I'm finally able to hobble around a bit since my knee surgery 6 weeks ago.
We tore down the engine and here is what we found:
#2 piston had the second ring broken in half. No signs as to where and how it exited the engine. There are no marks in the cylinder wall, no marks on the piston, no broken ring lands etc, and no marks on the heads or valves. It's just effin gone. Weird.
#2 cylinder also appears to have been mis-machined by the machine shop. I don't remember exactly now but I think it measured .0040 bigger than it's supposed to be. (I may have a zero in the wrong place)
#2 main bearing was chewed up while the front and rear (thrust) were in perfect shape. Indicates a bent crank and that likely caused collateral damage to the block.
The rods and pistons were not what I was sold. I was sold 8 80k take out 03/04 cobra rods and pistons. The rods are what they say they are although after some number ID running they are 3 different generations, which means the seller pieced together a full kit from various cars. The pistons have 4 different ID number (Shame on me for not seeing this before install) and 3 of them are not forged. Those three were jacked up. They all looked almost identical to the naked eye and I had no reason going in to second guess them (first mod motor build). If I knew then what I know now... ugh.
The bearings had two different batch dates. (rod bearings). 7 from 2015 and 1 from 2016. All the 2015 ones were chewed up, the 2016 looked perfect. Very odd. These came from summit racing all at the same time.
The heads have an internal crack in the oil passage ways and we've decided to junk both of them due to all of the prior issues with this set of heads. ugh.
The only thing we can salvage are the full assortment of ARP bolts and the todd warren blower cams.
So I'll be selling the blower cams and putting in a stock pi 2v and just enjoy the damn car. Screw this hunt for power and the money/let downs associated with it. It's just not worth it and I want to drive the dang car.
The good news is the bearings we were able to check were spot on for clearances so it doesn't appear that any of this was my fault (other than not cross referencing the pistons).
Hopefully we have it going in the next couple of weeks. I think we are going to leave the blower on it and a safe tune. I'll be happy with 400rwhp all day long as long as it's reliable.