Indy RHS head failure

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tarvin890 said:
Next time post a GRAPHIC IMAGES WARNING.....I nearly vomited when those pics came across my screen... how dare you!




p.s. sorry for the loss of your baby mopar...may i suggest a gofundme page to help you through this time of loss...
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Thanks for the kind words and the suggestion. I don't think a gofundme page is necessary, there are plenty of people that need more help than myself. I will be posting a parts sale when I can go through my garage and storage and remove wasn't damaged from this loss to help with my career change the first of the year. ALSO sorry for no warning on the carnage.
 
V8-valiant said:
Thanks, it's not all just loosing the motor. I'm making a carrier chance and wont have the "extra" funds for a while. Training for the new carrier starts first of the year and I don't plan to take any loans. Gotta save $14k for that and then between getting on my feet and going through a house change also, my play money has come to a hault for a while. I do have a motor out of my 68 d100 that it may get.... Sometime.
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life does get in the way sometimes... you have the right attitude tho. good luck with it all,and have that valvetrain geometry checked out real good on the next hot engine you build....I also second the sleeve... some of the best 340s I've ran had one.


mike bee
 
Interesting read for sure..... Harmonics can be an interesting thing. We had to tear down our old W5 mill after a ported head screamed for repair (leaking water). 50 passes on that thing and we found six of the Comp Cam roller lifters had cracks in them. Of course the first reaction was to blame the part.... but further asking ones self, "why" got us scratching our heads a little more on the subject. While not sure of the root cause, we ended up changing lifter brands and went to a different push rod and never had the prob again. We either "fixed" the problem, or put a big enough Band-Aid on it so that it didn't appear as a problem.
 
So I disassembled the heads today, found a few other keepers that had similar wear to them. The one valve on the opposite head that I thought was gonna fail wasn't far from failing itself. Here's a couple more pictures of the keepers on the valve that was about ready to fail and then the keepers of the exhaust valve next to the one that did fail.
 

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I haven't heard back from the shop yet at this point sense Thursday night. He replied to my first email with this....Hi Blake...wow that's a lot of damage. It's really difficult to try and decipher just what happened by pics alone....do you have any ideas yourself? What distributor are you running?
Sorry I didn't see this sooner it went to my spam folder for some reason and I was cleaning it out when I found this....

I replayed and answered his questions but don't quite understand how a distributor would have any effect on what happen. Can anyone help me out here?
 
V8-valiant said:
I haven't heard back from the shop yet at this point sense Thursday night. He replied to my first email with this....Hi Blake...wow that's a lot of damage. It's really difficult to try and decipher just what happened by pics alone....do you have any ideas yourself? What distributor are you running?
Sorry I didn't see this sooner it went to my spam folder for some reason and I was cleaning it out when I found this....

I replayed and answered his questions but don't quite understand how a distributor would have any effect on what happen. Can anyone help me out here?
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Nope. I had a good chuckle when I got to that part. The only thing I can think of would be detonation related.
 
V8-valiant said:
I haven't heard back from the shop yet at this point sense Thursday night. He replied to my first email with this....Hi Blake...wow that's a lot of damage. It's really difficult to try and decipher just what happened by pics alone....do you have any ideas yourself? What distributor are you running?
Sorry I didn't see this sooner it went to my spam folder for some reason and I was cleaning it out when I found this....

I replayed and answered his questions but don't quite understand how a distributor would have any effect on what happen. Can anyone help me out here?
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Probably wants to see if you had any detonation or maybe thinking that the distributor is somehow setup incorrectly or worn out causing incorrect timing. Sometimes the reluctor on the older Mopar units can go out of phase at higher rpms causing misfires.
 
Only thing I can think of in regards to the distributor is like others said. Detonation/knock or misfire potentially causing valve damage? That maybe that caused the valves to fail? Hard to say. But to me this looks like mechanical failure, not ignition related.
 
Cruising down the highway @ 3,000 rpm , you would hear or feel the misfire , it's not like he was winding it up @ 5,000+ rpm . That is a lot of damage for a low rpm cruise .
 
What's the retainer to lock fitment like ? It appears that the locks are only gripping at the bottom. Try putting a pair of locks and a retainer together on a loose valve and pull them tight. Then see how tight or firm the assembly locks together. If the retainer wiggles around or rotates easily that could be the issue.
 
Pix are too small for me to see well..... In the first pix (keepers not yet failed), is there a shiney 'notch' starting to form on the top edge of the keeper ring?

I forget...did these and the valves all come with the head, assembled? I think you said they did. I am just wondering if there was a basic mismatch of keepers and valve grooves. Are the heights of the valve groove and the keeper ridge very close to the same? Have you carefully checked the outside angle of the keeper and the retainer hole to make sure they are both the same angle?
 
I haven't confirmed if they were complete. I don't know if he buys the castings and then assembles them with the parts he selects or not. I noticed while pulling them apart today that were ferrea valves.


nm9stheham said:
Pix are too small for me to see well..... In the first pix (keepers not yet failed), is there a shiney 'notch' starting to form on the top edge of the keeper ring?

I forget...did these and the valves all come with the head, assembled? I think you said they did. I am just wondering if there was a basic mismatch of keepers and valve grooves.
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It could be from detonation too and unlike pinging you don't always hear detonation. It can also have the same effect as valvetrain harmonics. The best way to see that without looking at bearings is a magnified, lit spark plug reader. Look for aluminum transfer from the piston on the ceramic.
 
it's pretty easy to figure out ,Indy was supposed to be limiting 3rd party sales on these heads now and only a few shops are actually left vending them ,the OP mentioned they were a well known shop on FABO soooo....more importantly is how they deal with the issue , I know my engine builder used these heads and did all the work pan to carb so when we tear her down this winter after 30k miles for a refresh we will get a good picture of whats working and whats not I'm sure .
PS I had particles in my oil every change for the first 10k miles , the builder was certain I "Stuffed the crank during install " well 20k miles more and it's still together so so much for that shyte eh!
 
Bad Sport said:
Nope. I had a good chuckle when I got to that part. The only thing I can think of would be detonation related.
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Yes that made me laugh to,been a mechanic,aircraft a&p etc for 36 years,and distributor does not play a role in valve keepers failing,I still say mix&match hodge ppdge here.
 
Ok got an update. My builder mentioned he has had this happen to 3 other people other than me. Two of the three times the keepers were sent back to comp and had them checked to see if they are within the Rockwell hardness they need to be. I will be sending them to comp to see what the verdict is and let you guys know. it may be a few weeks but I will post the outcome.
 
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