fired up my 440 for the first time last night, started fine and about 7 minutes into it, Oil started pouring out the drivers side valve cover. so I had to shut it down, what I found was the gasket on the cover had folded over on itself which caused a good size hole, very hard to miss since its so close to the brake booster , I will thank my brother later, he is one who "tigthen the cover down" once fixed i started it again and let it run for another 18 mins and had to shut it down again, this time it was running very hot, not sure if it was related to the first shutdown, it was getting hot then too. you could hear water boiling inside the rad hose.

my question: Think I did any damage to the cam or engine by shutting it down twice.

I let it sit for about an hour to cool and it started right up and ran fine. but this time it seemed to have a knock like pistion slap going on, i opened the thottle a bit and it went away.

kinda sucks, I seemed to be chasing all the little gemlins lately with this car.

you will be fine.

Was this an initial cam breakin? You would want the stat out & was the timing in the ballpark? How hot?

Shutting down twice is okay so long as you resume your break-in where you left off. I just hope your noise isn't rod knock.

yes it was inital break in, I have about 24mins on the cam now, think that might be enough for the break in period?
i was using the factory temp gauage for the heat, the needle was just off to the left of //h and was holding pretty steady, it did creep towards the "H" a few times, but man it felt really hot. I know that new motors run hot but this seemed more then usual

timing was is in the ballpark, I hit the key the first time and it started and ran perfectly, I hit it with a timing gun and was sittingat about 15 degrees BTDC.

How can you tell if the noise is a rod?

Mine crept up to the H on start up and turned out to be ok. Make sure you have no air pockets. I found a lot of air in mine.

didnt think of that, whats the best way to make sure all the air is gone leave the rad cap off?

The best way I know of is to have a 1/8 inch hole drilled on the flat part of the thermostat, just not to close to the inner edge. There is also another device that burps the system, just not sure of the name.

Should have had more than 15 degrees at the RPM you would break a cam in at.

So I would say it is retarded and that would run hotter.

had to stop mine twice yesterday on break in, should be fine. Not uncommon for stuff to happen like that. Make sure you have enough oil and let it go. I made sure the carb was full and the engine primed b4 start, then I turn the idel screww down so I had about 2200rpm, set my timing full at 35* Temp never got over 190*. I still need to run it a few more minutes today....

you can put a large fan blowing at radiator for break in to keep temp down,i did for my initial break in to be on the safe side