[Jimbobeast]

Originally Posted by turbo69bird

Did the machine shop assemble this engine with the inner springs binding? If so I’d pull that whole engine apart and check EVERYTHING. If they couldn’t catch that on assembly they shouldn’t be in the machine shop business .
That being said . Take the good push rods from another cyl and put them together on those two cylinders and crank the engine over and watch the push rods and rockers for it to destroy the push rods something is big time wrong I’d expect you’d be able to see it.

I feel for you my friend sucks when stuff like this creeps up.
But I don’t wanna see you throw a rod because the machine shop didn’t dot its I s and cross its T s. As much as it sucks at this point, id be tearing that thing down completely and starting over, Because I wouldn’t trust their work

I understand and agree. I'm not sure the coils were binding, but the spring pressure was certainly way too much, and I thought that we had found and solved the problem, but obviously that was not it (or not the major part).
As previously stated, that machine shop closed its doors 10+ years ago and the owners/machinists (I knew them personally - good guys) are all deceased. In their defense they machined 5 other engines for me over the years (and assembled the heads) without problems.
And yeah, it sucks. I had planned on selling this car at Mecum Kissimmee in January and I was right on track until this happened. Oh well, we press on.