Fired up my new motor that I rebuilt myself and am less than happy with what the results were. I'm going to list the mods to this engine first to give ya'll an idea what we're working with.

1989 F150 5.0L
Block bored .030
New World Windsor Jr. heads cleaned up and exhaust polished
Speed density friendly CompCam 31-255-5 114 LSA
Kieth Black Hypereutectic pistons- flattop (with the head cc this puts me into the high 9's for compression)
Adjustable fuel pressure reg set at ~ 45 psi
Crane roller rockers 1.6:1
Complete Bassani exhaust including shorty headers, y-pipe, hi-flow cat and 3" exhaust
Stock intake cleaned up
Stock 19# injectors
Homemade FIPK K&N filter
Stock speed density system

The engine fired immediately and I took it up to the 1800-2000 rpm cam break-in speed. There was some popping back thru the intake that seemed to come and go. I ran it for about 10 minutes and then noticed that the header tubes on cylinders 2,3 and 4 were GLOWING. Shut it down at this point. The coolant never really came up to temp. and the engine ran less than smooth. Seemed to be a fair amount of lifter noise but was told that rollers can tap so didn't get too concerned. I set the preload to about 1/2 turn.

After letting cool for about an hour I decided to fire up and listen again. The popping thru the intake had stopped but the engine still seemed to run a little rough. Noticed the same three header tubes beginning to warm up again pretty good.

Maybe the engine hadn't run long enough and I doubt it ever got out of open loop but I pulled the codes engine off and on. The only code I came up with is 95 which is secondary fuel pump circuit. My front in-tank pump would not run earlier so this may be referencing that. I'm running on the back tank and am confidant I've got adequate pressure and flow. I flow cleaned and flow checked the injectors before install and everything looked good.

I'm making an assumption that I'm flowing alot more air and the SD simply can't accomodate. I knew I would have some chip-tuning issues but not this severe. I don't think I wiped a lobe as the popping was evident from the immediate start. Might of set lifter pre-load too light and would account for tapping. I'll have to go back and re-adjust these.

Any ideas guys? Anything sound familiar that I should take a look at. I'll pull the motor if I have too. I didn't like the looks of those header tubes AT ALL. It's baffling if this is from a lean condition then why didn't the other 5 tubes show the heat? Did I do damage from this? I've spent alot of time checking and re-checking on assembly and am kinda down in the dumps on this.

Thanks

Randy

 

I don't have any efi experience, but on a carbed engine the glowing headers are a sign of retarded ignition or lean induction.

You've made a lot of changes to the basic engine configuration including compression, cam, induction and exhaust. Do you have a custom chip to allow the processor to run the changes or is it providing parameters for a stock engine?

Somebody will jump in who's familiar with your changes and what's required in changing your controller.

 

you mentioned lifter preload being too tight maybe, and i have seen a few trucks come in at work that have a cherry spot on the manifold for a cylinder (or more) and it was usually caused by a rocker that was set too tight, in turn holding the valve open. when the cylinder fires the explosion would leak right out the valve and cook the manifold. it would also act as a cutting torch and fry the valve a bit. the other reason it would be cooking wouldnt apply to a gas engine.....but as a diesel is starved for air the exhaust temp rises. but it may be possible for you to be over feeding that cylinder by having a leaky misadjusted intake valve wich is leaning out that cylinder and making it run hot. also, you said it ran rough...maybe your ignition timing is too far advanced and is causing the rough running and popping? unfortunatly i havent had this problem on my own, and huge i-6 diesels act much different than a v-8 gasser, so im just throwing out ideas. keep us posted as to what you find....so if it ever happens to me i can fix it without confusion i hope you get that thing running right soon...sounds like you built a bundle o' fun!

 

Georgedavila, I haven't changed anything yet in regards to programming/chipping. My hope was the engine would run OK long enough for me to diagnose the shortfalls in the current parameters and then have it custom chipped to tune. With the hot exhaust that I'm seeing on 2,3 and 4 I don't feel I can safely continue until I take corrective steps to bring that situation into control.

I ran thru the proload adjustment 3 times to check/double check. If anything I feel that the preload adjustment procedure that I used would manifest itself as too loose. But I agree, Burly, it does appear that the exhaust valves might be being held open. The popping-back thru the intake that I heard on the initial start-up could also be an indicator of an intake being held open too. Since the cam is relatively mild and doesn't have extremely long durations I used the following adjustment procedure.

Bring #1 to TDC and set both intake and ex. I had the intake off at this time so I could rotate the pushrod and also see the lifter plunger move to help identify zero lash. I tightened the adjusting nut 1/4 turn then tightened the allen lock, then in unison tightened both another aprox. 1/8. This gave me short of 1/2 turn preload. I then rotated the crank 90 deg and set both valves on the next cylinder in the firing sequence, then repeated until all valves were set.

Randy

 

New problem. Started up again this AM. Actually is not running too bad. No popping thru the intake and engine running fairly smooth. Some rocker clack. Now noticed the oil pressure is dropping like a rock when at idle speeds. Thought it might be the oil sender so I installed a dial pressure guage in place of the sender. Only giving me 25# at 2000rpm and essentially zero at idle. Plastigage gave me .0015 to .002 clearance on the bearings. Maybe a tad loose according to book but machinist told me he always shoots for .002 and doesn't like it any tighter. Chewed the bearings out this fast???? Not hearing any bearing noise. Acts just like it did before teardown with the oil pressure drop. Bearings were toast and I could hear bearing knock rattle then. Is it possible that one of the lifter galley plugs pushed out and giving low pressure now?? Any other place where pressure could be lost like this?? Oil pickup looked good- no cracks and clean screen. I removed the dist and primed the system before start-up and the system primed immediately. Am wondereing now if machine shop left a bunch of metal in the system after boring and now gutted the bearings. Might also account for the possibility of lifters sticking in the bores and valves hanging open and causing the 3 hot header tubes that I spoke off. Any ideas?? Probably looking at some major investigative work I suppose.

thanks
Randy

 

your theory on magic machinist dust clogging and jamming everything makes perfect sense to me, as unfortunate as that may be. on monday i am going to ask my hot rod motor builder friend and see what his thoughs are...until then all i can say is may the ford god bless you and good luck.

 

Thanks Burly, I'm bringing this down from the other thread I've got posted. Let me know if you've got any thoughts on this theory too.

Manta, I'm getting 25# not 45# at 2000 rpm and essentially zero if I let drop to idle. Something occurred to me as I was licking my wounds and thinking of what is wrong. Steve83 might have confirmed this. At the back of the valley where the intake meets the block there is a cavity where the oil galleys for pressurization of the lifter galleys converge. I remember when I was installing the intake I puzzled on this because it was obvious that the intake valley gaskets would not completely seal this. The Ford small block book that I was using as a guide did not address this in any way so I thought that this was a release area. Now I suspect that this should possibly have a freeze plug here or different gaskets than the ones that came with my kit. This would explain the lifter rattle that I'm hearing because the lifters would not be pumping up properly. It would also explain low oil pressure. I'll check this out. The machine shop was supposed to install all plugs but when I got it home I noticed he didn't do the front and rear galley plugs. He swore up and down that he put all the plugs in. Rrrriiiiiight!!!! Similiar experience with my crankshaft. He ground the crank and when I took the rotating assembly to another shop for balancing the machinist checked it and said it was the worst grind job he'd seen. Every journal had a .001 taper ground in and one main journal even had a measurable step. I'm sure on install I would have caught this with plastigage but I'm grateful to the second shop for checking and letting me know. Needless to say a second grind job was in order. And now this!!!

Randy

 

wow......i hate shoddy craftsmen.