[unruhjonny]

Originally Posted by Formulabruce

The car in question had a piece of cam chain hitting the cover I was told by a Ford tech. This is not a big deal if fixed before it causes damage. Car was not missing.

interesting!

[unruhjonny]

Originally Posted by Formulabruce

I was recieving And Set up on cars at my Pontiac Dealer. ...

I was never trying to suggest it didn't happen.

I was in shock at how it could happen.

I have understood that there was a holding area at the end of the production line which would have quarantined any cars with observed issues - I would think that a severe miss would have warranted quarantine.
But even before that, before the engine left the engine plant, it would have been assembled, then test run;
If the engine was assembled during shift change, and a rod/slug were missed, wouldn't it have been caught when it was test run on propane??!

I have read of many the problems these cars could have had when built, but it was this singular example which seems to encapsulate so many opportunities for an issue to have been identified with the engine... such a huge failure for all checkpoints, that it's utterly astounding.

[salem1912]

Once had a 3.8L Plymouth van for new car prep. Had a missfire that gave me a hard time. Lower compression in one cylinder(15 lower) than other cylinders. Turn out it had 5 3.8L rods and one 3.3L rod installed. Factory screw up but we didn't call the newspaper. (no facebook in 1990)

[unruhjonny]

/\ that's an interesting screw up!
I take it the crank ends were the same, and that it was just a shorter rod?