Hello Tom,
I've run the Ford crate engine 8K+ miles with no problems after the first 812. That's the good news
The bad news is that even though I had the engine totally reassembled, including replacing the bad rods (literally one had a 1/2 dime-sized piece of metal missing from the I-beam as-delivered from Ford) at a cost of over $600, I had a cam gear failure at 812 miles due to Ford putting the cam gear onto the distributor incorrectly. That one cost me another $2200 and Ford refused any responsibility in the cost. I lost a good deal of faith in Ford at that point - they apparently don't give a d!mn for their customers...
After we replaced the distributor with an MSD everything is fine.
To make it streetable, and to make it fit, I changed the solid roller cam to a Crane hydraulic roller, and ultimately went to a Torker II manifold (lower height) and a Holley multi-port fuel injection setup. Crane makes the OEM cam for the engine.
After all that, it dyno'd 412RWHP through a C6 and is an absolute hoot to drive. Plus, the exhaust note is worth the whole thing! Noone ever mistakes it for a small block
Would I do it again? In a heartbeat!
Regards,
Tom
PS: I agree 100% with Eric. The solid roller cam is a disaster waiting to happen if used a lot of miles on the street. Too much spring pressure and too radical for longevity.