Long story warning:
Ok guys, it's been a long time since i posted in my build because frankly, I've been burnt out on the car for a while.
I had purchased a gen 2 2860 turbo and aux fuel to further push my build into the 380whp range. The car held up really well to the power level, but unfortunately because I drive it like I stole it, the stock motor ate the bearings on #4 and had a strange cracking issue in the cylinder head between the spark plugs and exhaust valves. (I really wish i took pictures of the tear down, but it all happened so fast that i never had time)
I then purchased a set of DHM Gen 2 pistons and K1 rods and decided to have a local builder/friend build me a forged motor set up.
He ended up getting the engine most of the way together and we attempted to fire it, only to find it would not hold an idle and had a CEL and a wrench light on. As he was claiming to diagnose the car, he kept it for a month after the first fire off, not really doing anything but timing it several times and poking at the wiring harness a lot. After a lot of run around, his wife then decided to divorce him and kick him out of their home, and I had to literally tow my car from his garage in pieces. I towed the car to my fathers repair shop to put it back together and try to figure out the lights and idle issues. We determined it was most likely a VCT/cam phaser issue, but did not have a ford IDS to properly diagnose the problem. I then decided to take the car to some dealer friends I had to diagnose the car. Upon replacing all of the VCT components and re timing the engine, the engine fired, the VCT finally worked, but caused the valves to collide with the pistons and bent the valves. Upon tear down, we found out that the person I had paid to build my motor at the start of all of this, never set the valve lash and had the head over machined. I then played the waiting game for 3 months trying to get an OEM head from ford. Once i finally got one, I finally got the car back, the day after my father passed away actually. After spending around $5,000 on the original motor build, it cost an additional $4,000 to get the car running again. It was an expensive and painful lesson, but my car was finally home, and I thought it was the end of my nightmare.
I then drove the car gentle for 500 miles noticing the engine drank a quart of oil. I then proceeded to drive it for another 500 miles, and it ate another 2 quarts of oil. At that point, I realized my new motor was trash. I purchased a set of Mountune internals and an OEM short block to stuff them into. I sent the block and Mountune internal kit to my friends at Jimm Grubbs Motorsport to gap the rings and hang the rods for me. (I honestly didn't have the time to gap them as i was preparing to move). I took my car apart in my, at the time, apartment garage with the help of my brother in law, and transferred all the components from my failed DHM internal motor to my new Mountune shortblock. It took the span of 2 weeks, but we got it all done and finally got the car running and sorted. Upon tear down of the DHM internal engine, I found significant cylinder wall scoring, significant piston skirt damage, and 3 out of 4 rod bearings failed. literally everything in that motor was trash.
That leads us to today and where the car is now.
The car now is sporting a Mountune forged short block, ARP head studs, Stratified port aux fuel, and of course, the gen 2 360R DHM turbo kit.
I am in the re tune process now with JST, and very happy with how the car is running. I can finally say my motor nightmare is behind me. I had a bit of a fiasco with Spec clutches not fitting at all. They then got me a disc that fit but, it made a noise like a rod knock with my clutch pedal let out. I have since Installed an OEM clutch and ended that nightmare as well. (another $400.00 lesson about vendors and manufacturers, and a clutch disc in the trash). We are aiming for around 400whp in the coming weeks, at which point I am done with modding this car. I plan to take some epic road trips and enjoy this car that i have gone through hell to have.