Well, after spending the weekend at a buddies college partying and helpin him with some personal stuff I'm back home and back to work on the engine.
Today I cleaned up both heads the intake, and the gasket surfaces on the engine block to a nice shine removing all dirt/debris/gunk from 22 years of abuse. Set the heads back on and bolted them but not torqued them down yet. Then I removed each lifter and inspected them individually when I found that two of them have been caved in on the bottom (camshaft side). They were the ones that I had a hard time removing from the block which makes me think they froze and which would explain the knocking noise I had. SO I put my little dodge thinking hat on and came up with this... Why replace JUST the lifters? So I just ordered more toys in a feeble attempt to keep the truck happy by throwing more money at it <IMG SRC="/board/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif"> Here's what I got:
Crane PowerMax Cam with 204/216 dur and 427/454 lift, Crane Hydro Rockers, Crane Hardened pushrods, Crane Springs with new retainers, and Crane Adj. Shaft Mount Rockers ($250 right there... man Dodge stuff is expensive!) for a total of like $600. They said its coming out of Ohio so it should make it to me in western MD (its only like 6 hours from my house to their warehouse) by Weds cause it'll ship tommorow.
Looks like my headgasket tech write up has expanded into a top 1/2 engine rebuild <IMG SRC="/board/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif"> I'm lookin to get 40+ HP outta all this between the cam stuff, cleaning up all the oil passages to get better pressure thru them, and I got alot of gunk outta the combustion chamer which should raise compression a little more.
Later all,
-Chris
Today I cleaned up both heads the intake, and the gasket surfaces on the engine block to a nice shine removing all dirt/debris/gunk from 22 years of abuse. Set the heads back on and bolted them but not torqued them down yet. Then I removed each lifter and inspected them individually when I found that two of them have been caved in on the bottom (camshaft side). They were the ones that I had a hard time removing from the block which makes me think they froze and which would explain the knocking noise I had. SO I put my little dodge thinking hat on and came up with this... Why replace JUST the lifters? So I just ordered more toys in a feeble attempt to keep the truck happy by throwing more money at it <IMG SRC="/board/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif"> Here's what I got:
Crane PowerMax Cam with 204/216 dur and 427/454 lift, Crane Hydro Rockers, Crane Hardened pushrods, Crane Springs with new retainers, and Crane Adj. Shaft Mount Rockers ($250 right there... man Dodge stuff is expensive!) for a total of like $600. They said its coming out of Ohio so it should make it to me in western MD (its only like 6 hours from my house to their warehouse) by Weds cause it'll ship tommorow.
Looks like my headgasket tech write up has expanded into a top 1/2 engine rebuild <IMG SRC="/board/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif"> I'm lookin to get 40+ HP outta all this between the cam stuff, cleaning up all the oil passages to get better pressure thru them, and I got alot of gunk outta the combustion chamer which should raise compression a little more.
Later all,
-Chris