Technical Hemi ?

Glad to hear some honesty. Here's my 392's pistons. I havnt taken this apart but was told its an old racing engine with a roller cam.

 

bostonhemi, Funny you mention " Old racing engine with a roller cam"

I started getting this apart yesterday just to see what I do really have. It does have a set of adjustable push rods, at least I thought it was a "SET" that was until I moved over to the right side and noticed that 4 valves have adjustable "Rockers" on them. What is up with that? Then I open the valley pan and low and behold it has a set of Solid Roller Lifters. That's cool I think and then I notice that that 12 or 6 pairs of these roller lifters are all the same and 4 or 2 pairs are different and those 2 pair are the ones under the adjustable rockers. Could there be a reason for that?

Everthing else checks very good-New Can Bearings, crank is .010/.010 and with all new bearings, Fresh Valve Job and all new valves.

I would like to do a build thread on this motor and the install in my Model A but I will only do that if there is some interest in a thing like that. Let me know what you think - pictures v

 

Uh-oh..you may have to go back and get that extra money back from the seller...it appears the builder ran outta correct parts and substituted something else.

 

Yea I hear you. But no the negotiating is all done and from now on it is what it is. It would be nice to know the real story of this motor just to satisfy my curiosity but that is all it really is, curiosity.

If all I end up having to buy is a new Cam and a set of lifters I guess I will be lucky. Down deep inside I would like to see how it runs like it is, but that also is curiosity.

 

I'd take a little off the top those old Jahns pistons were usally pretty thick. Trying to live on the street with too much compression is no fun.

 

Odd on the mismatched lifters/ pushrods. If they are the same length, the valves won't know the difference. I once read a book about Mickey Thompson. In his early racing career with no money, his wife bought him a boring bar so he could bore individual bores of his engine different sizes to fit his different junkyard pistons. He wasn't ignorant, as he earned hundreds of speed records in many forms of racing.

 

Not so sure that I'd fire that up as-is. Plenty of opportunity to damage something with a pile of odd parts flying around....
Pull the cam and see if it can be identified, if in doubt, send it off for analysis. You need to know what you have before you attempt to use it. The rocker arm assembly really would like to have 'something' on board when you use a solid lifter in these engines otherwise expect some accelerated wear on the tips of the pushrods and possibly the rocker arms. Yes, I am fully aware that the oem adjustable rockers were used as-is and did not have any 'help'.

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Although I was quick to praise you for your ethics, and I stand by that, this situation comes under the heading "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished" One of my favorite 'throw away' lines, but in jest only. It sometimes happens in life that the 'rest of the story' undermines the original effort to do the right or generous thing. But, even knowing that, from experience, I still believe in taking the high road. Glad you are okay with this...it will all work out.

Ray

 

Awesome!
You did the right thing, just too fast.

So you yanked one head, left the valley cover on left the other valve cover on the other head then made the call to re-negotiate. 10 mins more and you'd have know the "rest of the story". The story you bought.

 

Here is a pic of my lifters. There are slots cut for them. I hope some time in the future I can use this engine for a tradition hot rod. For advice I will defer to the others as I'm new to hemi's and still learning.

 

Of course, this is just speculation on my part, but I can easily see a way that your engine could end up with mismatched valve train parts.

My guess is that it was at some time a race engine and bent a few push rods for whatever reason, missed shift... who knows. In order to finish the show and hopefully (perhaps) make enough money to get home on they had to dig around in their box of spare parts from some other previously failed engine to get enough pieces to make it run again. May have borrowed or bought some parts from a competitor who blew a bunch of shrapnel out through the side of the oil pan. As was said before, the valves don't care what pushes them open, long as it happens at the right time.

After that the engine was probably sold to someone else and freshened up by them before you got it.

Personally, for a street engine, I wouldn't worry about spending a bunch of money making the valve train match. Maybe you can find a bargain on ebay for the few pieces it would take to match what you have, but really, why bother. It ain't the space shuttle.