The saga of my Hemi has ended
 

Most of you know I bought a 426 Hemi engine from a fellow racer (Name withheld because I have been warned that if I mentioned it again I would be banned here) in Waldo Florida for my stocker awhile ago and had major issue's with what I received. It was completely illegal for stock and has been sitting in the crate for a few years. Since I'm not running stock this year I decided to get some use out of it and put it in the car last week and got it running. Today I took it over to my local chassis dyno to get it dialed in for this weekends B.C old time time drags, On pull number 5 it launched a valve thru #1 piston, and a bunch of coolant out of the left side header bank. It did however make 60 more hp than the bone stock street hemi short block it replaced on pull #4. Total junk.
I'm looking forward to building something that will be legal and run the way a Race Hemi should, It will be awhile before I can afford it though. Hopefully the block will be usable, If not I'm done for much longer.

Re: The saga of my Hemi has ended
 

well that sucks...at least you are considering doing another engine.

Re: The saga of my Hemi has ended
 

Sounds like an expensive lesson. If you knew there were problems why didn't you have it checked beore you blew it up ? ---Trevor

Re: The saga of my Hemi has ended
 

I didn't read that he knew there was a problem just that it was illegal for stock. I'm sure if he felt there was a chance of the thing blowing up he wouldn't have ran it.

Re: The saga of my Hemi has ended
 

I hate when stuff blows up! Sorry to hear and hopefully some of the parts can be salvaged although as I recall from your original story, not much about that motor was good to begin with.

Re: The saga of my Hemi has ended
 

Bummer deal Phil I am sure that when the next engine is done it will FLY!!!!

Re: The saga of my Hemi has ended
 

I'm sure it will, As soon as I sell my trailer Tyler will be getting a bunch of parts new to work with. Just think, 8 new pistons instead of the 1 it came with. I'll be bugging Dave a bunch over the next few month's for advice on making it the best it can be, Now that I have a crossram he'll talk to me about it,lol.
It looks like the block can be saved with 1 sleeve. The head is done for sure, The piston is gone and it shoved a piece of the valve stem thru the combustion chamber. The head of the intake valve is jammed up into the port, I found the head of the exhaust valve sitting on top of the connecting rod. The exhaust guide split open and I'm sure the intake guide is broken also I just can't see in there with the valve in the way.
At this point it looks like the locks on the intake let the valve drop, The locks were still in the retainer along with the button but the valve groove is beat up.
I will man up here at this point and say that I can't blame this on the original engine builder. The heads had some rusty old stock retainers and springs on them so I put all new comp cams parts on it. I'll be looking into what happened to the valve stem more this week to make sure it doesn't do this again.

Re: The saga of my Hemi has ended
 

Take a very close look at two things....did the lash cap have clearence from the locks? and Did the retainer have clearence from the rocker arm?

Re: The saga of my Hemi has ended
 

The 5/16th valves combined with the RPMs that these motors turn has always been a weak point IMO

Re: The saga of my Hemi has ended
 

The lash cap a locks are still in the retainer but the groove in the valve stem is beat up pretty bad. The rest of the lash caps come off easily but this one is in there real tight now, I know for a fact it didn't go in there hard when I put it together.
Paul, There have been alot of days that I wish I had kept my 64 Plymouth and done Max Wedge instead,lol

Re: The saga of my Hemi has ended
 

Being a former Hemi Racer,(still have it) I have been taught that with alot of valve spring pressure you should make sure that you run a RADIAL single groove valve lock, as the square cut grooves tend to act like a guiolotine and clip the valve off, but leaving the valve locks in the retainer with the valve stem intact ! Excuse the spelling as i don't know how to spell Gilotine very well ! I learned about the Radial groove valve locks after # 8 Intake valve decieded drop through the top of the Piston ! Shazam,......That's what I was told !..........John

Re: The saga of my Hemi has ended
 

Bummer about the Hemi Phil, hope it can be pieced together. Our hero Dave was at the oldies drags and i wondered where you were.

Re: The saga of my Hemi has ended
 

Phillip, that's the problem with hindsight, we figure all that stuff out after the fact.
There are alot of days I wish I had never started on this BB Duster and just kept
my 1969 340-S Barracuda FB (had that car for something like 12 yrs).

Re: The saga of my Hemi has ended
 

That's pretty much what looks like happened. The square groove in the lock was gone, All the locks on the intake valve show signs of wear while the exhaust locks look brand new ( because they are lol). The fellow that did the heads say's he thinks it was valve float that beat the locks up. This thing had maybe 20 minutes of run time total. I was thinking maybe the locks were not hardened properly but I would think the exhaust locks would be beat also if that was the case.
Thanks for the advice about the radial groove, I'll keep that in mind when ordering up the new parts. Anyone have a single Mopar aluminum head they want to sell?lol

Re: The saga of my Hemi has ended
 

Sorry to hear about the failure Phil, and I'm still with you on what the source of the problem was that started you having to salvage a "professional" built engine. Keep tearing them up with the bracket car in the meantime. Thought visiting Don Little's pit space this coming weekend would be recommended but see he's not on entry list, geez, only 21 Super Stockers at Seattle.

Re: The saga of my Hemi has ended
 

Don is on the top of my list for help. I spoke with him on the phone last year and he got me moving in the right direction on fixing a few other issues. I'm still thinking about that 318 also, Just might take a little longer now.

Re: The saga of my Hemi has ended
 

Hey Phillip,

This catastrophic hemi story has given me a little deja vu!
We installed a 517 that the customer supplied into a 70 Challenger that suffered the same fate. This one last about a year with limited driving.
The autopsy revealed that the #3 int. valve had dropped and killed the head and piston and had scattered valve seat bits through out the other bores.
The lash cap and keepers were still in place in the retainer and the tip was in the lash cap but there was another piece shaped like a "C" on the below the tang in the keepers. The bottom of the tip that was left in the lash cap was convex so it had run in a broken state for some cycles. The order of failure was the hardened tip had broken off of the valve and had run with .100" remaining to hold the valve in the retainer and this had peeled off the end of the valve to the point where it let go.
If the valves in your heads were the Mopar Performance valves, take a measurement of the tip that was left in the lash cap and make sure the tip is the same as the tip length of an undamaged valve. This one here was the same length if you stacked the 'C' shaped piece on it, so it was only the hardened tip that initially broke.
Hope you can salvage some of this!

Terry

Re: The saga of my Hemi has ended
 

For added information regarding lash caps. I have seen lash caps which land on the keepers, causing failure.

Re: The saga of my Hemi has ended
 

I just checked the lash caps, They have clearance. Thanks for the ideas.