his e mail to me. im pissed.
Hi Bruce, sorry to ruin your vacation. Not positive, but guessing the hard cranking is lifter related, as all of them are collapsed, which makes the cam timing really short. Builds a ton of cylinder pressure. That is the least of your problems however. Not completely through this thing yet, but this engine was not going to survive very long. The quality of parts is atrocious, but check out the pictures. If you recall, I asked how could the connecting rods clear the oil pickup with this long a stroke without major mods to the pickup. Answer. Grind the connecting rod and bolt down to the point of guaranteed failure for clearance. In all the years in business, I have never seen a butcher job like this. The whole rotating assembly is out dated. As I stated, Chrysler uses parts on the shelf, rarely the correct parts. This thing is still using stock Hemi rod journals and short rods, the exact opposite of what you want. The lower cylinder bores were never correctly prepped. Sharp edges, and with pistons hanging out the bottom of the bores at BDC, it causes the skirts to be “shaved”. Deep gouges on all skirts. Combination of long stroke, short rod, too much skirt exposed at BDC, and poor cylinder prep. Rod bearings are hanging up on the crank journal fillets as well. Have not got the crank out to see the mains, but quite a bit of end play. Cam bearings look like they were initially too tight. We will have to completely redesign this thing, or it may be advantageous to get warranty. I was expecting problems, but this is beyond compare. Would love to know what shop would build something like this in good conscience. Tim@FHO
