[Formulajones]

Sorry to hear about the mishap.

Spark plugs closed says something was floating around.

I'm assuming this thing has flat top pistons in it. The only time I've ever had a piston close a plug gap was with a dome piston.
The last 454 I spun a couple rod bearings in was so bad the piston was smacking the bottom of the cylinder head, and actually marked up the top of the piston. Never touched the spark plugs though, because it had flat tops in it. You would need to have a plug that actually stuck down below the entire combustion chamber for a flat top to touch it, and I've just never seen that.

Most Pontiac builds seem to have either flat tops or dished pistons so my feeling is the plugs weren't closed by the piston itself, but likely some foreign object that got in the combustion chamber. I would expect to see a mark (or 2) on the ground strap from contacting something as well.