Looks like your rocker bolt pulled or loosened up. I notice you didn't do a trunion upgrade on the rocker arms. I would definitely look into doing some upgrades, the trunion kits are around $140 and include longer Allen bolts to give better reliability. Doing some research after I bought my L92 Super Victor.....it seems the single plane intakes give up some torque and HP on a normally aspirated LS motor over the factory plastic intake.....around 30-40 ft/lbs in the lower RPM ranges....the Victor only seems advantageous in high RPM operation ( over 7K RPM ) I hope your also running LS3 intake valves, they are 90 grams, the L92 valves are heavy around 116grams, if you don't have LS3 hardware the hollow stem Ferrera stuf is 106 grams. The factory LS3 valves are pretty good stuff and really lightweight but, don't put a lot of spring pressure on them! If your going to rebuild the LS do yourself a big favor.....pitch the stock connecting rods for some Manley rods or Callies forged rods cheap insurance. Brian Tooley racing has some great hardware for LS valve springs.....stay away from the titanium retainers....stick with tool steel retainers....almost as light as Ti and won't flake away in operation like Ti will. If your motor builder know his stuff on LS motors he will know he needs to port the oil galleys and drill the lifter retainers for high RPM oil drain back. Hope all goes well in the refresh

We make a stud girdle for the stock rockers.

Sorry to hear this Brian. I have snapped the end of the crank off at 6500 and it sounded like a pencil snapping for that brief moment until bits of block and pistons came out of the oil pan.

We have all had these issues and definitely feel your pain.
Its an opportunity to make TOW better.

Greg, did you happen to notice if the notches in the sleeve looked, or felt deep?

Scott --- I can only see the same photos that you can i.e., the ones Bryan posted up. I can see the "dings" that Bryan mentioned but not well enough to know whether or not that is going to be able to be machined out.


I think a good meal at The Salt Lick will have Bryan up and running in no time at all.

I read your post wrong Greg. I thought you said you went "by" lol.
Those pics of the food you guys enjoyed at The Salt Lick make me hungry, every time I scan through his build thread.

Thanx guys... It definitely was a 'heart in my throat' moment, but once it happens, there isnt' anything else to do but dive in and start the repairs. Oh, and pull out the wallet...

Here she is on the floor at Eric's shop:

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...pskqnnjmpe.jpg

And a shot of the bent valve. The seat and chamber look fine, just the valve and guide of course.

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...psbf0xmjgx.jpg

Yikes! That's a bit more 'engineering' than I want to take on with TOW right now, but it should would be an upgrade! :)

I just checked, he is in Lubbock, about 6 hours away. I haven't heard of him before... Fortunately, I have one of the larger suppliers of LS engines who just moved from Lubbock to Georgetown, just north of Austin, in Texas Speed. I went to visit them on Friday and am discussing plans for my repair or replacement with them. Nice to have a local shop to work with!

We checked the exhaust as we removed it, and there are no leaks. I think I have another failing O2 sensor for some reason. More on this in another post in a minute...

I do NOT want to catch up to you!!!

I have read mixed information on the trunion 'upgrade'. In speaking with Corey at Henderson Performance (where I was dynoing), we had a long conversation about this. He recommended not to do this, as he has never seen a failure from a stock rocker in their applications, and it's apparently risky to loose a needle if one of these gives out.

See more in a post below about where I think the problem was...

I am painfully aware of the sacrifice I made in low end torque to use the Victor Jr. I would much prefer to move up to the new L92 version of a Super Victor, but I've already had to compromise and do a lot of work just to make the Vic Jr. work with my shaker and hood. This was a case of form over function in my application... When I had this engine switched over from the L76 intake to the Vic. Jr. with my cam, I had it dynoed. Below is the overlay of the original setup, the L76 intake with my cam, and the Vic. Jr with my cam. About 40-50 ft-lb of torque lost until over 5k rpm. :\ I have some thoughts of improving that loss with this upgrade though!

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...ebird/dyno.gif

This engine was running a set of Manley SS valves with Manley beehive springs. Nothing hollow or lightweight, but I also wasn't spinning past 6800 (redline), I was shifting around 6500-6600.


I have a Callies DragonSlayer crank and Compstar rods in this setup that I hope/plan to reuse.

The lifter retainers were drilled, but not sure about any oil galley porting...

I'd be interested in a link to that!