sticks out of groove by any amount, you have the wrong rings (see fig.1)."
Since you removed the pistons check your tolerances, I would call a local automotive store and rent a micrometer(we have Autozone here that rents tools).
Also Total Seal also recommends positive valve guide seals made of Viton. What kind of valve guide seals did they replace your's with? Could explain why you "popped" a front seal and a valve cover gasket.
A friend of mine had alot of headaches with his Total Seal piston rings because of all the extra things they suggest you do for break in and tolerances. The stuff they list on their website should be described as mandatory, not suggested.

 

That hatching pattern looks different from the hatching pattern than the factory does. IDK if that makes any difference.

 

it looks like when they honed cylinder 1 they went strait up and down instead of a cross hatch could be giving it trouble sealing

 

The compression across all 4 cylinders is fine, 10 psi difference is not the problem. Also when all the engine work was done did they deck the block? If Wiseco says the compression ratio is 8.8:1 with a decked block and the block was never decked, then your compression ratio would be lower than 8.8:1.

Cylinder 1 looks normal, that's how a cylinder will look after being hone bored. Cylinder 3 looks like dirt or something got between the piston and cylinder wall during assembaly and caused the scoring.

Do you have pictures of the Piston for cylinder 3?

 

Cylinder one has completely different cross hatching then the other 3 which concerns me. And to correct that requires an overbore, which means new pistons....

 

well the crosshatch in cylinder one sucks your suppose to run around 30 degrees from the deck. through out the cylinder if i remember from machining. your cylinder looks no were near that. but i would post up picks of all 4 cylinders if you could.

and look into your valve guide seals as if you blew a valve cover gasket it could be becuase of those. did you run a catch can? if so how full is it? is there any evidence of oil in your intake stream if you didnt have a catch can? and if you didnt have a catch can how did you setup you pcv valve? if you left it like stock. when you hit boost your pressurizing the crankcase and your lucky the only thing that went was you valve cover gasket.

 

Most ring manufacturers call for 45 degree crosshatching but you should check with the actual manufacturer of the rings you have for the exact degree. The only thing thats gonna happen from the degrees being too low is the cyl walls are gonna hold more oil causing excessive oil consumption. A small problem but it's not gonna cause the loss of power your describing.

You do not need to re bore the cylinder, you just need it re honed. Pison rings have a min/max ring gap so you just need to make sure you stay under the max gap. Even if re honing the cylinder is gonna cause the gap to increase past the max, you should be able to just get different rings.

Find out what contaminents got into cyl 3 and get them cleaned out then start checking the head for possible problems. Are you using performance valve springs? Did you have blueish whiteish smoke coming out the exhaust at all?

 

The cross hatch looks like crap in both cylinders actually, mainly cylinder 1, but the scratches in cylinder 3 are kind of concerning... The deck of the block actually looks... Not so good either though too.

 

Have the block ball honed, or do it your self, replace the total seal rings with the Wiseco ones, gap them appropriately and don't forget to take the sharp edges off the ends. Drop everything in with some new rod bearings and boost the heck out of it!

 

Like Dave said ... just get rid of the glazing and put some good rings in. I've had nothing but bad experiences with Total Seal rings, so toss them and put in something different.

If you have a bore gauge you might want to do a quick check for roundness and taper ... check three locations, 60 deg apart about one inch down, then repeat about 5 inches down. Should not be more then .001 taper or .0005 out of round ( IMO ) ... not much you can do about it besides a rebore, but it might give you something to say to the shop that did the work!!

good luck!!

 

also you never said anything about your pcv setup. that could be the reason you blew a head gasket and are having hp issues. if you dont have it set up right your gonna pressurize the crankcase making your pistons fight your blowby gases that build up in the crankcase and made their way up to your valve cover. that could have easily popped you gasket. and really could have done more damage.

 

"pop the gasket"? How can you tell?

 

I can't see the pics. (?)

 

Maybe because you are 12 years late?