Yeah it will be interesting to tear it apart and figure out exactly what went wrong. It's something internal to the motor though. If someone wants to buy parts off of it I'll part it out. Got good heads, good modded intake, &c. And a bunch of new sensors.

 

Well update for all the curious . I've pretty much disassembled the faulty motor. Conclusion: First off the bearings on the bottom end went. I should have realized this long before I even tore into the engine in the first place, as I had alot of varying oil pressure and whining noise from the engine. For the second reason, I will BE CLEAR here that I have not torn the engine down to the point of removing the camshaft, but observation almost guarantees this to be true. Second reason: Camshaft bearing failed, causing at least one cam lobe to be spun, it also caused abnormal vacuum because of the damaged cam, hence my problem with the engine running excessively rich (low vacuum), and it also messed up timing (15* or more advance at idle, according to PCM) by allowing too much free play on the dizzy drive. All lifters were getting plenty of oil, all rocker arm bolts were tight ( I triple checked this), yet two rockers could be wiggled because the pushrod wasn't pushing up against them due to the cam lobes having been spun, and not lifting the lifters far enough. This also explains the really hard starting and really rough idle when the engine started to knock.