Here's the story I posted on another forum about it a couple years ago:
My engine never seemed to run right from the beginning 4000 miles ago.
The SDS system that I got with the stack intake manifold was pre-programmed for my motor specs. When I first started the motor, the instructions said not to turn it off for the 1st 15-20 minutes during the initial start up. So I followed the instructions. Unfortunatley the fuel settings were way too high but I was afraid to change them right away.
The engine always burned
oil when ever I decellerated. I kept calling the people who built it down in L.A. They told me to keep driving it. I called him a couple months later and he told me that it's most likely sucking in
oil thru the gasket between the bottom of the intake manifold and the heads. I reseated it with new gasket twice. I could tell by looking at the gasket that there wasn't a problem but did it anyway. It also looked like it was drawing
oil thru the PCV so I changed to straight breathers and it helped but didn't fix it. There was also a little white smoke comming out whenever I stood on the gas.
The SDS system was like playing a video game while I was driving. I constantly had to keep making adjustments everytime I drove it. It would never accellerate smoothly and there it seemed to stutter when ever I acclerated hard. I called around to see if I could get anyone to tune it on a dyno. Everyone said not to waste my time because it is very limited on what it can do.
I ended up going with the ACCEL GEN VII system.
After I installed the new system I took it to get it tuned. We set it up on the dyno and the guy started tuning the computer. Everytime he stepped on the gas it would stutter and smoke. "Man there's something weird with you motor" he said. He made more adjustments, " Your curves are way off, I can't believe I need to crank the mixtures up so high", he kept saying. Finally he was able to make a pull. "Man this thing smokes a lot!", he kept saying. When he hit 285 hp there was a bang and then his whole shop filled with smoke and we had to run out of the shop. It ended up blowing the head gasket.
I towed the car home and pulled the heads. There has a blown head gasket and the cylinder walls were really shiny with vertical lines up and down the cylinder walls. My fears about washing the cylnders was confirmed.
They guy that owns the dyno is a well respected engine builder in the south bay. He said to pull the enigine and he would go over it, rehone the cylinders, install new rings and redo the gaskets. So it Pulled the motor and took it down to him.
He called me 2 days later with the following problems:
-The compression is 13:1. Shouldn't even run on pump gas.
-The pistons were hitting the crank causing metal to chip and washed thru the bearings.
-The cam is way too radical for a fuel injected low rpm stroker motor.
-The dampner fell off the crankshaft when he took the bolt off. It wasn't even snug let alone pressed on.
-They ground a groove on the oil pump shaft to clear the girdle which weakend the shaft so it won't last long.
I talked to a few engine builders before I ordered my motor. Ford Performance Solutions was recommended to me by one of the venders on the forum. I called them up and asked for a 351W stroked to maybe a 392. "For a couple hundred bucks I can make you a 427" the sales guy said.
"Duh, OK" I said.
I told him it was mainly a street car that I might take to a track once in a while and that it doesn't have to pass smog and that it was fuel injected.
"I can give you a cam that gives you a lumpy sounding idle." he said.
"Duh, OK" I said not knowing what I was getting myself into. I assumed since they built a lot of engines that they knew what they were doing.
So my new motor guy sourced new pistons to lower the compression to 10:1. It took several attempts at the machine shop to get the proper clearance between the pistons and the crank. The block had to be re-line bored and the cylinders had to be bored. He put an appropriate cam in and a new dampner.
3 weeks later I get my motor back. It takes me 2 day to get it back in the car. I go to start it, it turns over 5 times, pops, hisses and won't turn over again. IT'S COMPLETELY JAMMED!!!
I start pulling things off one by one until I FIND A BROKEN VALVE!!!! At this point I'm ready to cry.
I call AAA and have the car towed to his shop. He said that if it was something he did, he would fix it for for free.
Anyways, after a month I call him and he's just putting it back together (he chipped a bone in his elbow when the socket on the head bolt broke and he hit his elbow on the frame of my car.) so he went on strike until he could move his arm again.
He found that there was uneven wear on the valves and they were binding in the guides. So I got to buy all new valves, guides and seals.
I now it runs great and is scary fast and doesn't blow any smoke. Now I got one motor for the price of 3! Oh, lucky me.
Linear Mode
