The saga of my Hemi has ended

[Phillip marvetz]

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.

[nolongerracing]

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?

[Paul Precht]

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

[Phillip marvetz]

Originally Posted by nolongerracing

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?

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

[John Lang]

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

[Tom P]

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.

[Phillip marvetz]

Originally Posted by John Lang

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

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

[jmcarter]

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.

[Phillip marvetz]

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.

[Philip Saran]

Originally Posted by Phillip marvetz

Paul, There have been alot of days that I wish I had kept my 64 Plymouth and done Max Wedge instead,lol

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).