Two things come to mind. If the owner knew he dropped a stud into the intake why the heck did they start the engine. Secondly, it looks like some of the stud is missing or it got melted away.

Told ya'll the story about my buddy that had the dirt track racer.
Sucked a loose roll pin from the carb into the engine right about the end of no. 1 turn(about6500-7000RPM)!!
He managed to save the intake manifold. Pin wedged between the piston and cylinder wall.
Ever see an Eagle rod pulled half-in-two?!
Most of the other rods(and "some" crankshaft pieces) hanging out of the pan.
Never knew a camshaft could break into 3 pieces while inside an engine!
Pretty nauseating really.....

BobE wrote:

Lucky guy, the missing portions could have went out the exhaust valve ... which would mean he was very lucky!
Suggest pulling both valves for that cylinder and check the seating surface.

i plan on doing that this weekend

No specific advice but it does remind me of something this lawyer I knew once said somewhat on the same subject:

You know, when you rebuild a carburetor, the first thing you do is you take the carburetor off the manifold? Supposing you skip the first step, and while you're replacing one of the jets, you accidentally drop the jet, it goes down the carburetor, rolls along the manifold, and goes into the head. You're f***ed. You just learned the hard way that you gotta remove the carburetor first, right? So that's all that happened to me today. I learned the hard way. Actually, it was a good learning experience for me.  ~Vincent LaGuardia Gambini

John

 

rpm wrote:

That is one messy engine.

 tell me about it the guy recently imported this car from california needles to say the previous owners never looked after it

Since its that dirty, and already half apart why not just pull it and do a basic hot tank, re-ring, bearings, and gaskets on it, probably will fix issues he didn't even know about.