I have news on the motor from the Charger. I've posted several times with updates and asking advice on what to try next. Heres the latest following a recap.
The motor is a 1974 440 block with a 4.15 stroke Eagle crank, Ross flat top pistons and Manley rods. Edelbrock 84cc heads box stock, Performer RPM intake, Barry Grant 850, '509 MP cam straight up and 2" TTI headers. 727 with a 3000 stall converter. 4.10 gear SG 8 3/4. I built the motor in 2004. For 2-3 years it ran strong, but I wanted more. I slipped in a Comp cams XE285HL stick. Great power and a smoother idle. It wiped a lobe within a month. I swapped in another Comp cam of the same specs that lasted about 3 1/2 years until it ALSO wiped a lobe. I felt burned by Comp, so I put the 509 back in with new lifters, massive amounts of assembly cam lube and valvoline VR1 oil 20w50.
Since spring 2007, the motor started smoking on full throttle. Soon after, power started slipping. A few months later it also started smoking on slowdown. I did a compression check and found a 6 % spread between the highest and lowest cylinders, which I understood to be quite good. Since I figured the bottom end to be fine, I pulled the heads to have them checked out. 7 intake valves and one exhaust valve had stem wear, so I had them replaced along with new valve stem seals. The smoking problem still remained. The plugs never fouled over, but they were always black every time I pulled them. It used oil, but since the speedo was inop, I never could tell how many miles per quart were driven. I thought that I might have a problem with PCV pullover, so I made a baffle that covered the underside of the PCV valve much better than the ones provided with the MP aluminum valve covers. Still smokin. The valley pan and gaskets have been replaced a few times, and I even placed the intake on the engine and looked for uneven mating surfaces, but they fit against each other perfectly.
I have performed compression checks 2 more times and still came up with the same results, a 6 % spread. I was stumped as to why an engine that had such high and consistant compression numbers smoked like mine did. I could cruise around up to half throttle with nearly NO smoke at all, but once the secondaries opened, it was as if the 3000 mile motor was a 300,000 mile junker. I HAD to pull it out to figure it out.
Last weekend I pulled it out, Monday I took it apart. The 509 cam and lifters looked great. The rod and main bearings looked great. The cylinders had NO cross hatch. Every piston had scuffing on the skirts, but the cylinders had no deep scratches. The rings looked good to me. I took the block, heads and pistons to my machine shop guy on Tuesday.
I called the man today. It turns out that the rings were fried! most of them were sharp enough to shave with. He checked each ring in the block and found that several had upwards of .050 ring end gap! They were supposed to be around .018-.020. The oil rings werent expanding... they just fell through the bores! In one of my posts, a member asked if I had low tension oil rings. I guess I DID. Accidently. Obviously my piston ring inspection skills are lacking. The machinist said the 2 dead camshafts may have led to the cylinder bore and piston ring wear. The heads look great. He honed the block and had it in the hot tank already. I should get it back early next week. I'm going to reuse the 509 cam and lifters, since I kept them in order. I'm looking forward to getting it all back together so I can drive to van Nuys for the 25th anniversary Spring Fling car show. Wish me luck!