Hey guys, I had a set back with my new 347 engine installation. It's been in the car for 3 weeks now and there's been no issues at all until this past weekend when I went to New England Dragway. On my 2nd pass I was crossing the finish line and heard a loud rapping sound. Thinking that it developed a rod knock, I coasted as much as I could back to the pits and shut it off. It sat for the the next 7 hours and then when I fired it up to get it onto the trailer for the ride home, the noise was virtually non-existent. When we got home a few hours later it didn't make the noise at all. The next day I drained the oil and checked it for metal "glitter" to see if there were parts that were damaged and no glitter was found. I strained the oil anyway and then poured it back into the engine. I then took it out for a 20 minute ride and there was no noise at all.
Throughout all of this, I kept thinking that it wasn't the motor that was suspect so I pulled the transmission out and started looking around. I found metal particles on the grease that I have on the throwout bearing so I took it out and cleaned it off. It operates as it should and there's no gouges on that. I then removed the starter and noticed that the block plate was bent into the flywheel and there were scrapes on the motor side of the flywheel. Fearing the worst, I pulled the bellhousing and clutch, and noticed that the block plate has been rubbing the aftermarket billet steel flywheel. It's been rubbing it to the point where there's metal particles actually stuck between the two. I also noticed that the block plate looks to be pretty beat up. My question is this: Have you guys ever seen this before? I'm getting conflicting reports from some who think the crank "walked" in the block, other's who think it's just the beat up block plate (it was pretty beat up before but I've never had a problem with it in the past 9 years of using it), and other's who think the aftermarket flywheel may need shimming because it may not have been machined within spec?
I will say that the engine runs good, feels strong, doesn't smoke, doesn't skip, doesn't knock (at least at the moment), the oil pressure is excellent, and it runs at a steady 180 degrees. I've pulled the bolts out of the flywheel but I'm having a hard time trying to pull it off the back of the block. I'll keep at it until I can get it off to survey everything else.
If anyone has any insight, please feel free to post up!
Thanks!
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