Finally got the motor out and found a lot of good news and some weirdness. I quickly found the source of the noise which turned out to be from the retainer on the rocker shaft backing out. No harm done *big sigh of relief* but where is my lack of power coming from? I kept digging to find 3 out of 4 pistons sooted up with carbon but #1 was clean as a whistle. the 3-4 head was tight as a drum no leaks, but the 1-2 head wasn't as tight and #2 was leaking slightly. Also found the source of a couple persistent oil leaks, the turbo drain pipe (which was loose) and the 3-4 lower head studs. The case sealed up great and there were no seam related leaks. The galley plug in the back of the block had started seeping so I'll have to find a better way to seal it up. Cylinders looked great, bearings looked great and in some places the dry molydisulfide (MoS2) film coating I applied during assembly was still in place. I did find a slight wear pattern in the intake lobe for 1 and 3 and patterns on the lifters for the same but not high enough to feel with a finger nail scrape.
Some bad news now... I went to pick up the spare block on friday only to find a bunch of issues. The order was to deck it by 2mm each side and I confirmed this but they did more. They removed the case savers and drilled out every stud hole. Then they pressed in some kind of insert threaded for a 10mm stud except for the deep stud in #3 which they drilled out but never replaced. On monday the block goes back for a deep stud insert and hopefully I'll find out what the inserts are made of. If worse comes to worse they will have to fill every hole with weld, re-drill, and install new case savers.
Now on to the good stuff...
Here's one of the leak culprits, the threaded pipe for the turbo drain was loose
This is what all of the plugs looked like
the 3-4 head, exhaust valves got toasty
The other big leak I couldn't fix, the 3-4 lower head studs
I'm not sure if it's normal for untreated cylinders to bronze like this
3-4 pistons, lots of carbon
pulled the 1-2 valve cover to find this
Some weirdness here, I think there may have been some fuel starvation here so I'm going to double check the #1 fuel injector
some scoring on the bottom of all the pistons, not sure if that's normal for big bore/stroke combos
