so how did you get it home after the meltdown ?

 

Good rings on tock pistons or stock size Wiescos. Keep the rods, rod bolts and crank. No need to stud the bottom.
Before you shell out $$$$ to change the whole drivetrain get some limiting straps for the front suspension. That will keep it from transferring too much to the rear and letting you use the front tires to pull straight.
And yes on a 4L80E.....

Love your set up. Would like to do similar in a 4x4 Silverado/Sierra or a 4x4 Tahoe .

 

Check you top rings in the bad pistons.
See if the ends have any shiny spots on them.

Budget says a couple of new or even good used pistons from someone.
New rings. Open the gaps and call it a day.

While you build another engine.

This way your down time is very little. And you will always have a spare engine.

 

Don't ditch the awd. I used to have the same problem with my truck at the track launching in 4wd. I almost hit the wall one night with a 13psi launch on street tires. If you have torsion bars lower them all the way down at the track and strap the front end down with a little preload if you can. That will keep your front drivetrain geometry straight and help with the torque steer. Once I did this with my truck it would spin all four if I launched too hard but it would do it in a straight line. My 60' went from a 1.68 to a 1.56. After a while I got tired of screwing around and launching soft so I bought 4 et streets and cut a 1.45 leaving on 10psi. I tried them once at 13psi and it yanked the drivers side front tire a little and had to back out of it to keep it from hopping.

 

AWD is fine, just need to work on the suspension so everything stays planted.

It was probably detonation even though the piston didnt crack. There is a tremendous heat increase when detonation is present, hence the melted stuff.

If you want big power with reliability, build a forged engine. If just power then through a couple new pistons in it.

 

Just like the other gentlemen have already mentioned, strap down the front end. Mine wallowed all over the place, rocking from side to side as the open differential front tried to claw its way along. Once I had the front end anchored down where it could no longer unload the front tires it just straightened everything right out. Yes it will still spin the front tires, but it does it going straight and most likely is a hell of allot easier on parts.

As far as the engine is concerned I would most likely just replace the bad pistons and re-gap the rings for all other cylinders if you haven’t already done so if the engine is in otherwise good condition. You could go with a set of K1 rods and your piston of choice with the stock crank pretty reasonably, but like you said I would still want to rebalance the rotating assembly. One thing to keep in the back of your mind is while there are pistons available for the stock rods and their corresponding pin sizes, the options open up quite a bit when going with aftermarket rods and a more traditional pin size. Just more things to ponder.

 

my buddy had his cousin come over with the dmax and trailer.

 

my first thought was just stock pistons and new rings. i wasn't sure how much power could be had from time to time on the stock big rod motors. i may just do it and like what was said build a side motor. thanks for all the inputs. i'm pretty upset that i just got it together and running like a **** then burn.

i love my AWD, i had limit straps on it for a while but man it road like crap. instead of the tires just going down into dips the whole truck would go down in the front. the front is already on the bump stops. i dropped it down like that so it would stop lifting the front end so much on the streets. maybe i need to do the coil over conversion with adjustable shocks so i can just use the shocks to slow the lift on the front. i drive it on the street the most so thats where it needs to be the safest.

 

I know a guy....

 

I only run my straps tight at the track. It does ride like **** if you tighten them up on the street.