Damaged Wiseco Pistons (Not Pretty)

[eclipsegsx1736]

That is epic success in my books. 65k miles at over 100hp per cylinder, over 200hp per liter. And "hard abuse". How can you not be happy as hell with that?



Agreed with all of that ^^

Wow, lots of people over reacting in this thread. Someone posts up one piston failure & all of a sudden these pistons are junk? Do you know how many people run these pistons, putting them through all kinds of abuse without failures? I'm not an expert but the first thing that came to mind when seeing the pics posted was assembly/clearance issues, which is no fault of Wiseco. Even if it is a manufacturing defect, things happen, parts fail, no company is going to be 100% perfect all the time.

Yes, skirt cracking has been seen in their standard pistons before but I believe the issue is related to the "std" wrist pins they use. Believe they flex more then they should. If your running the standard Wiseco's, upgraded wrist pins would be a good idea if you plan on beating on the motor.

I agree with both of you; overall, I was happy with the Wisecos. They handled quite a lot of abuse and I got a lot of life out of them, especially for a 2.3 and its poor rod ratio. I wasn't complaining or anything of the sort, just pointing out that there does appear to be an issue with these pistons, but I'm sure there are hundreds if not thousands of satisfied customers with these exact pistons who have not had a failure (where these cracks may have gone unnoticed in many cases).

 

[VTEC_THIS]

Wow, lots of people over reacting in this thread. Someone posts up one piston failure & all of a sudden these pistons are junk? Do you know how many people run these pistons, putting them through all kinds of abuse without failures? I'm not an expert but the first thing that came to mind when seeing the pics posted was assembly/clearance issues, which is no fault of Wiseco. Even if it is a manufacturing defect, things happen, parts fail, no company is going to be 100% perfect all the time.

I agree with everything you said here Daren. I bought this car over the summer so I didn't do the machine work myself. I'm not sure who did the machine work and even so, even a machinist can mess up once in a while. I'm not trying to stir up any debate or bad-mouth Wiseco. My intent in RMAing the pistons is to see if I can recoup some of my losses and move on.

 

[93xsg]

HOLY CRAP! and I thought I had it bad... My JE piston just had a hole in the sideskirt...and I drove with piston slap for about a month before it toasted my engine.

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[eclipsegsx1736]

Here's my Wiseco piston that failed after ~65k of hard use. You can see the point of failure is exactly the same. Also of note is the Eagle rod that must have wedged the broken side skirt against the block and put that odd looking bend in it. Pretty cool looking actually

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[Sebba]

HOLY CRAP! and I thought I had it bad... My JE piston just had a hole in the sideskirt...and I drove with piston slap for about a month before it toasted my engine.

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That's a lot of crap on the bottom, I'll bet your oil temperatures were savage.

 

[93xsg]

hahah wow! exactly the same spot.

my Eagle rod on that one was soooo egged out where the wrist pin goes in. and there were huuge gouges in my block...too deep to bore out

That's a lot of crap on the bottom, I'll bet your oil temperatures were savage.

When I parked one time I crack an oil line to my oil cooler...had just bought the car and didn't realize it was barely sticking down.


Drove it about 6 miles before realizing it was low on oil damn music was up real loud

 

[DSMReviver]

There are alot of things to take into a consideration about building motors. I HIGHLY will not recommend a "garage tuner" from attempting to do this on their own(even with plenty of knowledge).

No wounder why dsm's have more bad reputations with unreliability issues. I have 3 motors sitting at my house and i would not even attempt to touch it unless supervised by professional who is experienced in building number of motors(4g63's) and have top ratings from everyone. If you don't know these kinds of professionals go make some friends or go hang around their shops and get to know them. I know there is a saying "dsm crow are cheap" and we do act and live like that and no wounder why there are such a bad reputations with our cars. you can save money over time and get it done right the first time.

Everywhere i looked on this site, rebuild engines that they build on their own are dead after just a few miles. "Problem this", "problem that", "will not start after rebuilds" and "please help" all over the place.
Soon these project cars are going to be left deserted and will probably parted out and sell it to junk yard all across the country.

 

[Sebba]

hahah wow! exactly the same spot.

my Eagle rod on that one was soooo egged out where the wrist pin goes in. and there were huuge gouges in my block...too deep to bore out




When I parked one time I crack an oil line to my oil cooler...had just bought the car and didn't realize it was barely sticking down.


