Bill, the rods were not magged between builds. Obviously, in hindsight I should have done that. The rods were purchased in 2008, and were in a few different iterations of the engine, the first of which used Dove heads (that leaked) and the first pass on the T&D rockers (which did not have sufficient clearance between the rocker bushing and shaft, and seized on the shafts). Second iteration went to the high port heads and properly sized bushings in the T&Ds, and that was the engine that made 930 HP and won the Modified class at Drag Week in 2009. Third iteration was an upgrade to the distributorless ignition system to make a little more power, but then the engine leaked water into the oil during DW11. Back apart it came, to the current version, which tossed the rod this year.
A quick update on this situation: I sent the broken rod pieces to Blair Patrick (who I bought them from), and they are now on the way to Crower. Blair talked to Crower, and first cut from them was that a break in the beam of one of their rods is very, very rare, and that the rods I had should have been able to handle 1500 HP, even though they are rated at 1000 HP. I'd consider an upgrade to Olivers but I don't think I've got room in the crankcase for them; their outside profile is significantly bigger than the Crowers, and I'm already notching everywhere to clear the big stroke.
And just to echo Barry's comments, the block repair is going slowly, and is going to require new machining pretty much everywhere. It looks like a combination of welding and those lock n stitch pins is going to be the solution.
