It only lived for 3 hours...

restoman

restoman

The paint fumes have cleared so I'm
before the kid destroyed it.
Freshly rebuilt, .040 over 360 with a mild roller cam and some mild porting. Ran very nice, great oil pressure, responsive for a mild engine and sounded pretty good.
That is, until the owner decided to let 'er rip. Ripped it, he did.
We figure the revs got away from him a little, whether he wanted to see what it would do, or trying to show off a little.
At any rate, the $4 g he spent pulling the old 318 (which, coincidently, died the same horrible death), buying the 360, building it and installing it, is wasted money.

He picked it up 4:30 Friday and by 8 PM she was all done.

Take a gander at the pics.
There were chunks of metal in the # 5 cylinder, and the # 6 cylinder, and that funny spot on the # 2 cylinder wall is a hole.

Wish I had money to waste like that. :doh:
 

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Doc, the valve fell out after it broke at the lock. The casting around the guide is broke to Hell.

I haven't talked to the kid yet - his Mom came around to find out about the state of the engine. I figure the kid knows what caused the mess, and feigned the "I'm too upset to see my car Mom, can you go find out about it?"

Stupid is as stupid does.
 
Let me guess: stainless valves in a street engine? You have to get those babies up to temp before they're stronger than conventional valves... somewhere north of 800 degrees F. Below that, they're actually weaker than a stock valve.

My guess he was driving around, taking it (relatively) easy and keeping it cool, then tried an 8,000RPM run and the valve wasn't in its heat range enough to take it... and POP! goes the wee... suhl's engine. Just a guess, mind you.

Either that, or he skimped out on the valves and bought the cheapest ones available... I mean, the stock #8 exhaust valve in the Jen 340 (my '73 Rallye) broke in half, too, but it had nearly 140,000 miles on it, had been doused with diesel fuel (long story involving Squirrel Jesse, but needless to say the stem was horribly scored--I needed a puller to get it out), and the engine was north of 8500RPM when it let fly. Can't hardly blame it.
 
Stock valves, in a 60 k engine. The heads were in very nice shape, hardly any work needed to them.

I"m thinking he got into it hard going by the shop and missed his shift point. It died right around where a 4000 lb Charger with no gears would be needing second gear.


I don't know if he got it to 8 thou, but the machinist looked at it (with no explanation from us) and said he thought it looked like a high RPM explosion
 
Well, there's definitely no doubt it was a high-RPM excursion. My guess is it went off the end of the tach on a missed shift. That's what happened to mine, except the goofy broad actually moved the lever when the the tach hit the end of the scale (8 grand, add RPM for reaction time and the stock Torqueflite's proclivity to hang on after the lever's moved for 500-700RPM). :doh:

On mine, though, the valve pulled a child's chant: Mama had a baby and her head popped off! When I pulled the valve covers, I was relieved to see all 8 valves where they should be, only to later find out the valve had broken off near the head, likely from the scored stem and the force of being slammed back into the seat at such ridiculous RPM. Strangely, though, on mine, the end of the stem was peened over... maybe hung a valve?

I digress. Junior has learned a very-expensive lesson. Here's to hoping this is coming out of his pockets, and not the parents'.
 
Were they those $59.00 a set stainless valves...

I just finished talking to someone who wanted to know why my stainless valves were $11.80 a piece for an entry level valve and he could buy all 16 for $119.00...
 
i sometimes don't blame the kid for letting the foot drop. it is very tempting to see what lies underneath. after my very first rebuilt 318 at 19, i was like a little kid tempted to let the foot drop and burn some rubber, but i always remembered how much money i dropped in it and it would really suck for it to literally blow it away. after painful patience it was all worth it. i guess he didn't see beyond that. tough lesson learned. tsk tsk...
 
I may be a 22 year old college kid with a severe case of lead foot but there is a reason my street cars are street cars and my race cars are race cars... :naughty:
 
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