The car is on jackstands at the moment. The engined dropped cylinder #3 exhaust valve after a simple blip of the gas to downshift. Long story short my rockers were underrated for the spring pressure by about 100ft/lbs and over time I believe the stamped steel rockers fatigued to the point where the body of the rocker was contacting the retainer allowing for the valve to drop. Interestingly, everything stayed together including the keepers but the piston did come up and hit the valve it is stuck in there good. I managed to limp it less than a mile home where it sits now.
I've been focusing on raising my family and getting healthy but the Camaro does have some updates. I'm going to pull the head once I clean up my garage but in the meantime I'm throwing money at my L78 build to install it in the Camaro next. The engine has stock 11:1 rotating assembly, correct dated 391 heads, intake, 731 dated 3910 carb and a January 170 to go with it. However I do not want to mix race gas to drive it as I enjoy driving my car so I'm going to be running the same cam and valvetrain that's in my Camaro that I've been very happy with. A straub GTA 288-300-9 kit which will allow for 91, full timing, and my iron heads yet make more power and a wider powerband. The cool thing is the roller lifters sound a bit like the sewing machine sound of a solid lifter. The engine will be all factory appearing down to the dates.
After pulling the head to check for damage, my next decision is to pull said cam and valvetrain from my 454 to save some money or buy new.
As for another reason I haven't posted in a while. I truly thought I lost all of my documents to my car. A couple years ago there was a grass fire not too far from our house and I threw everything in the car in case we had to evacuate. When we came back I thought I placed my documents in my usual spot. Fast forward over a year and I went to show a friend said docs and they simply weren't there. After searching for days I simply couldn't find them. I thought the worst; that in the many times cleaning my garage I had simply thrown them away. I only told a few friends I had lost the docs and have given up. My next post to this site was going to be my confession that I have done something so embarrassing to lose the original sales documents, window sticker, time slips, receipts for slicks etc. I will say I was ashamed and a bit disillusioned but I had to accept the docs were gone. Fast forward to YESTERDAY night, I went to move a box so I could put my 3 tripower cores together for a photo. In said box was empty folders, clipboards etc but in the bottom in the corner I noticed a portion of an orange envelope with what looked like Bruce's (original owner) writing. I took a deep breath and even prayed for acceptance that if it wasn't the docs I was going to be ok but I was sure hoping it was those documents I misplaced around 2 years ago maybe more. I opened the envelope, pulled out the manila folder and there they were, perfectly preserved. It is difficult to describe the mix of relief I felt and shame for misplacing something so important. I took a few seconds to gather myself before running inside and telling my wife. She was happy for me and then said "I bet you thought for a time I threw them out". I reassured her that of course I never thought such a thing.
Finding the docs has been a huge weight off my shoulders and also motivating to focus on the next rendition of the Camaro with a true 67 Camaro MQ engine bay. I may throw on my DG Wheels and maybe the stock hood for fun we will see.
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