I still don't understand why you haven't gotten a full and detailed buildsheet from him and posted it up on here yet?

 

I'll be talking with him tomorrow and I'll ask the specs of everything.

I'm looking at a partial list of mods listed on my invoice, so here are some relevant parts:

Mallory "2" $100 a piece. (Not sure what this is)

Rockers 1.6 $275 (Not sure the brand but these were the first aluminum set that broke) *There are steel ones on now that may be replaced with something else.

Hi Tech push rods $140. (These rods were also replaced as they did not fit the new steel rockers)

Competition timing chain for LT1/4 $360

Solid roller cam and lifter upgrade $330

Cometic head gasket upgrade $100

Reassemble heads with shims and seals $100

 

Mallory was used to add weight for balancing purposes.

 

Thats a pretty vague list... It pretty much tells you only that he used some heavy metal to balance the crank.

Everything else there tells you almost noting.

"competition timing chain"... who made the chain? what about the part number? is it a roller chain?

"Hi tech" push rods... I would assume they were comp cams PR's since they are titled as "Hi Tech"... 3/8" or 5/16"? what ends? What grade? What lenght?

Rockers... your guess is as good as mine. There are 4 million brands out there. Take you pick on what was used with that description.

Basically he gave you a very vague reciept and gave you almost zero detail about it. Glad to hear he wants to try and fix it... but you really need to ask for more details. Unfortunately if you dont know much about it you can not, or will not, know what to ask and look for.

Let him try and fix it. He obviously built a motor that just didn't work. If he seems honest maybe he is just not giving too many details to you because he does not want to seem like he is just using big words to confuse you.

 

this is one of the things that really bugs me about this..throw quench out the window - we need to lower compression!

 

The big red flag is a total lack of detail or part numbers...every receipt I have where someone provided a part, I have a part number.

 

It bothers me too. One thing I learned yesterday (from the tech I spoke to at AFR) about making the quench worse or a least less than optimal, is that it makes the motor more prone to detonation. It contradicts the purpose of installing thicker head gaskets in the first place. To what degree the trade off would be, I don't know.

 

I thought I would give an update. The builder pulled off the all the rockers and the ones that were obviously loose or broken had the pushrod tips destroyed. Interestingly, ALL the pushrods were beginning to get samshed on the end. Pushrods on the exhaust side had far more damage than the pushrods on the intake; the cam has more lift on the exhaust.

He says stronger pushrods and stronger rockers on a 1.5 instead of the 1.6's that were on there should prevent this from happening again.

A leak down test was done. I haven't heard back about the results yet.

 

well that was crappy update

 

Sounds like all the parts are smashing into eachother with no clearance. is that why he decided to change to 1.5 ratio RRs?

 

Sorry, but that's all I know so far.

 

I have no idea if the valve train has sufficient clearance and why they're getting smashed.

He thinks the smaller ratio will reduce stress on the exhaust side, and with stronger rockers and pushrods, it would prevent this from happening again.

 

Hey, I'm sure he was just kidding. Keep us informed what you find out.

 

I cant imagine that the valves were making contact and the only damage was smashed pushrod tips... there would have been other damage. He definately did not set up the top end correctly. He obviously missed something.

 

how about its floating and smashing the PR tips when it slams back together?

Hard to say without seeing the stuff and not knowing exactly what is in there and how it was set up...its not really fair for the builder for us to just guess......could be some odd stuff...but if he builds TS motors and pro stock type stuff it would be odd for some simple BS unless he had a helper throw it together or something.

Why did he not give you details when he leaked the motor? you need to ask what each cyl was...... The only reason I would see switching to a 1.5 ration rocker would be b/c its kissing valves