355 Blueprint crate engine with 4k miles. All was fine until I started it today.. popping thru the intake and sounded like a diesel engine at idle. Shut her down.. pulled the value cover and found this.


Blueprint warranty said they would be in touch on Monday and would get me up and running again.
I hope so.. but what would cause this in the first place?

 

Some combination of shi'ite rocker arms, not enough valve spring, poor spring setup, and/or clearance problem between retainer and guide.

The springs themselves look like they're not the problem. Not saying they're not, only, the other possibilities are more likely.

 

That Chineseum metal is not very tough.

 

What do the rest of the rocker arms look like?
Poor quality comes to mind first. So does a localized lack of oiling. Which may be indicative of a broader problem.
Now to deal with the metal that's entered the oil...

 

Luckily both rockers popped the oil cap off clean and I recovered both. I replaced the two pushrods and rockers today. Lifters pumped up.. good oil to all rockers. Adjusted the lash and tomorrow I'll put everything back together. Hopefully it was only cheap stamped metal.

 

Update: Engine runs fine with the replaced parts. Blueprint's warranty department sent me new GM Performance pushrods/rockers - Now I just need to swap them all out. Not going to do that until I upgrade the intake manifold.