I used to say " I give them gas, water, and oil. If they blow up it's the engines fault!"
I've had more blown up than I care to remember. Lots of thursday night test and tunes and fri and sat running the streets light to light until we we had enough gas to get the last person dropped off and get the car back home. So you could bum some gas money from Mom the next day or monday.
It is good to blow the carbon out every now and then. But on the old modulars in cars with plastic intakes I have purposely made them fail more than once.
There was a recall for police/taxi/limo and myself and friends had several that qualified.
This was when ford wanted 640 for the intake and job was about 1100-1200.
We could get a new intake mail order for 349.00 at the time but if it was covered...
It had to break though.
Amazing how many cracked and leaked with one or two good kick downs on the highway. 20mph 1st gear kick down to shift to 2nd usually did it.
These mods with ohv are know to flex around more. Some people don't like ohv because of the head/cam flex.
But this was usually enough to pop them.
We were 14 miles from dealer or choice. We would hop on highway and kick it down and when we go there look for leaks and key drop it in the lot or drive it back if no cracks.
I have JB weld topped with rtv several to get them there.
If you have something that is going to break soon or eventually anyway....kicking them down can very well break it NOW. If you keep babying it as you have been, you might never "straw" and break that camel's back. You might sell it or trade it in with nothing having broken yet.
So it's a catch 22. On my play cars. I drive them like I stole them. They are play toys and if it breaks I will replace it with something better, stronger, faster (cue music..dum dum da daaaa) Steve Austin astronaut..we can rebuild him.
My daily driver and wife's, son's, useful ones..I don't have time, patience, money to fix...so it's "Old Man in a Lincoln" driving for everyone!!!
Or " No soup for you"