[fordmanjoe1987]

As some know i bought a built 460 from a guy that is putting down some serious horsepower, engine is a 460 with dove c heads, decked .020, lunati camshaft .564 lift intake, .580 lift exhaust on a 106 lobe sep, full roller tip rockers, comp cams guide plates, comp cams hardened chromoly push rods. The engine really ran hard and strong for over 2500 miles when i was driving today and it felt like a spark plug wire came off and a cylinder wasnt firing!(no noise), oil pressure then dropped from 45 at 2000 rpms, to 20-25 fluctuating at 2000, so i pulled it back into the garage and took off the drivers side valve cover and found what is pictured. Word to the wise with any other do it yourselfers at home building a street machine, all the high priced goods wont do anyone any good without good quality bolts and fastners to hold it together, dont cheap out on that stuff like this guy did, now im removing most fasteners on the engine and changing them out for arp hardened steel to be on the safe side. This sucks because i have a cruise with her tommarow and unless i get them early(next day air from summit) i wont be going!!!!It literally snapped right under the poly lock, and yes geometry is perfect!!!

 

[puttster]

Sorry for your loss but why do you think it was from Japan?

 

[fordmanjoe1987]

japan,,china,,,wherever cheap metal is being produced....doesnt matter it isnt quality is what im getting at lol

 

[galax-z]

very likely from china. run into this on my racecar. looks like a good deal untill you break one of the main cap bolts

 

[JEM]

Japanese stuff is usually very high quality.

Chinese can be all over the map from very good to horribly bad.

Still, for something like a rocker stud...make sure the rocker isn't bottoming in its slot.

 

[fordmanjoe1987]

Already checked valve tip angles, push rod angle, coil bind height, guide wear, etc.......It is just plain cheap no name studs, I have seen garbage from japan as well, they may be good with electronics and such, but not so much with mechanical items

 

[fordmanjoe1987]

Ouch galax-z a main cap bolt, i was pissed over a rocker stud but if it was a main cap bolt i woulda been furious, did it tear up the crank and spin a bearing pretty bad?

 

[galax-z]

it broke the block, crank, rods, etc

 

[ford4v429]

they started getting bolts from fastenal at work a while back, instead of holo-krome from the local supplier...buddy was torquing new box ways on a machine base, said the bolt felt like it was stripping- backed it out, looked like a hourglass, stretched out at like 80 ft-lb, never woulda made it to 120...tried a few out of the box, all were the same- we are buying holokrome again

 

[puttster]

reusing the original bolts is looking like a better and better bet.

 

[galax-z]

original probably wasn't screw in studs

 

[JEM]

Already checked valve tip angles, push rod angle, coil bind height, guide wear, etc.......It is just plain cheap no name studs, I have seen garbage from japan as well, they may be good with electronics and such, but not so much with mechanical items

The Japanese are great at mechanical items, frankly...there's the occasional bit of junk but they probably do better on average than most. Toyota 2JZ-GTE motor, anybody?

As for Chinese-sourced product, there's an interesting thread over on the HAMB that illustrates 'quality fade' perfectly (I'd post a link but it seems to be down right now) - a Ford-licensed repro product for a Model A suspension, the original's a steel forging, somewhere along the way the supplier started slipping in brittle castings that if they don't break when installed they'll probably do so not long after.

 

[fordmanjoe1987]

I worked on some(what is to be considered low mileage) about 120,000 mile honda 1.6 engines that we assumed head gaskets leaked....here the cylinders water jackets deteriorated causing coolant to enter the cylinders...about 1/4 in material for a cylinder sleeve in an aluminum block is ridiculous...i disagree......people assume japanese are good at it but they have many flaws in their workmanship as well....im not saying america hasnt ever produced garbage....im saying when it comes to a big block part being made by little engine people they need to give up the race.

 

[fordmanjoe1987]

Even when a honda...toyota....nissan person builds a racing engine they swap their JAPANESE stock fasteners for arp stuff....(american made racing fasteners) and quite frankly i understand why most stock japanese engines never dreamed about producing the kind of horsepower and torque a big block does stock...case in point is they dont have to make high tensile strength bolts and NO IM NOT SAYING THEY CANT MAKE A 400HP HONDA. Im clearly saying their bolts cant handle our horsepower figures even in their dreams....

 

[GT300TD]

I wish we could get stuff from Japan again, instead of china. Of course the good old USA would be great, but I don't see that happening soon

 

[puttster]

I wish we could get stuff from Japan again, instead of china.

When I was a kid we called it "Jap Junk." Now the japanese are at the pinnicle of machining perfection. I truly believe that if it wasn't for the Toyotas and Hondas in the 1980's showing with what a good car should actually be like, we would still be driving around in rustbucket 8 mpg junk from Detroit. I think we owe a lot to the Japanese, at least in automotive terms.

 

[juddp39532]

If it isn't an original bolt from back in the day I only use ARP stuff! I have Chinese heads on my Comet and had to replace every part on them, my castings are ok but I've heard people have had the castings with defects that make them unusable.

 

[JEM]

When I was a kid we called it "Jap Junk." Now the japanese are at the pinnicle of machining perfection.

The Japanese auto industry started off by copying the British, and for a few decades thereafter they were producing product as junky as what they were copying.

Then sometime in the mid '60s they all suddenly realized 'This is crap!' and started getting better fast.

 

[fordmanjoe1987]

The general summary here tends to be even though the two(chinese & japanese) both have a tendenency to use cheaper products, but the japanese has done a better job perfecting that use of it! Honestly most( i guess broader spectrum being asians) tend to try to squeeze as much money out of what they put into item as they can and the japanese have done just that, but as I have said they have never produced a big block and have no knowledge of what goes on inside them, thus they need to stick to what they are best at and thats little engines!