You'll have to clean the carbon off to see what the piston actually looks like. Too much crud in the way to see if there is damage. Looks ok from here though.
If you're asking about the coloration, I'd say it looks good, but I'm no race expert. What I'm seeing is less carbon on the intake valve side of the piston which makes sense if you consider the "cleaning" effect of fuel/air mix coming in near the end of the exhaust stroke and beginning of the intake stroke. Cam specs? $0.02. Devon
Yes. Issue was the heads had the dowel pin holes messed up. We’re bigger than the pins. I think the head was moving around. I was on a pass and a frost plug blew out and dumped water under my slicks at 90 mph. Saved it barely. So just trying to figure out why that happened. Both head gaskets were wet around some cooling holes. Also appeared they were roughed up in a few spots. Not sure if combustion pressure could get into cooling system and cause a frost plug to blow out.
Loctite the plugs in If using Cometic gaskets,..a THIN smear around the water ports is necessary sometimes Not sure how or why the pin holes would be fubarred but address that obviously We're the heads retorqued? Gaskets crush,..always retorque especially if the compression is over 11 to 1 Psi test the coolant system Try again
The plugs are a far better indicator of detonation taking place then the piston tops. Also that block deck looks terrible! I am not surprised if a head gasket let go in one or more cylinders and pressurized the cooling system! I would also carefully check the area around where that frost plug popped out for cracks
Nothing to worry about on the pistons, if the motor is new, the rings have not come in completely yet, the areas that are clean around the outside of the head is an indication of oil getting past the rings.. this can also happen from detonation, but it's usually much more dramatic.. that looks pretty normal for a either a new motor that the rings have not come in on completely yet, or something with a big of wear and tear on it. I agree with Steve here, that block deck is horrible looking.. The only thing that has a prayer of sealing something with the compression those flat tops are making is a composition gasket, forget cometic or steel shims, surface is way too rough and nasty for them, at least not without a tanker of copper coat on them.. Even then I would not trust them to seal compression. We don't have enough head bolts to begin with, and a clean, straight deck, with the correct surface finish is critical in our big motors. Yes, pressurizing the cooling system with combustion pressure can cause frost plugs to blow out.. especially that center one on each side, that does not have a lot of press fit. Permatex Number 1A is the only thing any of you should be using on frost plugs. This is a hard setting sealer. The only other thing that you might have to use is epoxy, if you have a hole that has been pitted by a leaking plug earlier in it's life. Cleaning the frost plugs holes out and taking a little bit of sand paper to prepare the hole is critical.. then coat the edges of the hole in the block with your permatex or epoxy, and drive a brass plug in straight, with an installer tool. Important to push on the edges of the plug, a big socket that pushes on the middle might do the job, but you sacrifice some press fit in the process. Good luck JW
Thanks everyone. Yes the deck is a mess!!!! I think it has to come back apart and get cleaned up, not sure there’s any other way. And it was the center plug on drivers side that blew out. No cracks in block around it. I cleaned the hole up and permatexed it in but that was before I took the heads off. Should have waited, would have been easier with engine out.
