""A cam lobe would be high on my list of suspicions.""

I finally got around to pulling the engine apart to find that the new SFT cam that I installed back in the Spring survived. This makes me feel a little better about putting another SFT in the engine when it goes back together. This is good news but this does not help with where the debris came from that took out the oil pump.

But, I was reminded about an issue back in 2017 after I pulled off the water pump housing. When I thought it would be a good idea to add a spring inside of the water pump hose to keep it from collapsing, I found this in 2017 when I pulled my water pump off due to some noise. You can see the debris that came off of the housing and I assume that the filter caught most of it back then.

I have a feeling that the oil pump has been taking a beating for a few years. Then with the latest cam change and all of the debris in the pickup, that it couldn’t keep up anymore.

Anyway, I plan to have the engine out of the car in about two weeks. I will then take it to the machine shop to have the block cleaned/checked and then we will make a decision at that time on how to move forward. In the mean time I have been cleaning/painting parts as they come off the engine and buying the new parts that will be needed for reassembly.

Thank you everyone!