Ford built the "big Boss" with 6 bolt mains for strength and lomgevity, pretty cool design. I was able to talk to a couple people regarding the engine that was used for the production race truck Ford had Foutz build for the Baja 1000. They believed the bottom end was super stout, but felt the pistons then the rods would be the weak links.
By the look of yours, the piston broke then caused the rod to get bent hitting the debris.
A rod only bends like this from hitting something like a busted piston or the cylinder hydrauliced.
Since you need a new rod, I would get a set from Manley. They are pretty much the only supplier that makes part for the 6.2 that you dont have to have done custom ordered.
Click the piston tab after you open the link.. they do forged Pistons too.
http://www.manleyperformance.com/niche/ford/62_raptor_rods.shtml
Nailed it. I been down this path fairly hard core since leaving the machine shop. Pistons and rods are definitely the weak point and Manley is the only game in town as far as forged rods go. You can find pistons at Livernois and Diamond as well that will give you a compression bump.
Now that I'm not posting from mobile, I can talk through this a little more. Hydro-lock has some validity here as from my research as well as after talking to the machinists, it's one of the only real causes that could bend a rod like this. After presenting that theory to the previous owner of the engine, he seems to think so too. So the theory is that the head gasket had failed and whoever owned the truck before him knew it. So they actually loosened the plugs to relieve the pressure to keep it from exploding. He says this because when he went to change the plugs, he came across THREE plugs that were finger loose. Then after he changed them, seated the plugs, and BOOM. I'll roll with this.
Also, what has happened since dropping it off is that I've come close to 180 on whether I'm keeping or selling the engine when finished. Always had a budget figure in mind since the start of the project and it needed to be somewhere that I could make some decent money if I sold it after I finished. That figure hasn't moved, I'm still tracking to hit the budget, but now I'm like 'if I spend all this money, this will a fresh motor. Why wouldn't I swap it and sell my 195K motor? As nobody would give me any more money for the fresh motor as they would my pulled working motor (maybe)".
My hesitation always being 1) I don't want to do another engine swap and 2) I would absolutely loose my shit if I DID do an engine swap and something went wrong afterward.
Now that I'm warming up to the idea, I want to do a good job. So tempted to go fully forged, but damn. Really hard to justify for my application. If I cared about making a ton of power or had plans down the road to boost it would be a no-brainer, but I don't. My machine shop deals in Mahle/Clevite and I'm more leaning toward that route. Keeps me in budget and have the piece of mind of having quality parts in there. He said he'd definitely not put OEM stuff back in there, which was the original plan. Boring isn't completely out of the question though.
So for now I think we're sleeving #8 (was definitely cracked), honing them all, polish the crank, deck the heads and block, vacuum test the bank 1 head, full head job on bank 2 especially at #8. Replace what we need.
