Yesterday:
From where I left off, I finished connecting the remaining components (power steering, hose, wiring harness, and A/C - which I don't know why I have). Next I had to extend the air temp and vacuum connections to the new intake manifold.
Now I was ready to start it. After priming the fuel, priming the oil pump and indexing the distributor, I turned the key and only heard it cranking away. At a couple points it started cranking faster to where I thought I was going to get it, but it didn't produce. I had my neighbor over again and he, my father and I checked everything and tried starting it for hours. I even checked to see if I was 180' out, and when that didn't work, we did everything over and over again. My neighbor went home and we called a family friend who owns a Evergreen Auto, and he came over to take a look.
We did the same things that we just did, re-indexed the distributor (just to make sure I was right) and checked to see if I was 180' out. Then he checked to ensure we had spark coming from the coil, spark coming from each distributor terminal, spark coming from each wire and then from each plug. We checked the injectors to see if they we functioning, they were. After aggressively turning the distributor, we found that it sounded better when turned counter clockwise, but we max'd out due to the distributor ears hitting the block. This is probably why some say to cut the ears off, I was unsure, if I should. So with that being said, my fathers buddy shuffled the plug wires counter clockwise on the distributor cap, lined up the mounting bolt hole and tried to start her up. And wouldn't you know it, it started right up. I took it up to 2000-2500 rpms to get the oil moving, I had great pressure and then shut it down. It was already 10pm, I had to work the next day, so I figured I'd break the cam in the next day.
Today:
The Jeep started right up, I still have the weird plug arrangement. I think I need to cut the ears off so I can just spin the entire distributor, but I'm ensure (I really need to get a timing gun on it). During the cam break-in, the oil pressure cam up to 40-50, the temp and held at 210', and I had a weird little tapping sound. I can't tell if its a sound coming from the valve train of if its coming from the exhaust, but its noticeable. 10 minutes into it I start hearing a very light thumping sound, which sorta sounded like it was coming from the exhaust. I've never had a header, so I don't know what they sound like, but all-in-all, it sounds decent. 15 minutes into I notice that the oil pressure is starting drop, it drifts below 40 and then ranges between 20-25. I got nervous when it dropped more, so I shut her down to look over everything. I did some reading, didn't find anything that helped, so I started it up again. The pressure ramped back to 40, and held steady for the remainder of the break-in, the sound was still there. I find that I'm worrying about everything. I drained the oil and it was supper thin, like water. I got nervous that antifreeze was mixing with my oil, but then again, I've never changed brand new, extremely hot motor oil. I strained everything and didn't see any metallic particles, one thing going for me.
Looking in the radiator, I see little particles floating. It doesn't exactly look oily, but I was a worried. I remember when I flushed the heating coil saw some of the same stuff, so I'm hoping thats it, plus I didn't see anything in the oil. It just had silver swirls which is from the moly lube. Let me know what you think.
My wife and I took if for a spin, attempting to seat the rings, and things started off well. That ticking sound that I originally mentioned was still there and getting louder as I sped up in gears 1-3, but when I put it in 4th gear, the sound settled. I could still hear it but it was very low, pretty weird. The oil pressure was holding for a while, but when I came to a stop, the oil pressure dropped to 0. The pressure came up, when I started driving, but I headed back to look everything over. I know other builders mentioned that the true HP comes when the motors broken in, but I was surprised that I didn't feel any real increase, I did notice the fuel moving a little quicker. I looked over everything, and everything seemed correct. I popped the radiator cap and saw the same thing, so I felt pretty good that there weren't more particles or obvious signs of oil. Maybe my problem is the oil pressure sensor.
As far as the tick/psst sound. I guess I'll make a poor-mans stethoscope and zero in the location. I feel like its something to do with the exhaust header being that I don't hear anything coming from the valve cover when it's idling. I just hope that after this thing loosens up, that we actually see some increased power. I'm starting to get stink eye from my wife.
I guess the questions I have are:
1. Should I cut the ears off the distributor so that the #1 plug wires in the correct spot, or fine tune with what I have?
2. Why would the oil pressure drop like it did and then come right back up?
3. Is there anything else that I should check to make sure things are right?
Before any mods:
Bored TB and CAI:
Stroked: