Going to use one of my blocks bore it .060 use an eagle
3.25 crank 6.125 rods. Going to use BME forged aluminum rods in it and it will be almost always a street car. Going to do 49cc dart iron head with its 21.5 valve angle and mauls 21 degree pistons. Then I will be drilling and machining on the head because I'm going to do .030 offset dowl pins moving the head further up, valve further from the cylinder. 904 lifters solid flat tappet that won't do diddly till it hits 4500 rpm. Won't be able to run the compression I would want has to pull up to fuel pump.

 

What do think it'll redline at? 5500?

 

nice, wanna hear more on this!!

 

Sounds like that would be a blast of a high reving motor. Why not just solid lifter roller cam instead of larger flat tappet though?

 

Lots of the trick stuff just increases the cost. I built a solid lifter 4.060 X 3.25 forged large journal crank 336.60 ci. This was back in the day of the iron heads rules. So the Sportsman 200 cc heads was the best. Once ported they were more like 212 cc and included 2.055 I and 1.60 valves. I just used a 238/248 Crane solid with 1.6 RR's 1.46 dia dual springs running about 145# seat pressure. Manley 6 inch H beam rods. Some kind of domed pistons to get it up around 11/1 CR. It used a melling high vol oil pump and oil restrictors in the back of the block. It ran on unleaded super. It lasted for many years and it was a true 8000 rpm motor.

After that motor I just went to solid rollers. With lots of busted valve train parts and failed cheap aluminum RR's

 

Id go back to sft in a second if I had a larger bore block and a good quality core/lifter. No needle bearings or 1000 set of lifters to worry about.

What are you going to use for heads/intake?

 

Ok you asked and some of stuff I know is not ideal heads just one of them and some stuff I will do not worth the money to do it extra machine cost. But then building a 337 not the best power maker anyway. Would not do hydraulic roller even with new short travel lifters I believe they call them. hydraulic rollers way over rated just go to a solid roller that's got a street lobe profile less insane spring pressure and no reason the lifters would last a good length of time and would not need $1000.00 lifters that are still bandaid stuff for race designed lobes. I have a cdl license so 135 mph on up cars a no no just get me in trouble. many years ago in a 7 year period of time my license was pulled 4 times. If you had a standard school size paper the list of offenses went all the length of the paper and a quarter way down the back side of the paper and of course they did not always catch me I got away with a lot. Having said this I drove 18 wheelers for almost 32 years never had an accident and most of that driving 26 years in heavy traffic of dfw tx. Area. So basically I should end up at 29 dia. tires and a 4.88 rear ratio. Could care less about rpms on freeway probably never see more then 25 miles in one direction. Have been in this hell hole of tx. Since 1978.

 

want to keep it with iron heads so will do darts 49cc 21 1/ 2 degree with most likely mahls 21 degree pistons. Intake manifold will be bit of a surprise that I would use it. The latest greatest patch the solid race roller up has no needles or bushings. You probably know about them. I think not sure straub called them a black mamba, some kind of bad *** snake I guess.

 

If those old blocks of yours are small main journal size. DO NOT EVEN build them. If you want in excess of 7500 rpm consistently all you need is a Forged larger journal crank and use ARP studded 4 bolt block. I've never been a fan of aluminum rods. A long time ago they figured out that big heavy H beam rods are Okay because the majority of the weight is on the big end. Light weight short pistons are the way to go. I've built a race motor with offset floating piston pins. It was not something even very common in high end race motors made to do 9000 rpm with 3.750 strokes and 4.185 bores.

heads is where it's at

 

