Bronze dist gears in Fords are a big no-no. But when they fail, the shavings come off in little thin slivers. You have bearing flakes unfortunately. My guess is a spun rod bearing.
Sorry to see that. Hate it for you.
I'm curious, why specifically in Fords?
Poor choice of words on my part, I suppose. I don't do many GM builds, but it seems like a bronze gear is the only choice for them when you go to a steel camshaft. I'm not 100% on that, I just don't have much experience with them. However, you will see that as a staple in the GM world and that's the first thing guys reach for when they use a billet camshaft and they seem to do pretty well. Maybe it's because the install dimension isn't as critical??? Or maybe it's because of the gear shape?
Bronze gears just don't last long in a Ford engine, even with a very critical install dimension. A couple of thousand miles and you see wear. I understand that the cam companies want the distributor gear to wear before the cam gear, but if they would just sell the right materials, they wouldn't have any worries. Steel cams get steel gears. Iron cams get iron gears. It's pretty easy.