Piston Failure
That pressed together material won't take much punishment. Any little detonation will do that, and not show up anywhere else. Or, as I'm thinking, that one hole was a skosh lean under load and even a Fel Pro blue gasket wouldn't even blink at it. That gasket takes a dump.
When I worked in the production rebuilding shop (worst job ever) I eventually worked my way into the office. After looking over the warranty claims, the first order was stop using those head gaskets. Head gasket failure was reduced by 98%.
The second order was to teach the moron resizing the rods how to use the gauge, and then refinish about 800 rods he screwed up. Then I fired his ***.
Third order was tell the dick doing the heads to finish the guides BEFORE he cut the seats. He had about 100 heads to redo. I didn't fire him because he took his medicine and didn't *****. Plus, he was fun to work with. Reduced head department warranties by about 60%.
That's why I never use those gaskets. It's funny how a company rolls along and accepts things, pays out what I considered horrible money to fix crap we didn't need to have happen by some simple fixes in procedures and products. In fact, the new gaskets (Detroit at that time) were LESS money than the junk ones.
And setting up processes for every step of the operation to make sure things are done correctly. These guys were hired of the street, half assed trained and cut loose. That's a management issue.
That job made me lose hair in the shower every day. I hated that job.
