I have to start by saying the motor in my car owes me nothing. I've got 28k on it, about 350+ passes and more than 100 pulls on the rollers with this build. I'm writing this up in case one of you guys can prevent this from happening to you.
I decided to put a fresh 5.4 in the car figuring the current one needed freshening up a bit. I got it to the shop last week and began on it and it was going well until I pulled the timing cover off. I just sit and stared at it for about 60 seconds wondering how the car was running, much less 9.40's @153 a couple months earlier. Biggest regret is I didn't get a pic as soon as I pulled the cover. I do have a bunch of other pics though.
Get right to it, the problem started with broken primary timing chain guide pins on both sides.
The car had been running for some time like this without missing any power or without any sort of hesitation. Those pins caused both tensioners to come apart and all but wore a hole through the banana chain guides. The passenger side straight guide was in 3 pieces and come totally apart when I took the 3 mount bolts out.
I couldn't wait to get the oil pan off and see what was in there. I knew one of the washers from the pins was in there along with a piece of the straight guide I didn't find in the top. I got the pan off and all I could find was the washer.
You will NOT believe where I found the rest of the F.O.D. from the failure! Pics say it all.
OK, on to the fix. I absolutely did not want to think about this happening again so I went bigger and stronger with the pivot pins. VERY easy upgrade if you have your timing cover off. I got a new set of factory pins just for comparison. I got a hold of some Titanium studs from Ti64.com and cut them down to what I needed. I had to drill and tap the existing holes to 5/16x24 threads but it being an Aluminum block made it exceptionally easy.
After I got them to the length I needed, I grinned a couple 6mm flats on them just so I could torque them. This was really easy and If you have a built motor cranking it to 7800 rpm's, I'd highly recommend doing this. I got off really lucky on this whole situation.
Gonna post a couple more pics with one installed and I screwed one of the factory studs in a bolt hole above it just for comparison purposes.
I've got 2 more Ti studs and I am gonna go ahead and do this mod for whoever gets this short block when I sell it. I hope this helps you guys and sorry for the novel length write up..........Jammye.
I decided to put a fresh 5.4 in the car figuring the current one needed freshening up a bit. I got it to the shop last week and began on it and it was going well until I pulled the timing cover off. I just sit and stared at it for about 60 seconds wondering how the car was running, much less 9.40's @153 a couple months earlier. Biggest regret is I didn't get a pic as soon as I pulled the cover. I do have a bunch of other pics though.
Get right to it, the problem started with broken primary timing chain guide pins on both sides.
The car had been running for some time like this without missing any power or without any sort of hesitation. Those pins caused both tensioners to come apart and all but wore a hole through the banana chain guides. The passenger side straight guide was in 3 pieces and come totally apart when I took the 3 mount bolts out.
I couldn't wait to get the oil pan off and see what was in there. I knew one of the washers from the pins was in there along with a piece of the straight guide I didn't find in the top. I got the pan off and all I could find was the washer.
You will NOT believe where I found the rest of the F.O.D. from the failure! Pics say it all.
OK, on to the fix. I absolutely did not want to think about this happening again so I went bigger and stronger with the pivot pins. VERY easy upgrade if you have your timing cover off. I got a new set of factory pins just for comparison. I got a hold of some Titanium studs from Ti64.com and cut them down to what I needed. I had to drill and tap the existing holes to 5/16x24 threads but it being an Aluminum block made it exceptionally easy.
After I got them to the length I needed, I grinned a couple 6mm flats on them just so I could torque them. This was really easy and If you have a built motor cranking it to 7800 rpm's, I'd highly recommend doing this. I got off really lucky on this whole situation.
Gonna post a couple more pics with one installed and I screwed one of the factory studs in a bolt hole above it just for comparison purposes.
I've got 2 more Ti studs and I am gonna go ahead and do this mod for whoever gets this short block when I sell it. I hope this helps you guys and sorry for the novel length write up..........Jammye.