Drove it about 6 miles before realizing it was low on oil damn music was up real loud

Figures . That sucks.

 

[dsmtwins2g]

Man that's hard to read.



When someone makes a warranty claim, they are placing blame on the manufacturer.

That's one way you could look at it.

 

[TSIturbo91]

It seems to me that the more than one picture of failure in the same stop means there is a structural integrity issue after a certain point. Premature failure is probably due to improper installation and maybe the remote chance of defects. Let me stress remote chance. No part is perfect and as said many people get thousands of miles out of them. But pushing them as hard as some do things will break. And most track motors aren't run until the point of catastrophic failure. Maintenance is required every season and even before that depending on the application. When used as a DD it should be taken into account that you won't get 150,000 miles out of a motor running 25+ PSI and running hard pulls to the grocery store.

 

[cyclonekid77]

After seeing this thread I got curious. Went out to the garage and looked at the standard wiseco's I pulled out of my pile. What do you know? I had stress cracks in all 4 of my pistons in the same spots as the OP. To be fair though, I am almost certain my piston to wall clearance was incorrect. The engine had killed itself 2 times prior to this(oil pump failure, trashed main bearings first time. Backed out crank bolt smashed all 16 valves second time) and I told the machine shop "make it work for as cheap as possible". Well, it did work, but after 1700 miles and a season of racing the motor was shot again. I could hear the pistons slapping around after blowing a head gasket. Said f-it and parted the car.

 

[DSMnoobsause]

I build Mini A series engines for road racing and have had horrible luck with Weisco pistons. they crack and break in that same location. after the first piston failure i inspected my other engines and found 11 out of 12 that i have are cracked. Weisco has informed me that they will send me new improved version pistons to make it right.

 

[Shearer]

To the OP. Being that you received the engine second hand do you know who did the machine work, how many miles are on it, and how much power has the engine been making? Send the pistons in referencing the RMA you were given and I will have them inspected. If you have that RMA# as well, please PM it to me. Judging by the oil burned onto the bottom side of the piston I'd say the pistons got very hot at some point. We will do a hardness test on the part and see where it lies. The excessive skirt wear, burnt oil, and cracks on the parts show they were pushed beyond their intended use, excessive heat, or improper machine work. Or a combination of any of the above.

Regarding these particular pistons. These full round pistons were designed over 10 years ago when making 450whp with these engines was a big deal. 20g's were big turbos and GT35r & GT42's were absolutely unheard of in those days. Heck 50 Trims and 61mm's w/ old school stage 3 & 5 turbine wheels weren't even around. At some point back in ~2006-7 Wiseco started offering an upgraded wrist pin with these pistons as the increased power levels everyone was making was superceding the orginal wrist pins intended use. We have quite literally sold several thousand of these pistons. We now offer our HD series of pistons and I recommend those to the people planning to make a significant amount of power.
Thanks,
ron

 

[bastarddsm]

Regarding these particular pistons. These full round pistons were designed over 10 years ago when making 450whp with these engines was a big deal. 20g's were big turbos and GT35r & GT42's were absolutely unheard of in those days. Heck 50 Trims and 61mm's w/ old school stage 3 & 5 turbine wheels weren't even around. At some point back in ~2006-7 Wiseco started offering an upgraded wrist pin with these pistons as the increased power levels everyone was making was superceding the orginal wrist pins intended use. We have quite literally sold several thousand of these pistons. We now offer our HD series of pistons and I recommend those to the people planning to make a significant amount of power.
Thanks,
ron

Ron,
your saying that if your making more than 450whp, you need to jump to the 1400HD's? If thats the case, why do you even offer the light duty pistons?

What is the correct ptw clearance on these for a street driven engine making 5-600whp?

 

[jrohner]

Wow, lots of people over reacting in this thread. Someone posts up one piston failure & all of a sudden these pistons are junk? Do you know how many people run these pistons, putting them through all kinds of abuse without failures? I'm not an expert but the first thing that came to mind when seeing the pics posted was assembly/clearance issues, which is no fault of Wiseco. Even if it is a manufacturing defect, things happen, parts fail, no company is going to be 100% perfect all the time.

Yes, skirt cracking has been seen in their standard pistons before but I believe the issue is related to the "std" wrist pins they use. Believe they flex more then they should. If your running the standard Wiseco's, upgraded wrist pins would be a good idea if you plan on beating on the motor.

