Damaged Pushrod
 

My Pantera engine rebuild has been driving my crazy
Dart block, ported Brodix heads, solid lifer cam
I decided to kick up the compression slightly 10.63/1
and keep the solid lifter but more duration and a little less
lift.. 4.125 bore x 3.75 stroke... new race tech pistons,
cleanup the heads with new exhaust valves and new rockers
1.72 comp Ultra gold rockers.. new bearings etc although the
ones that came out were really good after 12 years of hard running
.. just honed the bores .005 so old motor worked good

Car in the first 200 miles of break in developed a tick on
one side.. one intake rocker was way loose... looked at things
took rocker to builder, no damage reinstall and run..
Put another 200 miles of break in on it and it sounded fine
I have 180 headers so it is really hard to hear a running issue

Pulled the valve cover to look and way off again
Thought for sure it was cam going flat.. builder says
pull the manifold and check.. cam and lifter looked great
checked the ones next to them etc all good

Finally put two push rods together and the problem was found
The end of the push rod was working its way down into the
tube and cutting the tube off.. again no sign of damage on ends
of pushrod, lifter or rocker.... but as you look closely the ball
is now starting to turn slightly in the tube

Guess he should have put in new pushrods.. now on order with a new
rocker just to be sure... you can see the length difference in the pic

Bob

Yikes! Glad you found that before any track events...

Pushrod issue
 

Bryan,
Was scheduled to go to Thunderhill Monday
but canceled out earlier this week when the
first adjustment was found.. yes it could have
been bad

Bob

One piece push rods on order?

Push rods
 

Yes one piece

Bob

Wow... Hate when you try to do everything right and a part failure still throws you curves. Glad you caught it though.