Dropped a valve in 347 Stroker

[Dale Claytor]

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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[carlewms]

Dale,

You've been very busy ... some questions?

How many miles did you have on the old engine?

Where did you get it from?

Tell us about the Fitech EFI install and learning curve. i chose EZ EFI 2.0 before i think the FiTech was around but would probably chose differently now.

Carl

[CraigS]

Wow, that's ugly. Is there any scoring on the cylinder wall? How is that head? Don't immediately assume the head is junk. They may be hard to find but there are shops that can weld al heads and repair them. Best wishes to you.

[Dale Claytor]

Hi Carl,
Had 4,150 miles on old engine. Purchased the old one in 2012 from now bankrupt D&J Machine Shop (Tuff Dawg Engines) out of Phoenix, AZ. At the time D&J had been in business for 40 years and had really good reviews on their engines. About the same time I purchased my engine, D&J changed hands. From there the quality of their builds went down rapidly. The only reason I know this is about a year ago I attempted to contact D&J to find out what brand/type of head gaskets my engine had because I wanted to do some mods. I couldn't get hold of them by phone so I went online and found out that D&J wasn't honoring their warranties and they were taking money from customers and not sending the engines, and, that they had closed their doors. Although this is the case, I can't really say that the dogbone failure in my engine was anybody's fault. I've seen component failures in other engines and it's nobody's fault. It just happens sometimes in performance engines. So, after much online research, I decided to buy a Blueprint engine to replace the old one. There are a lot of reputable engine builders out there to choose from and most prices are comparable. But few if any others have a 30 month, 50,000 mile warranty on their engines. Plus I bought it through Summit and is an additional backup if something goes wrong. I've put 300 miles on the new engine and it runs stronger than the old one. I am happy with it.

The FiTech EFI was really easy to install. I already had fuel inlet and return lines installed which made the FiTech installation very easy. It was just pretty much bolt on. There are only about 4 external wires to connect and the ECU is mounted in the throttle body itself making a very neat package. The only thing I upgraded for the FiTech was to install a Walbro in tank fuel pump. I could have used an existing external inline fuel pump, but I wanted to upgrade to in tank because it's quiet. I previously had a first generation EZ-EFI which I ended up replacing with a carb because it never was right. Too many problems with it and it kept tuning itself out of performance requiring multiple resets to the point I finally ditched it. So, I already had the fuel lines and inline pump. The guys that run FiTech have EFI experience and came from Holley, Edelbrock and I believe they told me one is even from EZ-EFI. FiTech tuning is pretty much straight forward. It has a really neat handheld and like EZ-EFI and others is a smart system. Just program a few initial parameters into the handheld and start the engine. I chose to use the spark control feature and had to lock out my MSD distributor and followed the written instructions provided by FiTech for phasing and setting up timing. If I can do it anyone can . I only needed help from FiTech because I had a minor problem with stalling when decelerating from high rpm's. Normal driving deceleration was ok. After talking with Cody at FiTech a couple of times and learning how minor parameter changes affect the system, I am now able to tune the FiTech myself. The stall problem is eliminated. The parameter menus on the handheld are really easy to understand. Also, one unique thing about FiTech is they have a fuel command center available for about $350 that eliminates the need for fuel pump upgrade and fuel return line. It uses your current fuel pump and fuel line to feed the command center and connects directly to the FiTech taking all of the hassle out of installation. I would have used it myself if I hadn't already had fuel lines installed.
Hope this helps.

Dale

[Dale Claytor]

Wow, that's ugly. Is there any scoring on the cylinder wall? How is that head? Don't immediately assume the head is junk. They may be hard to find but there are shops that can weld al heads and repair them. Best wishes to you.

Hi Craig, there is some scoring on numbers 1, 3 & 4 cylinders. Not bad though. Block appears in good shape otherwise. Head is pretty damaged, but may be repairable, just haven't gotten around yet to having it checked out. If there is no other catastrophic damage, I intend to repair/replace damaged components and sell as a long block. Thanks for the advice on the heads.

Dale

[carlewms]

Dale,

Thanks for the additional information .... the lessons learned from the FiTech system will be valuable to all of us.

Compared to the EZ EFI the FiTech wiring system seems to much simpler, easier to install and troubleshoot with ECU on the throttle body.

Carl

[Avalanche325]

Sorry to hear of your engine problem. I can't imagine how your stomach felt when you heard that noise. Do yourself as favor and get some link bar lifters. I have never been a fan of dog bones and spider trays. They leave lifter control to some very flimsy parts.

Hopefully you will have smooth sailing for many miles with the new one.