I can better that, I think. About 5 years ago I decided I wasn't going fast enough with my B1 stuff (7.30's@183 in Vegas) in my dragster. I had a few bucks save and thought I could afford to either the PSO's, or the Predators. All the while all of my GM buddies were telling me I was wasting my money, that I should go that route, but I explained the need to stay with the Mopar stuff.
So I call a guy to remain nameless, and start on a Predator project. I believe that was the beginning of 2010. The plan was to start with a mildly ported set of heads, a chinese 4.500 stroke crankshaft, and build a 572. By the time I was done, I had an aluminum 604 with all the bells and whistles, and was around 38K into it not counting all the parts I bought and sent. It was finished at the end of 2010, went in the car in the beginning of 2011, made 20 passes, was light on oil pressure and ran a best of 7.20@186 with a tail wind and was shipped back to be fixed. The guy I bought everything from took very good care of me through all of this.
That engine lasted 7 more passes. When it blew up, it took out the cam, rods, block, crankshaft, pistons, all the lifters (Isky EZ rolls) needed repair, rocker arms were mostly unusable, you get the idea. Anyway you get the idea.
Again, the guy that sold me all the parts gave me every part he had saved for himself to help compensate for the engine. He is and was a very stand up guy. I put in the old dependable B1 original engine and put another 110 passes on it.
In the meantime, I sold all my B1 original stuff and bought some B1/MC heads and started gathering parts to build another Predator. A friend of mine here (boatracer 572) helped me get that engine together at the end of last year. He has been running the original Predator stuff for years successfully, and he has been a great help. Oh, and the reason Tony said he would help was because my parts and such sat in a machine shop that will also remain nameless for over a year. When I received the motor, it went into the car, I started it up, and it was leaking massive amounts of water into the valley. No one really knew what head gaskets to on the hemi block, with wedge (Predator) deads, so we had to guess. After over $1200 in gaskets being shipped back and forth, I finally stopped the head gasket leaking issue.
Because of the water leakage into the valley diluting the oil several times, and there were other issues too long to mention, it spun the main bearings at MATS earlier this year, 7 passes.
Tony (boat racer) also helped me with another Predator engine, but it still needed some final touches to finish it up when I picked it up.
So.....here I sit with 2 engines that are almost ready and I will miss the first 4 out of 9 races we have in Salt Lake City, this year.
The good new is, I didn't hurt anything too bad and both are almost ready.