Uh Oh, Failure Analysis, Stroker questions, cleaning roller lifters and rockers.

[338Raptor]

That’s a fairly large amount of wear everywhere for an engine with low hours. Most likely the bearings have been coming apart for a long time and all the debris has been circulation in the system causing lots of premature wear. Your filter is only going to catch the particles larger than approx 20 micron. Anything smaller flows right thru the filter media and wears your parts out. Unfortunately that still doesn’t explain the root cause.

[DuckRyder]

I certainly don’t disagree, though I’m pretty satisfied that Barry is on the track of the cause.

I think it has been coming part since day one, I’m just hoping to save a few of the expensive parts...

I’m only sorta joking when I threaten to put a 5.0 and an AOD in it....

[RustyCrankshaft]

I certainly don’t disagree, though I’m pretty satisfied that Barry is on the track of the cause.

I think it has been coming part since day one, I’m just hoping to save a few of the expensive parts...

I’m only sorta joking when I threaten to put a 5.0 and an AOD in it....

Same thing could happen to a 5.0. Or 460. Or any engine. Sometimes you get a bad part and stuff happens. The more time we spend on the front end of a project making sure everything is right the fewer chances things can go wrong. But sometimes there is stuff that is out of anyone's control.

[C6AE]

Sorry to see all that damage.
From here, I'm thinking there may have been more than one issue.
Maybe some clearance issues and also maybe some debris trapped in an oil gallery somewhere.

(There is a lot of abrasive machining/honing that goes into an engine build and any residue from that is bad news. Could have been some hiding in the crankshaft even. It is a good amount of work and fussing around removing plugs and mechanical scrubbing with long little brushes to get all the rifle drilled passages clean)

[DuckRyder]

Hi Mr Crankshaft, or can i call ya Rusty 

You’re right, and you can feel my pain I can tell. It is my frustration (and my bank account) talking when I start thinking about things like how dirt common 302/5.0’s are...

I know it probably doesn’t sound like it 10-15 years on, but I really did put a lot of effort into building it and thought I was done with the motor, I left out the part about how it started knocking a day or two before we were to leave for power tour...

Mr C6AE... you may be right, though I pulled all the plugs and cleaned all the passages with air and brushes (get to do that again I suppose). I did the crank and rods as well since they both had extensive machine work as well. When I built this engine aftermarket FE parts were not as prolific as they are now...

[RustyCrankshaft]

It's hard not to loose interest in something when things like this happen. And sometimes despite even the best effort stuff will still go wrong. But, when it's all back together again you will have a well running FE which is something a lot of people don't see every day and that is worth the price of admission for me.

Don't let it get ya down! Find a good machine shop that knows something about FE's, plenty of good parts sources that come with a lot of knowledge around here and the next go around will be much better.