Daelen recommended the Darton Sleeves for my build … Haven't driven the car enough to see how they are holding up. Did have a fair amount of glitter with the first oil change tho'

The glitter is to be expected with the first few oil changes on a new build. Mine was less noticeable at the 3rd oil change. It was looking good.

How was your guys piston slap? Mine sounds like a damn diesel, not only on start up, but all the time.

Do you consume oil?

I had no piston slap at all due to the custom designed Diamond pistons MA uses. They had it with the first build they did, opened it back up, found out why, and fixed it. I was using just a little bit of oil but that is to be expected with a looser build than stock. Saw it at around 2000 miles on the oil. 2500 miles I was changing it due to running E85 all the time.

Sorry to hear that this has happened to you Spooler this just really blows and is painful to read.

The waiting in line to get it fixed is what sucks the most.

Here is another very informative video.

I know all about waiting in line I'm in the same boat.

Were you using the RJM closed deck? If so, I have gotten reports of the cylinders still moving with them and head gaskets blowing. Guess the machine shops were correct in stating that you just can't get them in tight enough to support the cylinder.

If you used a stock bore piston, that can be sort of typical. They will often arrive too small to meet recommended piston to wall clearance for their alloy. I learned the hard way with that on the first VQ build I ever did for a customer. I had never used stock bore pistons before, but he supplied some he purchased online. My machinist who was setting up the clearances told me they came in on the loose side but that it would be OK, so I proceeded. On first start-up I heard it immediately. I couldn't return a car sounding like that. A day or two later I tore it all back down and rebuilt the engine again out of pocket. Changed the piston setup so we could achieve proper piston to wall clearance. Sounded great and the car went on to live happily ever after.

With correct piston to wall clearance, you shouldn't notice much (sometimes depending on exact alloy used), if any, more piston slap. Perhaps on a real cold start.

You, sir, are a King among men :tiphat:

Yes I have the RJM closed deck block. I can't confirm yet if the block was the cause hasn't been torn down yet. The only I can confirm is the car was running hot / high water temperature and there was a lot of smoke from the oil catch can. This was under normal driving conditions.

I doubt this is any different than the RJM block, but has anyone tried the CSS deck support? Pretty reasonable at $895 but zero clue if it works...

I am not sure.

How many psi of boost did you push it on the dyno. The magic number seems to be 24psi when everything goes to crap. Mine crap out
a whole lot sooner due to no close deck at all.