It's Alive !

[FordNut]

About 3 weeks ago (March 17th) two wrist pins fell out of my engine. Today, I started it up again.

The first down week, I removed all the accessories so the engine was ready to swap.

The next weekend, a couple of buddies helped me swap engines. I was fortunate to have a spare. I had purchased Tom Doan's (thanks!) 13000 mile Marauder engine when he decided to go with the Cobra engine. I had planned a buildup for that engine but since it was still complete a quick swap was in order.

The following week, most accessories were re-attached but there were a few revisions I wanted to make and since I had working room with all the front end accessories removed I made some minor changes.

Skipped a weekend of quality car time for school, then finished up getting everything hooked up the first two days of this week. It's on open headers right now, the cats are out for ceramic coating. The only non-stainless pipes in my exhaust system are the short pieces (about 6" each) connected to the cats and they were getting some surface rust so I'm getting that taken care of.

Car ran a little rough at first but smoothed out as it warmed up, not really surprising since the engine has been sitting so long. Great to have it running again, looking forward to driving it. Probably won't get to run it at FFW this weekend because I want to hit the dyno for AFR check before I hit the track.

[Glenn]

Hope you can make it to FFW. My install is not quite done, but the fellows at Team Ford are working hard on it. Since you had your engine let go, I had them install a line-loc to be safe. I will definitely make it Friday night.

Glenn

[merc]

Now that's great news

[Marauder2005]

Now that's great news

^^^ Ice Cube? Where the Dr. at!!!!


Hope the car runs better then before!!!

[FordNut]

^^^ Ice Cube? Where the Dr. at!!!!


Hope the car runs better then before!!!

Quite possible. My engine had 82,000 miles on it, the new one is barely broken in at 13,000. I pulled the heads. Cylinder #8 had a piston sitting at about a 45 degree angle in the cylinder. Cylinder #7 had obvious problems, lots of carbon buildup and flaking. Maybe the rings were weak on that cylinder? I'll get some pics tomorrow.

Good news, the heads were not damaged at all. I'll be having these heads built up to go on my Teksid block for the mondo engine buildup.

[Breadfan]

Quite possible. My engine had 82,000 miles on it, the new one is barely broken in at 13,000. I pulled the heads. Cylinder #8 had a piston sitting at about a 45 degree angle in the cylinder. Cylinder #7 had obvious problems, lots of carbon buildup and flaking. Maybe the rings were weak on that cylinder? I'll get some pics tomorrow.

Good news, the heads were not damaged at all. I'll be having these heads built up to go on my Teksid block for the mondo engine buildup.

Keep us updated on your plans for the heads, curious what sort of buildup you have in mind.

[MarauderMark]

Glad to hear your back Make sure you check those manifold or headers for leaks.

[FordNut]

Keep us updated on your plans for the heads, curious what sort of buildup you have in mind.

Gonna be WICKED !

What I'm planning is overkill, but I figure (hope) I'm only going to do this once so why not go all out.

I'll document it with pics as it goes. Hope to have it done before fall.

[FordNut]

Glad to hear your back Make sure you check those manifold or headers for leaks.

Speaking of this...

I had a Paul's intake spacer on it. I didn't reinstall it for a couple of reasons. I did notice that one of the upper intake manifold gaskets had a bad place in it. That could have contributed to a couple of things, one is the intermittent "bank 2 lean" code, another could be the broken engine.

I also noticed a few of the header bolts (nuts) weren't very tight and there was a little indication of leakage. I cleaned everything up before re-assembly and made sure all the nuts were very tight. After a few heat cycles, I'll re-tighten them.

Collector bolts were loose too, it was about to blow out another collector gasket. Happens every time somebody else works on the headers. They get them "good enough" then I have to fix it myself later.