racerns

I am running a 6" rod. Some people don't like the 6" rod on the 396 because the wrist pin ends up pushed into the ring land area. I don't think it is a problem unless you plan to run a big power adder. Depending on what size your combustion chambers end up, you may have to run a custom dish on your pistons to get the compression ratio you want with 6" rods. I currently have close to the stock 54cc combustion chamber and with a 6" rod I needed a 12cc dish in the piston to keep my compression ratio at 11.5:1. You really need to find out what your combustion chambers will end up at after the head work.