You know I was thinking that since these engines come out of automatics the Rev range has probably been pretty low until they got bolted upto a manual with someone who wants all the power the engine can deliver. The bores wear unevenly for this and it might be causing a real strain on everything. This usaully becomes a problem with just the top lan ring. If you never take the engine over 5k or so for 70000 miles the piston only goes up the bore so far and wears a path for the piston to follow. Then you slap it in a manual car and run it to 7000 and suddenly the piston goes quickly from this wide piston bore to the stock size because of rod stretch. It can cause real havoc on alot of things. Not to mention high rpm Decel can really kill rods. Always clutch out if your comming down from 7K to get the engine away from beeing loaded in that rev range.

Ex-cat cams dealer. Today we do motor mounts.. Tommorow. Intake manifolds