Do you know what a DSM is? Obviously you don’t. Step 1, shut the fuck up. Step 2, don’t talk the fuck back. Step 3, tree yourself. I’ve driven a highly modified real DSM for years, no problems. They are as reliable as the quality and craftsmanship put into them. You on the other hand spout off with ignorant comments and misinformation.
Truth on the plugs. On top of that I pretty much need a fresh set of plugs, not used plugs to do this test. Its a really really really great way to check cylinder to cylinder evenness to spot out a slightly off injector and/or poor intake manifold design as well as other variables. When your running 12.6-13.0 AFR on top of 35psi boost that stuff becoms important, I guess.
Dan, I really don’t think your motor let go due to surpassing the stock bottom ends capabilities. Failures such as your describe are usually due to bent rods. I don’t know exactly why but I’ve heard a bunch of stores about “driving home from the track approaching a stoplight” or “just cruising on the highway”. I think the rods go harmonic and let go. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out you preignited it a little. Like 1 or 2 strokes of preignition. A couple more strokes and it would have let go at full throttle. Another way they let go the way you described is by an over rev, usually associated with a mis shift. I don’t think you encountered one of those. I do know that 500+ sustained is capable on the stock bottom end. Now the evo rod bearings aren’t my favorite in the whole world, give me a beefy 6 bolt rod bearing any day.
At this point though its a moot point though huh? Its going to be badder than ever and you shouldn’t have to worry about it.
EDIT:
Also remembered you run an AEM. The stock Evo ECU kicks ass. The 1g DSM’s were fucking awesome for the day but are ho hum today. The evo on the other hand has some serious DSP going on. It has two patents in the knock control code. Its probably the one thing keeping the OP’s motor together. The 1g relied on analog knock boards to filter out the knock event. It actually worked pretty good but wasn’t adjustable and with age the analog components would change values and thus the ability to detect or not detect knock. The AEM, I don’t know what the engineers were thinking. I think they put a college intern to work on the code honestly. Basically its a knock voltage vs rpm table. If you go above a preset voltage on the knock sensor (a piezoelectric microphone basically tuned to a certian Hz) then you set up how much timing is pulled. The problem is that knock is a very short duration event that spikes the voltage. It doesn’t necessarily hold a voltage. Thus you can ping on cylinder and no timing will be pulled.
The other problem I’ve heard and seen is AEM cars hanging the rods on the top end of the track. I usually see 1 of these most of the import events I attend. Some say “it just lost sync” which is a nice way to say “My fucking AEM box didn’t know where the fuck it was and threw fuel and timing at the motor”. It usually doesn’t end up good. It worked out for me though, I bought a low mileage twin disc out of a 2g that hung the rods on the top end with under 2V of knock sensor voltage AKA “no knock”.