The Lawn Dart

[Deceus]

i mean...you say boring, but to me its still 707hp and who gives a damn what other people think?  its a modern legend.  i get the need to be able to yank it apart easily but...its a new car.  shit shouldn't be breaking in the first place.

I'm 99% sure I just burned up some exhaust valve guides.

how'd that happen?  is the material not up to the job or something going on with oil delivery and/or valve heat?

Rocker shafts got put in wrong and that provides the oiling to the valvetrain. Instead of dumping oil as it was getting to the shaft, the shaft was filling up and the oil was trickling out of the top mostly at the back of the engine. Found a few bent pushrods at the beginning of the year and fix this but didn't dig into the heads to check for damage since the cam was good. If the exhaust valves are dragging and not closing exactly when they should that will cause the exact symptoms I'm seeing so I think that's the most likely case at the moment.



3 and a half hours later and it's only being held in by a single bellhousing bolt. The rest were a complete BITCH to get out. Didn't realize how tight they were and I can't get a socket on them due them being up against the firewall. Gonna have to remove the master cylinder to get to the last one. It was going to come out eventually so no big deal but I decided I had enough fun for a day. Started to second guess myself about pulling the entire engine. Not sure how I'm going to properly torque down those bellhousing bolts when it goes back in. I was bowing the shit out the 7/16 wrench to get them off. I may have to slide a pipe over it when snugging them up, we'll see. Everything else came out pretty smoothly minus the starter which is always a bitch but I have that worked out by now so it's not too bad.