Big Blue24
Comp Diesel Sponsor
To answer a few questions:
First, Josh is an employee at PDD and works in our sales/tech support department. In his spare time: evenings/weekends he has access to PDD's dyno etc. This failure was not on a PDD company vehicle or test engine, this was Josh's personal race/hot street truck build that is built and paid for by him personally.
To help him (Josh) out, I suggested/offered to pull a PDD-owned Hamilton Comp Wet Block off the shelf and pay for the machining and parts to build it into an in-house test engine that he could use and play with while he decided what to build next for his truck. Zach has offered some parts help with the test engine, but up to this point it is still 100% PDD owned stuff or miscellaneous used parts from Josh. There is a strong possibility that a new set of Hamilton Steel pistons will eventually end up in this second test engine but the first fire-up will happen before the new steel pistons are ready.
Yes, the crank from this failure was donated by Josh and is currently installed in this second Hamilton Comp Wet block that came off PDD's shelf. I personally checked the crank for straightness and it spins true with-in 0.0005" or as close as I can measure so we're going to try it. Josh didn't want to sell it used in-case it has stress fractures or other problems not yet seen.... but I wasn't scared to try it again after it spun true and looked great.
No, Josh did not personally bore or hone either of these blocks, that was done at the local machine shop with proper tools. The failure engine was set to 005" PTW clearance as that was the clearance recommendation from the piston/block manufacturer (Hamilton) and neither Josh nor PDD had ever played with steel pistons so we had no experience to go by. Josh personally assembles all of his engines and yes he did use feeler gauges in a video or social media post to show how "scary tight" the PTW seemed on the steel pistons at 005" vs the 010" or more you'd see or we've used on a cast piston high HP engine build.
At this point, it's not fair to say what exactly caused the failure because no-one knows with 100% certainty, but there are a bunch of theories running wild on social media ranging from: core shift on the block, piston skirt collapse, circlip failure, circlip missing(installation error), bad tuning too rich, bad tuning too lean, bad injector balance, machining error (loose PTW) (tight PTW), not enough engine cooling, break-in failure (no NOS for break-in), and the best one: We should have called Banks....
Zach did come by in-person last week to look at the broken parts and snap a few pictures and take a couple measurements.
The second engine is a PDD-sponsored test engine that Josh gets to "test" for a bit while he waits for his Enforcer deckplate engine from D&J.
There are a couple more videos coming out soon and they will reveal more details on the second comp wet block, how it holds up on the dyno, etc.
Stay tuned!!!!
First, Josh is an employee at PDD and works in our sales/tech support department. In his spare time: evenings/weekends he has access to PDD's dyno etc. This failure was not on a PDD company vehicle or test engine, this was Josh's personal race/hot street truck build that is built and paid for by him personally.
To help him (Josh) out, I suggested/offered to pull a PDD-owned Hamilton Comp Wet Block off the shelf and pay for the machining and parts to build it into an in-house test engine that he could use and play with while he decided what to build next for his truck. Zach has offered some parts help with the test engine, but up to this point it is still 100% PDD owned stuff or miscellaneous used parts from Josh. There is a strong possibility that a new set of Hamilton Steel pistons will eventually end up in this second test engine but the first fire-up will happen before the new steel pistons are ready.
Yes, the crank from this failure was donated by Josh and is currently installed in this second Hamilton Comp Wet block that came off PDD's shelf. I personally checked the crank for straightness and it spins true with-in 0.0005" or as close as I can measure so we're going to try it. Josh didn't want to sell it used in-case it has stress fractures or other problems not yet seen.... but I wasn't scared to try it again after it spun true and looked great.
No, Josh did not personally bore or hone either of these blocks, that was done at the local machine shop with proper tools. The failure engine was set to 005" PTW clearance as that was the clearance recommendation from the piston/block manufacturer (Hamilton) and neither Josh nor PDD had ever played with steel pistons so we had no experience to go by. Josh personally assembles all of his engines and yes he did use feeler gauges in a video or social media post to show how "scary tight" the PTW seemed on the steel pistons at 005" vs the 010" or more you'd see or we've used on a cast piston high HP engine build.
At this point, it's not fair to say what exactly caused the failure because no-one knows with 100% certainty, but there are a bunch of theories running wild on social media ranging from: core shift on the block, piston skirt collapse, circlip failure, circlip missing(installation error), bad tuning too rich, bad tuning too lean, bad injector balance, machining error (loose PTW) (tight PTW), not enough engine cooling, break-in failure (no NOS for break-in), and the best one: We should have called Banks....
Zach did come by in-person last week to look at the broken parts and snap a few pictures and take a couple measurements.
The second engine is a PDD-sponsored test engine that Josh gets to "test" for a bit while he waits for his Enforcer deckplate engine from D&J.
There are a couple more videos coming out soon and they will reveal more details on the second comp wet block, how it holds up on the dyno, etc.
Stay tuned!!!!