This is FAR from the first time I've heard of these issues with Wisecos in 4g63s; I heard about it before I knew that mine did the same thing (pulled my engine apart over a year ago). Also, I wouldn't call mine a 'failure', as I wouldn't have known about it if I wouldn't have decided to have my engine gone through. It's not like one day I was like "Oh my pistons are cracked so I better pull the engine apart", who knows how long they were cracked and how long the engine would've kept running.

 

[400HP1GT]

I have a set of Wiseco 20 over pistons in a box. 1 broke at the skirt, and the other 3 are cracked. This happen 3 years ago, standard pistons. I dont buy Wiseco for anything.

 

[danielbo91]

Well i have the same problem too my wiseco 1400 hd pistons have stress cracks in the skirts. I call wiseco today they say to ship my pistons and they going to check my pistons i hope i get replacements or something.

As to op what did wiseco said about the pistons.

 

[zedicus]

ive rann wiseco for going on 20 years now, mostly in 2-strokes but in some hopped up lawn mowers and motorcycles too. (its the sticks, we get bored out here) ive NEVER had a forged wiseco fail, but then their pistons seem to ALWAYS take a long time and carefull attention to heat during break in. i mean a LOOOONG time and Very close attention to heat for break in. plus i already have first hand experieience with crappy slap happy JEs. wiseco is not a bad piston.

 

[keltalon]

I agree with what JAM has said.

Too tight PTW will cause that and also too tight on the wristpin can cause the piston to walk in the bore pretty badly.

My thinking is if this is true then why is it that only the weseco are the only ones that suffers this type of damage? Only one conclusive answer they are and have always been garbage. When I was racing honda/acura we never used wiseco pistons infact wiseco is a word you dare not even mention for the fear of shame. Hope everbody that reads this thread learn a lesson

 

[keltalon]

Wiseco FTW... Stop blaming manufactures, i thought everything was over when JAM posted. Now everyone is saying "i would never use Wisecos again blahblahblah" instead you kids should say "i would never built a motor myself again."

I built my own engine and have been for over 20 yrs and my experience is wiseco is junk I know. JAM will never say anything bad about pistons that he sell and for that matter what vendor would ingredients for a lawsuit if they ever think about it. There are so many other pistions that have been proven in our cars why go with junk. If any want to use wiseco then that's there business but they will have the same stress/cracks I don't care who gets on here and defend them. If you got them in your car you will revisit this thread later and add your cracked pistons to the list trust me you will never now they are cracked until you have to tear your engine apart

 

[JohnTSI]

I run wiseco pistons in all of our cars, all of them are HDs however. On the race car making 1100awhp, I just pulled them to check after being in the motor for 18 months with 96 dyno pulls, a lot of quarter mile passes and some limited street use all still looked perfect with some minor scuffing of the coating. That's with cylinder pressures most here will never see and rpms as high as 11300. We have torn down the auto cars here several times both 9 second cars and are street cars with no cracks or piston damage, we did crack a wrist pin on a non HD piston.

Just because pistons fail in the same way doesn't mean there is a problem with the piston, it does mean its likely the failure point when something goes wrong. Its like saying there is a problem with a head gasket because multiple people had them blow on cylinder 3, when it was just because the car detonated and it was pushed past it limits.

 

[keltalon]

I run wiseco pistons in all of our cars, all of them are HDs however. On the race car making 1100awhp, I just pulled them to check after being in the motor for 18 months with 96 dyno pulls, a lot of quarter mile passes and some limited street use all still looked perfect with some minor scuffing of the coating. That's with cylinder pressures most here will never see and rpms as high as 11300. We have torn down the auto cars here several times both 9 second cars and are street cars with no cracks or piston damage, we did crack a wrist pin on a non HD piston.

Just because pistons fail in the same way doesn't mean there is a problem with the piston, it does mean its likely the failure point when something goes wrong. Its like saying there is a problem with a head gasket because multiple people had them blow on cylinder 3, when it was just because the car detonated and it was pushed past it limits.

Hey if they are working for you I don't care for them I drive my car everyday 40 to 50 miles at a time I need something I personally can trust I think that is what matters with most of us something that we personally can trust and that is often built around the reputation that is dominate in a product

 

[Zack Huffman]

I built my own engine and have been for over 20 yrs and my experience is wiseco is junk I know.