the two blocks I have are 1968 and 1970 blocks both with the slightly better nodular caps. Both blocks I already while back had checked for cracks and the man said the mains were in spec my choice to use it that way or line hone it. I will have one of them sonic checked before I spend a dime on it. Yes the heads are a very good place to spend the money. Not a close friend but guy i knew a little bit had an E modified production 65 coupe mid 70s and he had the first Doug nash 4+ 1 race trans I ever saw. He had a factory block 283 bored .060 and chevy of course small 2.30 main with nothing better then what ever steel chevy made the crank out of most likely 1043 or maybe 5140 not even as good as the Chinese steel 4340 cranks today. He turned 10 grand way back in the 70s. But it was a race engine not ment to last long term. Back then they used to say on street engines it was a good idea1 to keep piston speed to 4000. Now today with better parts easily bought that old advice is out the window you can certainly run longer stroke at more piston speed today. As far as pistons I have no plan to use nitrous much less boost so I will come up with as light a piston and pin as I can. They have run forged aluminum rods in pontiacs on the street for a lot of miles, no reason that cant be done. Then there are 506 gram steel H beam rods even at 6.125 lenght that are good to at least 500 hp. factory 5.7 3/8s bolt rods were right at 600 grams. I once had a set of those 506 gram rods but not now. Shorter strokes, longer rods, lighter weight all make it easier on the main webs of the block. No reason to swing extra weight around that is not needed. Also easier on rod bearings. I do still have a steel flywheel its heavy 36 lbs, but that's good I will need that weight with the small cu.

 

I have spent many years at the drag strips racing and as a team member. I saw blow motors and it was always people trying bubba mechanic ideas. Like small main journal blocks. Like 283,s with a 4 inch bore or 302,s. Trying to get them to shift at 8000 rpm. I even saw a Camaro have the heavy stock damper go through the hood about half track . Or my friends chevelle that had a hole clear through the lexan wind shield from the flywheel coming apart

That's why NHRA came up with SFI regulations on rotating parts

No I don't believe any body that tells me that they had a 70s sbc doing 10k rpm because I worked in an historic exotic race car shop that owners had the best cars from that era. Built with the best minds and unlimited resources

For the record all my motors have 785 gram 6 inch Manley H beam rods. I broke my forged 427 crankshaft sbc and all the rods were fine

 

Make sure you get the engine up to temperature before romping on it with the Aluminum Rods.

 

Other than Aluminum or Titanium

Steel H-beams are not the only hi-strength option ... much depends on your wallet

There are many Light steel choices w/ both hi-strength & hi-quality ... e.g. light A-beam & light I-beam & light X-beam & Light Tapered H-beam

look to Carrillo, Dyers, Manley, Oliver, Pankl and others.

 

A dose of reality, nice job.

 

I worked on travelling Sprint car teams in the 80 - 90's with 360 ci and the 410 outlaw cars. They were built to do up to 9000 rpm. even with titanium valves and the best of the best valve train failure was very common even setting them up with gearing and tire diameter to only do 8600-8800 lap after lap in races. These motors had about .800 lift with heads up around 270 cc with down port injection. It was technology not even available to a 70's era motor.

later on at the historic racing shop we had a stable of the original TransAm Mustang and Camaros with the 302 actually right on the 310 ci limit. As the motors were built they were only doing less than 8000 rpm because of head technology of that time period.

It was and is just extremely hard to keep motors together and making power in these upper rpm ranges. Even mega buck NASCAR motors used to have engine failures in their high rpm races before the super shaft rocker setups with titanium everything

 

just buried a name you may be familar with, omar or leonard lee? Other halfs family...they were based out of Escondido and did the sprint car circuit for many yrs...Jalopies in the old days.

wrenched for Kranzlers son at Saugus Speedway back in the 80s/early 90s, his fater used to run Riverside ovals, had a hard time keeping 427s from scattering. Good times I bet that was real racing that took know how and ***** of steel before all the electronics were allowed. Funny listening to all his stories of how they wouldhave to afford the sport

 

was not there to see it but a friend mine was reving a sbc under the hood balancer came apart but did not hit him, probably some yahoo had beat the balancer on with a hammer most likley. No pushrod engine in road racing back in the 70s could run 10 grand would never last the race. Drag racing total different deal only has to handle it few seconds at a time. Buddy bennets e- modified 292 was doing 10 grand mid 1970s and he was certainly not the only one, had not come up with a magic pill no one else had.. Anyone that has drag raced, road raced, circle track raced knows full well there is no way they can get away with what a drag race engine can do. All you have to do is go back to 70s weight to cubic inch rules in modified production comp eliminator cars and there use of very small engines. Even super stock cars were known to run the same roller cams specs that bill Jenkins was using only they could not do all the head mods his pro stock car could do.

 

Every time I read about E- 85 flex fuel I'm impressed with it. May have to rethink using pump gas use real high compression, even makes the intake air cooler.