The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The HiPo Shop Strange experience.

Sometimes when you are doing a project it feels like you are taking one step forward and then you have to take two steps back. After totally going through the engine and feeling great about the finished outcome while warming it up a loud clunking sound emerged. I was in the middle of the restoration so I decided to figure the engine out after the truck was done and I could figure out how much I could spend to either fix it or replace it.
The truck got back from the paint shop and it was time to dive into the engine. My "hotrod" buddy who built the engine swore that something was dropped into the air intake before the carborator was installed. I swore it couldn't have happened and it was most likely something way more serious than that. As I was taking the air cleaner off I noticed that on the "flapper" of the secondaries one of the screws that attach the flapper was gone!!!! I delivered the engine to my friends shop and went to my sons Baseball game. On the way home I recieved a call letting me know that he was done and I could pick it up???? I was shocked when he said that he was able to extract the screw from the top of the cylinder using a fiberoptic camera and a dental tool. He said the only harm done was a small indentation on the top of the cylinder which really did no harm.
So the engine was in and out in two days!!! The bigger issue was the damage to the budget was limited to some gaskets and header bolts that I was going to replace anyway. I learned a very valuable lesson, check all screws and fasteners for tightness before installation, just because you don't need to adjust or tighten doesn't mean they are ready to go on your engine.

You got real lucky, both dad and I had screws drop out of the bottom of Q-jets on our race cars. We were running modified intakes at the time which left the base screws hanging out in the open. Mine happened at 5500 rpm going through the lights at the drag strip. The 1.25" long screw took out the block, 5 pistons, 8-10 valves, and two rods! Dads happen about two years later, with about the same results. Dad was testing different spacers under the carb, and removed the safety lock pin he installed for just one more test. We have since learned our lesson!

Joe