Thanks guys, I really appreciate the assistance.
Jim, we bailed Friday right at 5pm. Neither one of us could stay the weekend. I'm looking at running the Regional on Jan 4-5 during the Winter Nationals. And on Dec 21 there's a Performance Drivers Club event at Sebring that we're shooting to be at to shake this puppy down again.
This motor was supposed to be "ready to go"; especially after waiting 6mos for it to be built. Unfortunately, the builder didn't notice the front cover had already been worn through by the timing chain, allowing water to be pumped directly into the oil pan.
My first attempt to pull the front cover resulted in ruining both the head gasket AND an oil pan gasket. So I'm really not looking forward to that effort again. And the "easy" way is to pull the head...yuck.
But after about 20qts of oil and a bunch of filters, it runs...quietly :-) And shows 60psi-oil, 15psi-water.
Dave you might be on to something. If the water intrusion has messed up the lubrication of the chain guides/slides, then maybe the chain has jumped.
I think we're gonna take the car to Don Ahren's in Gainesville, and see if he'll do the tests and check the chain; he built our Quaife/gears, maybe he'll go easy on us...hehe Neither my co-owner/driver nor myself have the time right now, especially when we're trying to get back by Dec. 21.
One of these days I'll figure out how to write shorter posts....
Michael
[email protected]

PS: George, I think they only issued the TSB for the DOHC motors, which called for removing an upper guide. However, the factory replacement chain guides for the SOHC were made out of metal, instead of plastic like the originals. They usually didn't fail until 60k+ miles.