Good News - Finally finished all of the engine modifications...Heads, Cam & Lifters, Intake & Carb, Headers, 2 1/2" Exhaust with Flowmaster Super 44's, MSD HEI... Awsome running motor, Very Fast!!!

[:@]Bad News - Last Saturday while at the NHRA HotRod Re out at the track I spun a rod bearing. Little dude with a big hammer in the motor!!! If a little is good a lot must be better attitude with the RPM's was the culprit. I knew it was bound to happen sooner or later... I was hoping for later. I did however get to put a few (read very few) miles on the car.

Now I have decided to go all out with the small block. I purchased a late block with one piece rear main seal, forged nitrited 3.750 stroke crank, 4340 H -Beam 6.00 rods, .030 over forged flat top pistons... and all of the other necessary stuff... Huges 2500 RPM converterto go along with what I currently have tobuild a 383 to stick under the hood.

Here are a couple of pics.

[IMG]local://upfiles/7358/07D15F624FAA4C3BB1292181BDA3715B.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]local://upfiles/7358/C5BFC01ED7BE49CB88781A6562306C86.jpg[/IMG]

 

My heart goes out to you.I too spun a bearing in my newly hopped up Camaro about 8 years ago. Same thing. New heads, cam, intake, ignition. It was running 13 flat and I wanted 12s. Coming out of the hole at a whopping 6000 rpm will do wonders for your motor. To add insult to injury itwas a $350 tow back to my house. I like you, decided to not let it get me down and built a 538 with 14 to 1s etc, stuffed it in and went 9.70 at 141. So the moral to the story is that if you're not breaking parts you're not really trying. LOL! Race that sucker!

 

To what do you attribute the spun bearing? Do you think that you beat the engine too hard for what components you had inside, or did you not plasti-gauge the bearings and have too little clearance on one? I always plasti-gauge everything when I do a motor. I've seen cranks cut ie; 10 thousandths and one or two journals not taken down completely where after installing new bearings, there wasn't enough clearance. Even new cranks, good brands included, have flaws like any other product. Some guys in the past have told me that I'm wasting my time plasti-gauging the rod and main bearings, but I've never had any problems with anyting I've built.
This is not to say that you weren't over-beating your engine when the bearing failed. LOL I've seen that done also.
Good luck on the new one. Beautiful motor in pic.!!!

 

The bearing failure was due to stretched rod bolts in the "pink" rods. The problem was totally my fault on the right pedal... too many R's. I had more top end on the motor than bottom end. The thing is I do know better but couldn't resist. It was pulling way too hard ro lift or shift!!! I hope to have everything in a week or so to get it back on the road again. The new forged crank, H-beam rods, forged pistons along with the roller cam set up (I decided to go roller since I'm using a late block that originally came with a roller cam and it is relatively inexpensive to do) should give me a fairly solid motor with the Performer RPM heads. I'm looking forward to getting it going again.

I've decided to do the Hot Rod Magazine "Drag Week" this year and want to get some time in on the motor before the journey and racing.

Is anyone on the forum going to do "Drag Week"?