Today I was racing a friend of mine and as I was going I was stomping him and than out of nowhere he passed me and my car stopped making power. A second later my car turned off and the check gauges light came on. When I pulled over and tried to crank it the car wouldn't start and made a clanking sound. When I finnally got the car home I got the car to run but I heard a loud ticking from the drivers side valve cover. I pulled the cover and I don't see a broken spring but I am not sure what to look for. If it isn't a spring what could it be???

 

You may have bent a pushrod or worse a valve. I hope you didn't put a valve through a piston. If you bent valves and just kissed the piston you can probably have them replaced and the heads cleaned up, new seals, valves, etc.

 

You never told me that....

 

I had a similar experience once, come to find out it was a snapped pushrod. I used a pen magnet to fish the broken piece out, popped a new one in and it ran fine.

 

check out the obvious first, bent pushrod, and hopefully you didnt drop a valve....I spun some rod bearings in my motor and dropped a valve. I had a real loud tapping sound under the valve cover and it turned out to be the valve hitting the piston. Good luck and sorry to hear about that man. I see you have a 98 as well.........keep your fingers crossed.
Brian

 

Just to give yall an update. There are no bent push rods, no broken valves and no broken lifters!!! That is a huge load off. My next step is to pull the oil pump out and check it and the seals. My thinking in it is the oil pump is when it shut off there was no oil pressure and it wasn't untill the car cooled off that the car did gain oil pressure. I will keep yall updated and feel free to give yalls opinions