just cruising in traffic doing about 35mph. havent beat on the car in weeks. never mechanically overrevved since ive owned it. car has 60k miles. a pretty healthy cam in the mid 240's. Patriot Extreme dual valve springs with titanium retainers.
the valve kissed the piston and left a little eybrow. new heads are on the way.

 

Did it break a piston? Or just bend a valve?

 

nope valve broke and it jsut dinged the piston

 

Thanks! Now I'm bumping my limiter from 6400 to 7000rpm. Sorry i didnt realize i had images turned off in my browser.

 

Bummer!

Supicious that it's just one cylinder. What else failed?

 

hmm id like to know why? springs too strong?

 

You going to **softly** "sand" those ridges down or replace the piston?

 

nothing else broke. just the valve.
id like to know why too!
yes, i am going to smooth the piston back down and put it back together with the new heads.

 

See if the seat of the valve is mushroomed at all. Were these hollow valves?

 

the valve is not mushroomed. and these are stock valves.

 

OMG, never seen that happen before.

 

I had this happen on a 5 liter ford but I wasnt so lucky it ruined the whole engine...

 

Of course you've checked the lifter, cam lobe, rockers, springs etc. And hopefully there's nothing wrong the lower end. Sure you didn't break a rod bolt, rod bearing, wrist pin, or connecting rod?

Do a thorough inspection before putting new heads on.

 

lifter looks fine. i assume the cam lobe is fine since the lifter is not damaged at all. the rockers look fine. i plan to replace at least that one in case it was stressed at all when the valve broke.
the shortblock is still in the car so there is no way to check rod bolts etc.

 

I wouldn't consider that a small eyebrow. I'd check your valve guides. Any sort of lateral play in them could potentially cause problems with the spring properly controlling the valve.

 

im putting on new heads. i could care less about the valve guides at this point.

 

The motor I'm building right now is a iron 6.0 out of a 2003 HD2500. It originally dropped a valve just like that and shattered the piston. An old lady owned it and was going to Walmart,let of the throttle to make a turn and BAM! That was it....