orygunbou71
Jr. Member
Hey all the saga with my new crate engine continues!! Heres the bio: 650 miles on motor bought a long block crate from ford racing!! Its a ford 5.0l 306ci crate engine with hydraulic roller lifters, roller cam and pedestal mounted roller rockers. Noticed a ticking/ knocking sound from valve train. Took it into ford thinking it needed new lifters and had new lifters sent from ford racing. When they took the valve covers off and went to take the rocker arms off the rocker arms were over torqued and every pedestal under the rocker arms was cracked in half or had fractures. Got a hold of ford racing and had a new set of pedestals overnighted and had ford install them. After install the motor was slightly better sounding but still had the tick/knock. A couple of the rockers on the exhaust and intake ports on several cylinders needed additional shims for the pedestals so i had a pedestal shim kit overnighted. Ford installed them and today i went to pick up the rig and all the pedestal rocker arms are shimed and torqued to spec but the tick/knock sound is as bad as when i brought to them. We never put the new lifters in because of the cracked pedestals we found to begin with. What the ford tech also noticed is that the lifter arms were all sort of pigeon toed and not siting straight after driving it maybe 20 miles even with proper shimming and torque specs on the pedestal mount rocker arms. What would cause this problem?? The ford tech recommended that i move away from pedestal mount roller rocker arms and go with a stud mount roller rocker arm setup with pushrod guides. he believe that this will fix the problem due to the infinite adjustibility. He also doesn't think its a bad lifter or valve either based on his diagnosis. My issue is that the motor is still under warranty and i asked the ford tech if he thought a new set of heads would fix the problem and he said that if it was his motor he would go with the stud mount valve train and that new heads that ford racing would send me would still have the pedestal mount valve train. I am at a crossroads what should i do bronco peeps?? Pull my crate engine out of my bronco and send the motor back to ford racing on my dime (approx $600) and have them repair my motor? or gamble on the stud mount roller rockers with pushrod guides? If i had my way i would have ford racing send me a new crate engine and pay for return shipping and i will just stuff my current crate engine in it and send it back to them for them to deal with it. But i would still have the pedestal mount valve train!! Any and all input would really help me in making my decision!! sorry for the long post/ rant but i am upset that you spend 5k on a long block to have it take a shit after 650 miles!!