Gotta build ANOTHER engine.

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1994redram

1994redram

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I swapped a 5.9 into my dart about 2.5 years ago. I got my grandpa's hand me down truck and absolutely loved it. I drove it in high school and even after. I got rear ended and totaled the truck about 5 years ago. I pulled the engine and saved it for my dart.

I planned on headers, aluminum intake, and a 727 with an otherwise stock 5.9 magnum. It ran great but had a hard start issue and the secondaries didnt cooperate on the used and unknown edelbrock carb. Bought a new demon 625 and had it running great... until the headgasket let go. The distributor didn't get tightened down and I assume that detonation or simply old age caused it.

I pulled the engine bored it .030 over, installed KB107 pistons, EQ 2.02 heads, 218/222 @.050 .539/.549 lift cam, double roller chain, 750 carb etc. That was a sweet motor and went 12.88 @104 with a 3.55 gear at 3300 pounds. And relatively untuned and running rich per the AFR gauge.

I was hooked and wanted more power. It all snowballed as these things tend to do. And I pulled the engine back out. I found the the magnum tensioner and timing chain weren't playing nicely together and the bearings were all pretty scuffed up from the tensioner guide material. So I honed the cylinders, new rings, main, and rod bearings were installed. And then I swapped on a set of edelbrock heads that have been "cleaned up" by Hughes. And installed a 238/242 @.050 571/576 lift cam.
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It all went together great. I thought. I've overhauled engines and done plenty of repair work but this is the only "performance" engine I've built. And my lack of experience and knowledge bit me. Within a few miles of driving, the intake valve on #1 broke. It shattered the piston and found it's way into the pan and even put a hole in it. Pieces of piston surprisingly got into every cylinder. The cylinder wall is gouged, pan busted, windage tray damaged, heads are beat up, it's bad. Upon teardown it appears that the cam is timed correctly but all of the pistons show the intake valves was hitting. I timed it dot to dot. The exhaust has more lift and duration but the intake hit.

It's a long post, I know. But should I have to degree this cam? It's pretty sickening to know that I bought a cam degree kit to use on this engine but have no idea how to use it. How common is something like this? Are the KB107's not deep enough?
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fatal error. The "rule-of-thunb" is: every cam over .500" lift, "look for clearance at piston to valve, retainer to guide/seal, & coil bind." You have even more variables stacked on top of this with non oem parts. If you combine that with not degreeing the cam, that's a recipe for disaster.
IMO, ANY non-stock cam should be degreed-in. Thanks for sharing, especially the pics. Smart people will learn from your expensive mistakes.
 
Their is another dot on your crank gear that needs lined up to the dot on the cam gear. I did the same exact thing a couple of builds ago. All the intake valves hit the pistons, broke 1 valve, expensive lesson. Clay on top of a piston to check clearance is a lot cheaper.
 
If I'm not mistaken, the stock spring on the Eddy heads would have been close or in coil bind.
 
To answer your question.........yes you should have degreed your cam, you also should have checked piston to valve clearance...........water under the bridge/spilled milk now at this point. You are not the first and you won't be the last........Degreeing the cam is not that hard, it's time consuming, but it is not THAT hard......beyond the degree wheel, you'll need a dial indicator, magnetic base, positive stop, something to bridge over a cylinder with a piston installed, feeler gauges, or a set of calipers for measuring deck height, piece of coat hanger bent up to be a pointer.

I type too poorly to tell you how it done, there has got to be lots of tutorials on how to degree a cam here on the web that will help you along.........in this matter, time and patients are your friends

Good luck!
 
That's a huge bummer sorry to hear that however I am glad I came across this thread because I am finishing up a build but didn't feel like checking P-V clearance... now I'm thinking I should go ahead and just get it over with lol. Heads are already on and torqued down but at least I have Cometic gaskets.

Is there a way to get an accurate measurement with hydraulic lifters btw?
 
Sorry to read! Dot to dot is #6 tdc, not #1 if that was your issue.
I'm in the middle.of my 340 build and will be degreeing the cam. Be scoping YouTube for a how to.
 
4spdragtop said:
Sorry to read! Dot to dot is #6 tdc, not #1 if that was your issue.
I'm in the middle.of my 340 build and will be degreeing the cam. Be scoping YouTube for a how to.
Click to expand...

If you do some digging Comp Cams had a video on Youtube explaining the process. I will see if I can scrounge it up later....

JW
 
gzig5 said:
If I'm not mistaken, the stock spring on the Eddy heads would have been close or in coil bind.
Click to expand...
The heads are good to .580 lift. Some people say you loose some lift due to pushrod angle in a small block. It "should" be good. The heads had a bunch of casting flash and such. Hughes cleaned them up, performed a better valve job, checked the guides, etc. They spec'd the cam and one cam bigger. I went with the smaller of the two.


JBurch said:
To answer your question.........yes you should have degreed your cam, you also should have checked piston to valve clearance...........water under the bridge/spilled milk now at this point. You are not the first and you won't be the last........Degreeing the cam is not that hard, it's time consuming, but it is not THAT hard......beyond the degree wheel, you'll need a dial indicator, magnetic base, positive stop, something to bridge over a cylinder with a piston installed, feeler gauges, or a set of calipers for measuring deck height, piece of coat hanger bent up to be a pointer.

I type too poorly to tell you how it done, there has got to be lots of tutorials on how to degree a cam here on the web that will help you along.........in this matter, time and patients are your friends

Good luck!
Click to expand...

I have a degree wheel kit from summit. I have the wheel, magnetic base dial caliper, lighter test valve springs, piston stop, etc. It's supposed to be everything needed to degree a cam. I just don't have the knowledge of how to do it. Should have figured it out or paid someone to do it. Lesson learned.
 
You timed the crank gear wrong the key should be to the left (drivers side) and not straight up. Here is a picture of my gear set. the 0 on the tooth and the 0 on the key are in different places.

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I don't know about that timing chain picture. I have never seen a crank timing gear with the dot at the key way. When having the dots lined up the CRANK key way is always at the two o'clock position (with the engine at TDC)
What make/brand timing chain is that?
 
regarding process for degreeing the cam, there has to be some archived threads on here on how to do it. I seem to remember typing some extensive posts on it. I taught myself to do it about 35 years ago, using a DC/MP racing manual. They stress getting an accurate TDC #1 measurement to begin with on the dampener you are going to use in your build. When you do that, I recommend match marking the outer ring and inner hub of that dampener so you have a reference to know if your dampener slips subsequently.
I have not personally used the Summit degree kit, it could be just fine. But, if it's like most aftermarket stuff, it's designed for Chebbie. If it fits or can be used for other makes, well that's just dumb luck. Be prepared to have to adapt it or add something else to it to make it work for your Mopar app.
 
ALWAYS degree the camshaft.... ALWAYS!!! The picture of the timing chain tells the story. There should be a mark on the crank gear around the 10:30 area if looking at a clock that should have been lined up with your cam gear. There are many videos on youtube and cams sites that can walk you through the process.

I had a friend that wanted to advance a camshaft 4 degrees, so he put the gear on the appropriate keyway, then spun the crank over to line up the "0" mark, not the correct advanced mark. Crank was out 120* and it lasted about 4 revolutions as every valve in the engine got smacked IIRC. Had he put a degree wheel on it, that would have been avoided.

If the heads are 60779 or the same variant with the ede spring, they are NOT suitable for what you have. You got witness marks on every piston from intake valves... Just because a manufacture says the springs are good to a certain lift, that DOES NOT mean the spring rate or seat pressures are suitable to every camshaft... no way would you be able to run an aggressive solid roller profile at 550 lift with those springs, that's under the max lift number.

Hate to see the carnage.
 
You hit it on the head crackedback. If you zoom in on the picture of the timing set, you can see the outer dot on the crank gear. It’s in the 10:30 position. OP used the wrong dot. Bummer.
 
If the pic of the timing set is how the motor was run...... the cam is advanced 2.5 teeth......... or about 35 degrees.
This was your problem.

Fix it all, correctly install the timing set next time, check cam timing, check v/p clearance.
 
PRH said:
If the pic of the timing set is how the motor was run...... the cam is advanced 2.5 teeth......... or about 35 degrees.
This was your problem.

Fix it all, correctly install the timing set next time, check cam timing, check v/p clearance.
Click to expand...
35 degrees? yowzah!
I don't know what all valves hitting pistons can do, but I think I'd check that rotating assembly pretty close, especially the con rods because they can bend or twist. Of course, the pushrods, and all the remaining valves have to be checked for straightness, and running "true", also.
 
1994redram said:
I have a degree wheel kit from summit. I have the wheel, magnetic base dial caliper, lighter test valve springs, piston stop, etc. It's supposed to be everything needed to degree a cam. I just don't have the knowledge of how to do it. Should have figured it out or paid someone to do it. Lesson learned.
Click to expand...

If you can read, you can do it..........walk yourself thru it one step at a time, then you are done
 
brian6pac said:
I don't recall the key in the crank being straight up
Click to expand...
Yes, the crank key should be at around 1 o'clock when the crank is at TDC for #6 cylinder (and #1). That is the crank angle where the dots should line up....Mopar did not make it as straight forward as it could have been for some odd reason.

Sorry this had to happen.
 
I see the small, non matching dot on the crank gear. It's the same timing set that I had with the smaller cam and EQ heads. I'm not sure how I timed it correctly then and not this time. Such a stupid mistake. I've got another standard 5.9 that needs rebuilt. So it'll get machined and built back to what it was. BUT! I'll time it correctly. I just hope the heads are fixable. There appears to be a small crack between the valves on #1.

Anyone know what power level it should have been at? What about building a 408 and using the same heads and cam? I have some cash saved up and could afford a 408 at this point. Just not sure if the money spent will justify the power gain.
 
1994redram said:
I see the small, non matching dot on the crank gear. It's the same timing set that I had with the smaller cam and EQ heads. I'm not sure how I timed it correctly then and not this time. Such a stupid mistake. I've got another standard 5.9 that needs rebuilt. So it'll get machined and built back to what it was. BUT! I'll time it correctly. I just hope the heads are fixable. There appears to be a small crack between the valves on #1.

Anyone know what power level it should have been at? What about building a 408 and using the same heads and cam? I have some cash saved up and could afford a 408 at this point. Just not sure if the money spent will justify the power gain.
Click to expand...
there's some guy/business doing 408 crate motors I've seen mentioned several times on this site. He seems to have some loyal clients, who claim he makes a good motor, good power, that lives. I can't recall the name offhand, I think he was located in the midwest. I'm sure someone else on this forum can come up with the name.
 
Sucks! My Swinger avatar is apparently bad luck.
:poke::poke:
 
I re-timed it. Is that correct now?

I think the saying is "im a day late and $3,000 dollars short".
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