Well I got 232 miles and it broke on me...
Background info..... Came home Saturday after going to work... doing some 5k shifts and all was well and the motor was running sweet. I did pop the hood and give a listen as I know I had what sounded like some rocker noise. car was at idle and i was listening and sounded like my tensioner was knocking on the stop or something??? I went in for lunch and told my wife I had to get the stethescope out and give it a listen as something was up.
My son came over and I grabbed him to help as I been seeing smoke at start up and it was cool enuf to see what gives at start up. I pulled # 7 as it seemed the smoke was coming from this cyl. Plug was kinda Black in the center, sorta like a rich condition?? No signs of being washed by coolant as I expected to see?? Pulled # 1 for comparsion and it was way clean...polar opposite of 7.
I pulled the coil and told my son to put his finger over 7 and i'll crank and see what comes out...figured something coolant wise might show up... nada comes out. I throw both plugs back in and tell him to watch smoke around the back as it starts....crank the motor and it runs for like 10 seconds and I hear a "clunk" and kill it...W.T.F. is going one here???? Pulled the breather on the drivers side and stick my finger in there and #2 rocker is crazy loose and I can see a broken rocker stud....
stick a magnet in and fished the nut right out. Broke exactly at the bottom of the nut...
Can't believe I was lucky enuf to be in my driveway idling and this happens....if it had happened on the way home??? I can only imagine the outcome...shifting at 5k and it let's go....
To say I'm depressed is an understatement... I really took my time and triple checked everything in the valvetrain assy. Looking around I see this isn't uncommon and AFR heads and mine are an older version and the studs did have issues. Need to break it down and see if my PR lenght was off and was the culprit... but all looked good when setting up/measuring. I feel my error was not going back in to check the rockers after putting a few miles on it. The valvetrain didn't appear to be noisy but maybe it off??? Pisses me off just the same.
Going back to the #7 issue I was thinking maybe I have a head gasket leak at that cyl... I had the heads on the motor and tq'd to bout 55 lbs. I let them sit awhile that way and one day I decided to double chk my PV clearance and used that head. My feeling was I'd be ok to reuse as all looked well and I wasn't at full tq yet?? Seems odds as I removed that head? I did mark my o/flow tank and in 2 days it lost bout and inch of coolant so somethings up???
Luckily this isn't my daily driver and it not a huge problem. Building a motor like this with all the different issues that go with it is not to be taken lightly I guess. I'm torn between tearing the motor out again and putting it on a stand or just doing the rocker stud and storing it for a few years... I think I'm Mustang'd out for awhile.
We do this as a hobby and we do love it but the learnin curve is a bitch to say the least as many of us have seen our share of BS modding these... All in the name of more ponies I guess....