V8-Ranger.com

v8ranger wrote:His car looks great though... Would look much better if he had matching rims all the way around it....

He has the matching front rims, just hasn't put them on yet. He used to have silvers all the way around.

plowboy34 wrote:I'm old skool too but I am old. If your only pulling him that much maybe if he would try to get that thing tuned right he might give you a run. I know you know but if he puts nitrous on that thing with a lean condition that engine is history.....garunteed.

Heck I figure if he just gets that thing tuned properly it'll run better. No doubt on spray it's gonna be crazy fast but he needs to fix it right first or we'll be picking up pieces of engine all over the road.

your correct, if he doesn't get the lean part fixed before nitrous you can say goodnight mopar....period

Well compression test wasn't working out so he pulled a valve cover and wow. Every single push rod had jumped out of place and was sitting next to the rockers. Never seen anything like it. He told me those old mopars were not built to rev high and I can see why. Hopefully none of them are bent.

I told him each push rod is unique to it's bore. They wear into the lifter and rocker and should be returned to their original location. So what does he do. Pulls them out and piles them all up in a box together. Some people I tell ya. He says no don't worry they're all the same lol.

Hate to dog on the guy but it reminds me of "more money than brains". I guess if he has deep enough pockets it must be ok.

MalcolmV8 wrote: Every single push rod had jumped out of place and was sitting next to the rockers. Never seen anything like it.

WOW! I've never seen that!

MalcolmV8 wrote:I told him each push rod is unique to it's bore. They wear into the lifter and rocker and should be returned to their original location. So what does he do. Pulls them out and piles them all up in a box together. Some people I tell ya. He says no don't worry they're all the same lol.

While yes that is the rule, I personally believe that rule can be taken with a grain of salt especially talking about pushrods. Yes, I know pushrods spin while the engine is running and wear to the rockers and lifters. Thing is, there's not really that much wear on those components to begin with. I know I'm probably going to be drug out back and beaten for saying that. In my experience, as long as he uses a GOOD assembly lube when reassembling he will be just fine.

I know some of the rebuild books for SBF's say you can just switch the pushrods end for end if they are straight and not going in a high HP application. Very little wear at the lifter. I have always just replaced them.
Dave

I'd agree it's not a big deal on most normal non performance motors but his is making 600+ hp easy I'd say. Oh well it's only got appox 500 miles on it or so. Not sure as he doesn't have the speedo hooked up yet.

However I am a believer in them wearing to their locations. Just two weeks ago I tore down a 3.8 V6 Mustang to put in two new head gaskets. It was a high mileage car with 192k miles and clearly the car had not been maintained well. The guy's radiator cracked and coolant leaked out and he kept driving till it got hot enough to blow both head gaskets. Anyhow when I pulled his push rods they were definitely worn. You could see the unique wear on each one with the naked eye, no tools required. To me they should have been replaced but he didn't want to spend the money so they were re-installed. I made sure those went back in their original locations for sure.

However in this case with such low mileage I'd have to agree they probably could go back anywhere. The motor is so new. If it was my personal motor they definitely would have gone back in their original locations but oh well. Probably no harm done.

Well closer inspection has found 4 of the push rods are bent so he's getting a new set of them. Hopefully there was no piston to valve contact but that seems likely what happened when the push rods got bent? hope not.

Would pushrod guides have prevented this?

Seems like it would have. Probably higher spring rate pressures too so the valves wouldn't have floated giving the push rods free play to jump out. But then he never intended to spin the motor that high, just an accident from driver error

if the valves hit the pistons and he had guide plates it would have cause way more damage to valve/and/or piston. Being that the pushrod had room to move was probably a good thing. We had that happen to my brothers 390 Stang when he missed a gear. Them big blocks just weren't meant to spin that fast. I would not have even checked them pushrods, they would have went in the scrap metal pile and a new set would go in, no questions asked.

I do recommend a leak down test while he has all push rods out. A garunteed way to make sure nothing else is wrong.

I already told him to get a leak down gauge and do the test. Hopefully no bent valves or otherwise.

He pulled the intake and more carnage. Broken lifters, not a lot but a few, that look like they either jumped out of their bore and got destroyed or maybe there was piston to valve contact that shocked the lifter and destroyed it, not really sure as he'd moved things around by the time I saw it. Let me see if I can get a pic up.

Here we go