No, it doesn't technically, but at least it does it reliably. You'll blow a hole in a piston on a 3800 before you blow the head gasket.

Sure, sure it did. :P

Get her back up and running and we'll have a track meet this summer.

i don't know about you Andrei, but i would MUCH rather kill a gasket than a piston.

i blame Jon'* failure on his mega square root computer.

freaking knock sensors, how do they work?

I'm not doing any more tuning until I get an appropriate FUNCTIONAL knock retard.

^ GREAT idea.

i can't believe you didn't start out that way.

Whether the gasket blew from boost pressure or a lean condition.. it blew and I'm hoping Jon has opted for the stronger (hopefully) MLS gasket.

It'* fun for all of us that aren't doing the work to theorize as how to keep it together. Myself...having been on the working/fixing end of the learning curve, it'* no fun to have it together for such a short period and have to pull it apart. And on something like a 60*...it'* even less fun.

Sooo learn about your potential lean issue.. (hot maybe, but not excessive pressure) and let'* get this pos back together to blow the next gasket or piston!

Nope I bought felpro gasket. The way I see it, if the gasket will blow before the piston does, I like it that way!

Tune in next week for "I change my HG'* more often than my underwear". An ongoing mini-series!

I was talking about 3800'*. Neither are supposed to blow so technically if you do things properly and you don't cut corners and don't make dumb mistakes, you will never have to have a single issue. I'm just giving you a hard time because you talk down 3800'* as if 60*V6'* are king so its all in good fun.

The only people who do blow 3800 pistons are those who are either putting down insanely high numbers, or those who are stupid enough to drop pulley sizes like bras in a college dorm party without scanning for KR. I did drop to a 3.4 pulley but I went overboard on supporting mods and I can probably even drop another .1 inches safely. Most people get away with a 3.4 on just a 3" downpipe, colder plugs, and a CAI. I did all that and put headers and a 2.5" exhaust in just to be safe, plus the hood vents keep the engine bay cooler.

It makes sense to get the felpro gasket if you know 100% sure that it was a lean condition that caused this, even though a lean condition that doesn't cause detonation can easily burn up a a piston as well. If it was simply the level of boost that caused it, I would have looked into a new gasket, but I guess we'll find out how well it holds up this summer when you get to that staging line. Make sure you have AAA.

IMO, lean condition(and possibly too much advance) caused detonation/preignition, causing spectacular HG explosion.

as long as that can be kept under control, stock/stock replacement HGs should be fine.

the MLS gaskets would just tolerate it longer before letting go, potentially killing a piston/rod along the way.

Hey robert, do the stock ECMs have a VE map?

Can you post up a 3.1turbo map for me?