On Saturday, April 9th dropped a valve in my Ford sb 347 stroker, it sounded like spoons being dropped on the floor except inside of the engine. That sickly clatter only lasted for about a second and then engine continued to run except with a miss. Drove it about 10 miles to home after that, somehow it made it . Problem seemed to be on the passenger side of engine, so pulled the valve cover and found that the intake roller rocker on #1 cylinder was canted sideways and had pushed down on the valve spring retainer causing the retainer clips to pop out, which in turn allowed the valve to drop into the cylinder, hence sickly clatter. Push rod was not to be seen, it was gone. Valve stem was stuck in the valve guide and couldn't be moved even when smacked with a hammer. Pulled the intake and found the remains of the pushrod and retainer clips resting in the valley. Discovered that one of the fingers on the dogbone holding the intake roller lifter had broken off causing the lifter to become unoriented and spin sideways. It appears that this in turn bent the pushrod causing rocker to cant sideways and push down on the valve spring retainer. Pulled the head and the sight was as sickly as the clatter. The intake valve was broken in two and the valve itself is jammed sideways into the intake valve seat in the cylinder head. The broken valve stem punched a hole clean through the piston and the valve itself gouged deep marks in other areas of the piston before jamming sideways in the seat. Multiple fragments from the broken valve stem made their way to all of the other cylinders in the engine and were as if welded into the aluminum heads and pistons. But, not all is bad news. Brought my wife out to look at the damage and said to her "I need a new engine", she simply replied "OK" (I love my wife ). So, on Sunday, April 10th I ordered a Blueprint Engines 347 stroker long block from Summit and it arrived on Thursday, April 14th (I love Summit ). Pulled the old engine on following Saturday, switched over intake, flywheel, and balancer from old engine, and had the new one in after Church late Sunday evening, my next door neighbor helped. Was wanting to do some upgrades anyways, so installed a FiTech EFI and a Summit electric water pump. Got the bugs worked out this past weekend and am back on the road . Must say I like the new Blueprint engine much better than the old engine, and the FiTech EFI is awsome.
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