Found the reason!

[Guffinator]

As some of you know my "ex" Mustang just never made the HP for some reason.

I got a PM from Jeff "Whitestang" over at WSM and he told me of some issues they found when they tore the motor down.

Here's what Frank "Fordtech" said:

"the only thing that was keeping the timing gear bolt from falling down was the timing cover.You could see where the cam has been walking around and chewed up #8 lifter.It should be ok though.Just thaught I'd share that with you.The block is trash now,because it has been 0.30 over,has gaulds in the cylinders and cam bearing are wasted Lucky for you that thing did not explode while you were driving it "

I had bought the shortblock from a friend of mine. Looking back maybe that wasn't the best thing to do
:ashamed:

[White90GT]

Interesting! You couldn't hear any lifter noise from it. So what's Jeff going to do with it? Put that setup on a 331? Good heads and intake to start with.

[Guffinator]

Nope...no lifter noise. That's what was surprising. The motor sounded healthy and had good compression.

I'm not sure what Jeff's plans are for the future. Right now he's dropped a running stocker in and it's already passed the sniffer. He's going to run it at the next CCB.

[AGirlWithACoupe]

Ouch Chris. That thing sounded like a ticking time bomb.

[Rusman]

Oops...sucks :(.