Road Runner Nest

Okay, so after my last ordeal of dropping an intake bolt washer into an intake runner and having it find itself down into the cylinder bore, I finally got my Holley Street Dominator installed and torqued down with new Fel-Pro valley pan with heat blockoffs. Go me!

Well, this time as I'm assembling the carburetor linkage, it falls apart and a very tiny ball screw falls into the little area between the intake and the head at the "half hole" at the side. After hours of fiddling with magnets on strings, compressed air, etc. I cannot get this damn piece out. My question is, is there any chance of it finding itself into the engine and damaging it? I'm guessing no, but just wanted to be sure. I sure do hate hauling around an extra .0000005 grams of weight though!

if I didn't have the heat crossovers, I'm guessing there's still no chance of it finding itself into anything but the exhaust, right? I even pulled the exhaust manifolds and didn't see it. Grrrr... Haven't started car since it fell in.

That cavity you describe around the exhaust cross-over passage in the cylinder head, leads to nowhere and is commonly full of all kinds of small hardware parts dropped over the years. I believe the purpose of the cavity is to provide some exhaust heat insulation for the inner surfaces of the head around the passage.

You're right. I crawled into the engine compartment (I'm getting too old for that) and used the LED light on my keychain and managed to see the part just sitting there, innocently. I used some eyebrow pluckers and retrieved the object. It was so easy. The "inner" part was covered by the intake manifold (heat crossover area), so nothing got into either the intake or exhaust. I think you're right about the "separation" theory (keep heat away from the heads). Anyway, just glad I got the sucker! Thanks!

Nice!

good thing you didn't accidentally drop the eyebrow pluckers in your engine.