Well it finally happened, i broke it . I was coming home from Richter69's after just getting tranny issues figured out. It was the single disk tc, he ended up rebuilding my tranny a total of 2 times and finally after 2 single disk converters he ordered a PI triple disk and that fixed it. I left his house headed for Tony Wildmans and stumbled across a 3rd gen dodge who wanted some. I spanked his azz baaaad and shortly there after i noticed somehting wasnt right. I had a definate miss and low on power. Got to TW's and we did all sorts of stuff trying to figure out what was wrong. We ruled out bent pushrods bc it wasnt showing the usual symptoms of that, so we just figured id lost an injector. Well no biggie except i was 275 miles from home to get more custom tuning. TW ended up putting some programs on the chip for me to try but nothing felt right, turbo was hard to lite and from 2200-2600 rpms engine ran like crap. So i decided to head home and fight the problem there. I stopped at wichita for fuel and noticed the whole back and under side of my truck covered in oil/ fuel....Uhhh Ohhh I checked the oil and sure enough it wsa about 1.5 gallons high, and smelled of diesel. Well that ruled out an injector being dead, i called Jon "richter69" who is a ford master tech and told him of the problem. He informed me that i must have bent pushrods. I wasnt happy, 4 months of tranny problems and now this, so i did what anyone with a temper would do....I drove it the remaining 100 miles home and i wsant very nice to it either. when i got home i let it sit for a couple days bc i was still mad, finally i drained the oil and had about 7.5-8 gallons in crank case. I pulled the vc's and found 2 bent pushrods and rockers on cyl 4. That would explain all the fuel in the oil, fuel was getting injected and had no were to go except through the rings. I didnt even do a compression check, i knew better than to even think that it was still ok after driving it 300+ miels with no valves in cyl 4 opening. About a week after i got it home the engine was pulled and tore down. I ended up having a bent con rod in cyl4 and both lifters were broke aswell as several pistons had marks from valve contact.

Heres what my build constists of:

-Reusing crank, block, cam
-New IH heads which are getting ported by me
-Wipeout enterprises connecting rods and pushrods
-ARP main studs
-Comp cams springs
-balance rotating assembly
-mahle .010 under pistons

And since im not an engine guy the machine shop is assembling the short block for me. I think i can manage puting the heads, pushrods, rockers and all the other little bs on. Im sure there is something ive forgotten but that is normal for me. Sorry i forgot to post over here. Oh and my thread over at TDS is "5k redneck budget build", i think parts are going to be well under the 5k mark, but the machine work is gonna put me over 5k.

luke

 

wow, sorry to feel the pain youre going through. my sympathy.

BUT the rebuild will be AWESOME! i agree with everything youre doing, but why -.010 pistons. are you sleeving the engine to a smaller displacement? or do you mean .010 over pistons? while youre at it, i would get high performance valves that can stand high heat, plus ceramic coat the piston crowns.

 

SO, what are your words of wisdom for ways of avoiding a parts list like that?

 

Tops of the piston have a .010 lower deck height to lower compression ratio a bit. Valves are ok, and if Brian Buntings uncoated mahle piston held up to 2000*+ egts then mine will stand up w/o coating aswell. Since i just shelled out over 4k for tranny, the engine is on a pretty tight budget as i dont have credit cards and im not borrowing money.



Dont go any bigger than stage 2's, if you do your playing with fire. Everything started breaking after i put the stage 3's in, heck it hasnt been running long enough for Wildman to custom tune it for these injectors yet! Also up til now ive left my rev limiter at stock, which is a good thing to do if your still running stock valve terrain but at 45+ psi boost the springs just couldnt hold up any longer. I will bump rev limiter up above 4k rpms if TW wants to, after engine is broke in. IMO if you do any mods that require headstuds, you are past the "safe" limits on the stock engine.

luke

 

THanks, I was wondering what mechanical line you crossed that things started getting interesting. From everything ive read it sounds like stage 1's would keep me out of trouble. With stock injectors i havent seen over 18psi.

But HEY, the Dodge had to go down!!!!!

 

Doesn't it just suck that a "budget" rebuild runs over five large.....I imagine once you taste that kind of power it's difficult to let go of.

Feelin' your pain.

 

yeah its alot of fun, but at this point im about to detune the truck back to stage 2's just so i can drive it and enjoy it for awhile. Most ive drivin it in the last 4 months was a 300 mile 7cyl ride back from the tranny guy

luke

 

The upside is it will still spank a new Cummins.

 

Hey I have been tuning into your book over on the other site and think it is great that you are willing to share your info you have experienced going up in the power mods. Also this rebuild on a budget. Just like to thank you for letting us know what you all with more experience have to suggest for us who are just starting to upgrade. Also like that you post here to you get some people on the other site that are very one sided but alot of good info.

Thanks and good luck

 

hopefully you get er goin soon luke. i have been following the saga on the other place. i bet you cant wait to get that going again.. besides the 300 mile bent push rod trip you havent drove that thing in about 6 months??????

luke is it safe to say you are single or you have a real understanding wife????

 

im single lol. I have yet to find someone who will let me spend money on the truck as i please.

 

oh it will be all worth it when that fresh motor is all tuned and killin fummins. bet you would have really spanked him on 8 cyl......

this all brings back memories of my last motor...........least yours didnt make an inspection window in the block......

 

Got the connecting rods and pushrods in friday, still waiting on mainstuds supposedly theyre stuck in transit somewhere . Also i talked to the machine shop, one of the cyls was .0045" under bore at top of cyl. I didnt ask which one it was, but id guess its probably cyl 4 since thats the one everything else was broke in. Gonna bore it .020 over. I chickened out on the head porting, i just dont feel comfortable diving in on a brand new set of heads. Installed new springs on heads so they are ready to go. I should get the rebuild kit ordered in the next day or so. I think i can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Now if the !@##$#%^ main studs would get here we could ge thte show on the road! Oh i happened to stumble across a 3.5" sd h2e dp aswell, thanks nick.


Luke

 

good to hear its almost there!!

ive been wanting to find a set of trashed head and take them to the bandsaw and find out how much porting can be done. when i build a new motor im gonna go smooth on the bores.


while you got the motor out if you wanted to pull the dash you can cut the firewall and get the 4" dp in there. its about 8hrs to pull the dash and get the firewall cut and welded backtogethor and get it covered up and all buttoned up.

 

If i had more pateince i would have found a junk head to practice porting on then cut it up, but im getting very impatient at this point lol. As for fitting a bigger dp, im going the lazy mans way.....body lift! I bought a cheap 2" lift and im gonna probably cut it down to 1" so its not quite as noticeable. Ive also heard that you can notch the tranny mts and motor mts and slide engine/ tranny forward 1/2" to get a little more clearance. Ordered rebuild kit today, comes with pistons, wrist pins, all gaskets, seals, freeze plugs, oil pump... all for a little over 900 bucks shiipped! This brings my total to just under 4k not counting machine work.