You're making some pretty negative statements about a company with products that have been well proven. That kind of opinionated posting tends to upset people, so I'd like to ask if you could not fan the fire and tone it down on the "they're junk" a little. Perhaps give us some more concrete facts we can go on to tell us why we shouldn't use them. If Wigger and Bush alone could do the things they've done with Wisecos, then it's very apparent to me that not all Wiseco pistons are junk.

Since you build and tune your own engines, maybe you could tell us the PTW clearances you honed your block to, ring gaps you set, pin bore clearances, the highest oil and coolant temps your car experienced, which oil you used, how much knock you ran into while tuning, etc. etc., -pretty much anything numeric and relative. None of this information is available in any post in this thread in which the user is claiming a catastrophic failure of a Wiseco piston.

As far as I can tell the consensus of the thread says that the OPs failure was from improper PTW and getting the piston too hot.

It's easy to place the blame on the piston when it's the part that breaks. Thing is, this alloy expands significantly with heat and all the pictures of broken pistons in this thread show pistons that have been overly hot at some point. Anyone ever have a set crap out while running an aftermarket oil cooler?

My opinion is that when you misuse something, it breaks. When you misuse it and overcome the strength it was rated for, it's going to be the weakest area of the part that breaks. I'd be much more concerned about quality if we were looking at a bunch of pistons with broken wrist pins or cracked crowns.

 

[keltalon]

You're making some pretty negative statements about a company with products that have been well proven. That kind of opinionated posting tends to upset people, so I'd like to ask if you could not fan the fire and tone it down on the "they're junk" a little. Perhaps give us some more concrete facts we can go on to tell us why we shouldn't use them. If Wigger and Bush alone could do the things they've done with Wisecos, then it's very apparent to me that not all Wiseco pistons are junk.

Since you build and tune your own engines, maybe you could tell us the PTW clearances you honed your block to, ring gaps you set, pin bore clearances, the highest oil and coolant temps your car experienced, which oil you used, how much knock you ran into while tuning, etc. etc., -pretty much anything numeric and relative. None of this information is available in any post in this thread in which the user is claiming a catastrophic failure of a Wiseco piston.

As far as I can tell the consensus of the thread says that the OPs failure was from improper PTW and getting the piston too hot.

It's easy to place the blame on the piston when it's the part that breaks. Thing is, this alloy expands significantly with heat and all the pictures of broken pistons in this thread show pistons that have been overly hot at some point. Anyone ever have a set crap out while running an aftermarket oil cooler?

My opinion is that when you misuse something, it breaks. When you misuse it and overcome the strength it was rated for, it's going to be the weakest area of the part that breaks. I'd be much more concerned about quality if we were looking at a bunch of pistons with broken wrist pins or cracked crowns.

Every comment on these boards are made based on our own experience and in the experience of people close to us. When someone post what is the best turbo for 400hp based on our personal experience we will give them our recommendation. If some don't agree with the recommendation they should not get mad but use what they feel that will work for them. As far a "misuse" we all are guilty of that because the DSM"4G63" early engine was not engineer to take 300+ horsepower this is straight abuse but we try to get as much power out of the car as is available via modifycations, and the board is filled with experiences of broken this and that as a result.

To set the record straight nobody is placing blame on wiseco pistons in my personal opinion they are not the piston for me and that is based on you know what. don't believe me just put weiseco piston broke in your google search and be prepared to do a lot of reading With that said use what float your boat and post results if someone what to copy your example fine if they chose otherwise fine also that what the forum is all about considering most of us build our own car to get a desired result.

 

[ed1380]

Every comment on these boards are made based on our own experience and in the experience of people close to us. When someone post what is the best turbo for 400hp based on our personal experience we will give them our recommendation. If some don't agree with the recommendation they should not get mad but use what they feel that will work for them. As far a "misuse" we all are guilty of that because the DSM"4G63" was not engineer to take 300+ horsepower this is straight abuse but we try to get as much power out of the car as is available via modifycations, and the board is filled with experiences of broken this and that as a result. To set the record straight nobody is placing blame on wiseco pistons in my personal opinion they are junk don't believe me just put weiseco piston broke in your google search and be prepared to do a lot of reading With that said use what float your boat and post results if someone what to copy your example fine if they chose otherwise fine also that what the forum is all about considering most of us build our own car to get a desired result.

yea it was. It was engineered for the evo's