well i got the ol' girl running saturday night. ran great, until i had to shut it down due to a crap load of oil coming out. i thought it was the rear main seal, but turned out to be two hex head screw plugs that i forgot to transfer from the old heads to the new. all was well. filled it back up with oil, started it up, ran perfect. ran out of gas, so i had to go get some. put the gas in, started it back up, head a loud TINK sound, and it bogged out and shut off. removed the valve covers, and stepped right into a nightmare: the adjustable cam gear on the passenger side SLIPPED! which in result threw it way out of time, pistons hit the exhaust valves and snapped all four followers. intake ones were fine though, and on the driver side they were all fine. so now i need to get 4 followers, and FACTORY CAM GEARS (NON-ADJUSTABLE). going to pull the head off tomorrow to make sure i didn't bend any valves or have any damage to the pistons. but, on a positive note, it ran, sounded F'N AMAZING!! and it will be running again in about a week or so.

lesson learned: adjustable cam gears FTMFL!!!

 

Adjustable FTL. Thats why lots of engine companies don't use them. You can still degree the cams with the stock cam gears, you just have to grind the keyways. The gear will stay in the same place by the pressure of the bolt/washer. And even if it does slip for whatever reason, it won't slip enough to cause damage.

 

dawt

 

Which adjustable ones did you use? Probably comp right? Those suck and prone to destroying engines. Cloye are about the only adjustable cam gear that looks good. http://www.m o d u l a r f o r d s . c o m/?p=52remove the spaces to get to the gears.

 

i'm just glad it didn't do any more damage than it did. i'm just going to go with the factory cam gears, but i need to get the bolt on ones. i think that's from 02'-'04 right? i know my stock cams had pressed on cam gears. the followers aren't that expensive, BUT i can't find anyone that has them. summit wont have them in until june 24th, which does me no good.

 

That was the first thing I learned when I got on the forums. That was the topic of discussion for about three weeks.

 

If you run out of places to buy them from I know Rpmoutlet stock a "patriot timing gear set" which I guess means FRPP cause thats what they sent me when I ordered cams a while ago. It came with everything gears, washers, bolts etc.