Hope they fix it but if not...

[Gerry A.]

Ok, I just got off the phone with the builder and here's what he found when he took the engine apart. Every single rod bearing in the engine was spun, the rods are trash, and the crank has to be reground but the top end is ok.. The one thing he also found that confirmed my suspicion is that there was litterally fuel floating on the oil.. in his words: that engine was so fat it's a wonder this didn't happen sooner.. the oil was thinner than water and doing absolutely nothing to lube the bearings. He totally agrees with me on the power valve theory and said that when they build a total and nothing but racing engine that's the first thing they do is remove the power valves and plug them.

Here's what the pv does from the information I have been able to gather from lots of sources. When the vaccuum drops accross the base of the carb. due to extreme load the engine demands more fuel to compensate for the load. The power valve is designed to open at a certain vaccuum level.. say 5".. when that happens it simply dumps fuel to the engine in addition to the fuel already there from the jets, either pri or both pri and sec. depending on the condition and where your foot is in relation to the carb. LOL. In this particular case the cam is such that the vaccuum drop to almost zero is litterally immediate. in other words under any condition of throttle off idle causes the pressure to drop low enough to open the power valve. Thus it was dumping fuel constantly cause the engine to run extremely rich all the time,(when driving that is,, under freewheel there is no load whatsoever and the drop doesn't occur).
you asked for the cam specs.. here they are:

gross valve lift; intake: .541, exh: .544
duration at .006 int: 284, exh: 296
valve timing at .006 int: 36 btdc open, close 68 abdc
exh: open 82 bbdc close 34 atdc

at 106 intake center line

duration at .050 int: 240 exh: 246
lobe lift int: .3390 exh: .3400
lobe seperation: 110.0

The distributor is a stock ford 351 dist. mag. pickup small cap.. I have check the cap for carbon trails and or cracks and it's in prefect condition. The ignition system is simple, nothing really fancy.. duraspark box. std coil (as far as I can tell) taylor 8mm. spirowound wires ( they measured roughly 200ohms per foot, I check it.) The first set of wires it had on it when I picked up the car I would use as tiedowns for luggage.. they measured nearly 3k per foot. I am thinking of going later on with a set of 8.5mm taylors the really good ones, taylor says they measure between 20 and 50 ohms per foot. They aren't that expensive but for now the ones I have are good.

In a sence those that are saying it's in the ignition are correct because there was so much fuel going in the plugs were having one heck of a time firing even with the good wires. As for the valve train being the culprit, well at this point it's looking more and more unlikely however, I'm having him check all the avenues.

Anyway, I am now convinced that 95 percent of the problem condition was in the fuel system, which lead to alot of other problems. He is however thoroughly checking the top end for the other things all of you have mentioned and hopes to have it completed by next wk. thursday.. ( I won't have to wait till next spring to drive my car again.. YEAH!!!!!!!)

"when you are up to your arse in alligators, it's hard to remember that the first objective was to drain the swamp"

take care all and again thanks for everything.. I love this club and hope to meet some of you face to face one day.. I'll be on this site alot, so if I get obnoxious just send me an email..LOL.