Scott, what caused the damage was the 7500rpm hit. DO NOT TRY TO LEAVE IN SECOND GEAR. You will glaze the clutch. Your going to have to learn to shift it pretty quickly. It took me two trips to the track to learn the car. I recommend putting the slicks on as they will not spin like the DR's do. This will make it easier for you to learn it.
As far as the valve train goes.......it's your car, but it will not make anymore power with a solid cam. It will rpm better, but remember it's a stock block. try not to rev it so high.
I am going with a solid roller the cam guy said he will take away some duration and add a little more lift. This will give it a little more power on the low end and not sacrifice power on the top end. I told him I was please as how the cam performed and my only complaint was below 55mph it would chug a little in 5th. I am going to a shaft rocker assay as well. When it goes back together the limiter will be set at 7K. There is no reason to turn over that unless I am bumping it in 4th gear at the end of the strip. I bought this car to drive and play a little.
I know the solid roller is over kill but at least if I want to get wilder down the road it is already there. I am so comfortable with a solid and shaft set ups that was an easy choice. I also know of the stability issues with the hydraulic and stud mounted set up. I want to do this only once and put the thing together to run for a few years.
Some things that I found:
The keeper and the retainer do not seat like they should both seem like 10 degree but the retainer wobbles a little.
Springs checked at installed height of 1.8" at 132lbs which the cam card calls for 155lbs. I think it was 375lbs open.
Brian I remember you said you had the heads redone. The heads are 165 AFR heads with 2.06 In and 1.6 dia ex. The valves were just dropped in and the seats were not really cut to accept the bigger valves the margin on the valve was up at the top of the 45 degree cut on the valve. This made the larger valve no help on air flow. Just to give an idea the bowl area near the seat is at 1.8” dia. I cc'd the chamber and it is a 58cc the intakes came out at 175-176cc. So I will have the seats touched up to fit the valves.
I went and clayed and found the valve to piston clearance is tight .095 on EX and .085 in intake. So the new cam if it has a real steep ramp may need to have the pistons cut a little deeper. The little we will be taking out will not affect the balance of the motor; I have been told that is better to under balance then over balance.
I also was showing the plugs to one of the guys that does cylinder head work and he said yup you’re a little lean.
The windage try tabs were all broke the tray was just laying in the pan. You can see that is bounce and banged the rod and crank a time or two.
Hopefully in couple of weeks I can button this thing back together and get it up and running to enjoy the rest of the summer.
I will try to take some pictures to show some of this stuff. Every time I go to work on this motor at dads place I forget the camera.
I know about the block, but at this point I dont think I will be pushing it to hard
.
Scott