well I knew I should have upgraded my lifters when I did the LE3-LE2 cam especially since I was using the 977 springs instead of beehives, but I didnt and on my 16 hour moving trip to nashville I got into the gas and over reved it passing a bunch of tractor trailers and could feel a cylinder go down. I was hoping it was just a plug wire that fell off but nope im not that lucky. ive attached a few pick of me changing the bent pushrod at a waffle house in Virginia! so needless to say I smartened up and just placed an order for Morels and some Hy-techs. also if anyone remember my crappy track times I posted last month will like to know I alos picked up 30# injectors and a Holley 58mm TB

http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=3230149
http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=3230111
http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=3230105
http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=3230096

 

Lifter's didn't cause the bent pushrod. The stock ones are fine for any hyd cam. Your spring pressure should be 130 seat-350 nose AFTER break in. Your new springs have to be over that as they will loose 15/25lbs after a few heat cycles.
Bent PR's are generally caused by P/V contact from floating the valves or coil bind.Or Ya got way too much spring pressure for the PR.
Are they stock, heat treated PR's?

 

the head should be pulled to see if there is any damage to your piston and to see if the valve is bent. if there is damage and is unattended a hot spot can develop on the piston, blowing a hole through it causing even further damage and burning up the valve. with the way that pushrods looks it seems as though the valve smacked the piston pretty good.

 

You really think it could be that bad? I replaced the push rod and lifter and it drove ok, wouldnt I see some sort of backfiring through the intake if the valve wasnt closing all the way? I dont think I had any coil bind I was told that those springs with the LE2 cam and 1.6 pro mags would be fine. Ill take your advice and pull the head while im in there, ive got to email llyod and see what valves he put in those heads. thanks for the help guys I never thought about the valve hitting the piston I just figured the slack from the colapsed lifter cause a "impact" load on the comp cams harden pushrod, which is why it bent.

 

Save the lifter ya pulled out 'cause there probably isn't anything wrong with it.
Do a compression and leak down test before ya pull the head.

 

IMO

I haven't seen a push rod bend that bad before and wouldn't thing a hardened push rod COULD bend that far without breaking...usually I replace push rods that fail the flat bench roll test Just remember these LT1 motors don't like high RPMs and sometimes the opti rotor won't handle the RPMs neither.

Did you replace your lifters or did you get another OEM one? New lifters, push rods, and roller rockers should be on the list of "things to get soon"

 

Well... look at the positive side of things. You have that giant *** 3rd gen engine bay, so it shouldn't take you too long to tear things down.

 

I think he said he got it running again...

 

well the lifters were stock lifters and had about 80K on them. yes that was a harderend pushrod, you can see fractures through the apex of the bend. if it bent any farther it would have snapped for sure. and yes the thirdgen engine bay is alot nicer than the 4th's, it only took me 3 hours on the side of the road to track down some stock replacement parts have them delivered and rebuild the top end. if you look at the second pic down in the above post you will see my intake lying on the curb. fun times. I did notive a bit rougher idle after I changed pushrods and lifters, could this be from a bent valve? I didnt noitce the performance loss since I didnt take it above 3K the rest of the 4 hour trip to nashivlle since the pushrod I had to replace it with was a stock one.

 

It could very well be. As suggested do a leak down and see what's up. But you DEFINATELY need to pull that head.