Here's the Piston, Pin and Rod setup:
Piston is Ross forged aluminum flat top. Compression ratio is 8:1. The pin is a full floater using dual spiro-locks.
The connecting rod is a Manley H-beam forged steel unit. This was cataloged as a 426/440 Chrysler rod that is .100" longer than stock 426/440 length. This puts it within a few thousandths of the stock 392 rod length. The only modification to these rods to make them work with the early Hemi is to have the big end narrowed.
Before installing the pistons, I sent them off to HP Coatings for their thermal barrier coating on the top and anti-friction coating on the skirts. Overkill? No.
I used a tapered ring compressor for installation. Worked real well.
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Crank was installed using lots of Red Line assembly lube. Outer bolts on 4-bolt main caps are only torqued down to 35 ft-lbs.
Checked crank end play and it came out to be .005"
Ready for rods and pistons....
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I had all of the crank work done at the same time as the block. Crank work included checking for straightness, magnafluxing and turning both the main and rod journals down by .010". I could have gotten away with no grinding at all. The crank was in that good shape, but I also had the crank journals indexed to make sure each one was 90 degrees apart. Main and rod clearances were set at .002"
The first picture also shows the Milodon 4-bolt main caps I was installing. #1 and #5 main caps are the stock units.
One other thing that I had done on the crank was to have the flange bolts tapped for 1/2"-20 flywheel bolts. The original crank had the through holes on the crank for the torque converter which used a nut on the inside of the crank flange.
I also had a second keyway cut in the front snout 180 degrees from the original one. This will be a blower motor, and the Blower manufacturer (BDS) recommended doing this.
Second pic shows the cam installed. This was the first thing to go in. It was much easier to install, since I could get my hand in there and support the cam as I passed it through the block. The cam is a Comp Cams Extreme Energy hydraulic grind.
I used ARP main studs in the block. Looks good to go so far...
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The rest of the disassembly went along fine. Now it was time to take it to the shop for all of the machine work.
First, I had to decide what I wanted to do as far as the build up and what type of engine I was building. This is going into a '41 Willys streetrod, and will mainly see street use, but I also have intentions of taking it down the strip a few times to see what it will do and have some "fun".
With that in mind I decided to go for a very stout package bottom-end wise. I figured that later on I could always do head and top-end changes, but I wanted the short block to be built strong for almost anything I wanted to do later on.
This was also going to be a blower motor, so that dictated the compression ratio along with a few other "upgrades".
The block checked out fine at the shop including magnafluxing, cleaning, etc.
Machining included:
.030" overbore
block decked
block machined for 4-bolt main caps
align honed
The machine shop did a nice job with the block including honing the cylinders for total seal piston rings. This was done after I had my new pistons sent to the shop so that they could finish hone cylinders according to piston manufacturer's clearance recommendations.
Got the block home and painted it up and got ready for assembly...
I also had my crank done at the same time as the block. That should be in my next entry.
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Next came some measurements for the rod side clearances. Measurements were between .010" to .011". Not bad at all...
Not surprisingly, there was a ridge at the top of some of the cylinders. A ridge reamer took care of that so that I could remove the old pistons and rods.
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