The guy doing my engine called me today as it was supposed to be completed and informed me the timing chain had so much slack that it had been hitting the oil pump!! There was also wear in the guides so he ordered new chains and guides and will have it completed tomorrow. He said he had never seen a motor with only 14k miles with the timing chain so worn!! He has no idea why the excessive wear other than possibly the oil was too thin. I have been using 5w/20 Royal Purple, he suggested I go to a higher weight oil. Do any of you have any thoughts as to what could have caused the excessive wear and do you agree with going with a different weight oil?

 

Totaled have your guy check out the oil trane line behind the hydraulic chain tensors, ford forgot to remove the plugs in one side of my engine and it did the same thing to mine, had a lot of slack in the chain and cut into the oil pump real deep and i all most lost the whole engine. that is the rod clattering that most of the people are hearing and when the bring to the dealers they listen to it and say that they need new engines, but it is a factory defect, something happened to the computers when the heads wre on line. if he doesn't check for that the engine will do it again and you will lost the whole engine. most of them are on the drivers side but i would have him check both sides and i would change both tensors if he finds one was block with that darn plug. tensors a small amount to pay to save the engine. good luck gary

 

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!

 

Are you saying this lack of timing chain tensioner pressure and the loose chain is the noise some call piston slap ? If only one side is plugged would the noise subside after warm up ?

Thanks,

 

Totaled: Please keep us informed on what you find. This will be good to know when I start rebuilding.

I also found this on the Sean Hyland Motorsport site:

---------4.6 engines which are drag raced experience over tensioning of the chains due to the ratchet mechanism built into the tensioner from factory. Using the shock tensioner and sticky tires can cause raised chain tension, resulting in excessive front cam bearing wear. SHM offers modified chain tensioners which eliminate this problem.

They sell a left and right hand chain tensioner kit for $200. It says for a 4.6. But I am going to call and see if will work on our 5.4's

Wonder if this could have wore out your timing chains?!?

Sean Hyland Motorsport look under Mustang product listings, then go to camshafts.

Jason

 

Twisted99 yes after the engine warms up and some of the oil from the other chain splashes over on the one that doesn't oil itself tends to help it stop rattling and the chain guide is plastic on some models but the lightning is aluminum. the rattle at start up is because of no oil. i know of 9 engines right here that i found out that they were all changed because of rod knock and i bought one and tore it down and that is what i found. just in time to save it and i built me the whole lightn engine out of it including all internal parts, the only thing i keep was the block,crank(had it checked and polished) the oil pan, valve covers, and the timing chain cover. the rest of the engine i ordered piece by piece and biult up to a new lightning engine of course i had the heads completly blue printed and ported, polished, full bowl work, cc. 5 angle valve job, blue fitted to the block, had cams done by crane, intake ported and polished, blueprinted to heads, at the time 6 months ago they didn't have the manley rods because i wanted them and the trw pistons, but i will be putting them in soon as i get everything up and running right. i am adding the JL 5# pulley and sal's 4 program chip, the oil breather, the bypass, denso plugs,and waiting on my factory tech valve body from sal, also had my valve covers chromed and i will be setting up to chrome parts myself real soon. i istalled this in my 97 extracab and it took everything from the radiator to the rear end, including all the dash harnesses to but i had fun doing the swap

 

I just talked with the engine guy and passed on all this good information -- he said all the plugs were removed He also said with the tensioner maxed out the old chain had the excessive slack. There was no bearing or cam wear of any kind so I guess I have to hope there was something done wrong from the factory.