Christopher,
I'm no expert on this (I'm not even an amateur!) but.....
Bent pushrods while you are just breaking in a motor says to me that the
valves
opened all they could but the cam wanted them to open more, the only
place to get more movement was to bend the rods. This would also create
huge forces on the lifter faces, hence the breaking through of any that
were even marginally weak. I seem to remember reading where people
shaved too much off a head or machined down rocker posts too much, used
the wrong length pushrods, and/or changed the rocker ratio - any or all
of these would create those conditions. What valve springs are you
using? I guess a set of monster springs, or even the wrong springs could
create those forces too...
I also don't understand why oil starvation would bend the rods (I can
see it destroying the lifters and cam) but you have hardly run this
engine. Would they really overheat, weaken and bend so quickly?
Can you run some checks on the head and valve gear dimensions to check
how far from stock they are? Who knows what machining the DPOs have done
and, as Kurt has found, Rootes parts may look alike but they aren't all
interchangable.
I'd hate for you to toast another engine...
Cheers,
Paul measure-twice-cut-once Heuer.
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