I was at the track a few weeks ago and ended up bending a pushrod while there. I shut the car down when I noticed the lack of power, and didn't make another run, but I drove the car home which was about 45 minutes away.

A friend and I pulled the valve covers off to replace all the pushrods, and noticed that the hole in the head for the pushrod was "enlarged". I'm at a stand-still here and unsure what to do.





I didn't pay attention which pushrod was the problem, can you guess which one it was? lol



Can I just buy a pushrod guide plate and be fine, or am I in some serious trouble here?

Thanks!

 

Good question, i'm not sure how others have dealt with this, but a guide plate will be a good reinforcement for those pushrods if you keep the heads.

 

I had this happen to me, looked exactly like that only my pushrod was actually broken in half. I just threw in a new pusrod and ran it, Its not like it dug its way into an oil galley or anything

 

I did the same thing when I was still covered by the factory warranty. The dealer had to remove the driver side head to get the pieces out. The engine lasted another 50 to 60k before the oil pump died on me. I don't think the enlarged hole for the pushrod will hurt anything

 

could play it safe and go with guide plates .

 

just replace the pushrod, and you'll be fine

 

Thanks for the help guys. I'll try the new pushrod and see how it goes. I have a set of chromolly rods that will replace the stock ones.

I'm also going to pull the oil pan and clean that out along with running a fresh change of oil and a new filter for an hour or so and then changing again.

Perhaps a good reason to get a blueprinted oil pump!

 

I would not waste my time and pull the pan, there is no need to.

 

i got a set of 853's ill sell you.

 

Well, we tore more of the engine apart last night. I don't think it'll start now. :lol





So when we pulled the head, here is what we found on the piston:



My friend works on heads for a living, so he took the head and is going to check out the valves and clean it up. Next week we'll pull the exhaust (it was a bitch to get the head out with the headers in the way), and pull the other head as well. We'll swap the cam and he'll clean the other head and put the new springs on. After that, just put the new exhaust on (hopefully it doesn't scrape!) and rebuild the engine.

It all seems simple when it's typed out like that. This is really my first time attempting anything but simple changes or maintenance on a vehicle. It's kind of exciting and terrifying at the same time!

 

haha. holy **** man. you did all that for a bent pushrod. im not sayin its a bad thing, but damn. i would hate to see what happens if you miss an oil change or something. lol. since your puttin in a new cam you might as well upgrade your lifters to some ls7's while the heads are off.

 

looks like a valve just kissed the piston...

 

Actually, this just started because I needed to change the spark plugs. They're a pain to get at!

Yeah. It could have been worse. I'll find out during the week if I bent a valve stem, too.

 

Change the lifters out while you still can. I had the same thing happen to me. That bent pushrod screwed up a lifter, rocker arm but I did not catch the lifter in time and it took the cam out.

 

Why not throw a better set of heads while your at it? Why dink around with a set of old castings when you can pick up a set of nice flowing heads for cheap.

 

Just got the call, the valve was bent. I'm glad I went through the exercise of taking the head off. I guess I should take the other head off, too.

$$

But I don't think the head is my limiting factor at the moment. I'm trying to decide what headers and cam to get. I've always been a firm believer in "do it once, do it right", so I'm not as worried about cost as I am in getting what's right for me. (not to say cost isn't a concern)

I'm not exactly sure what I want, but I've decided I'd be happy with HP numbers somewhere between 360 and 400 (considering I wasn't unhappy with the 320 or so the car was putting down before I started screwing around). The bigger concern is that it's useful HP and torque. I don't race the car much, and am not planning to. What I don't want is a car that is so loud that it's annoying to the entire neighborhood. There is some guy that lives by me in a Mustang that is so loud that everyone knows him and goes "oh, it's that guy."

I think I'm going with the Kooks LT with the catted Y pipe to match with the GMMG catback I already have. I think I'm leaning toward the Thunder Racing 224-114 cam, but I really need to talk to them about my needs.

I'm also concerned about clearance considering that I'm lowered 2". But since I'm spending this much another couple hundred toward a taller set of springs isn't that big a concern.

Anyone have any suggestions or comments about what I'm putting together?

My current mods are the Intrax 2" lowering springs, AGX shocks, lid, SLP MAF. Along with that, I've already bought the LS6 intake which doesn't have the EGR pre-drilled. I live in an emissions controlled area of Ohio (Lake County), so I need to be somewhat careful about that, but I think if EGR is deleted during the tune, I don't have much to worry about.