Well, I bought the whole rotating assembly (383 stroked LT4) that I want to go with for my car and I have it down at the machine shop right now. The machinist was just getting ready to clearance my block and he called me and said that he was worried about grinding into a water jacket because of where the connecting rods are hitting the pan rail at.

The parts go as follows:

Eagle lightweight forged crankshaft - 1-piece seal
Eagle 6" h-beams w/ L-19 - CRS6000B3DL19
JE forged flat-tops 12:1

What should I do?? Should I tell him to go ahead and take the chance??? Has anyone ever run into this at all???

Any help is appreciated...
Thanks

 

The Eagle rods are not particularly good wrt stroker clearance. The heads of the involved rod bolts may need to be ground for adequate clearance. On my previous motor we hit water when clearancing (Lunati Pro-Mod rods, which have more clearance than the Eagle) but were able to use Devcon epoxy to seal it. The Oliver billet rods have excellent clearance, but cost $1,200!

Rich

 

Gotcha...is that going to lessen the strength of the bolts or should I worry about having the bottom end coming apart because of clearancing the bolt heads??? The bolts are the L-19 bolts BTW...

Thanks for the help!!!

 

This is a commonly done operation. Actually, with the Olivers, if you order the rods for a "stroker" they come with part of the head ground off.

Rich

 

I used the Eagle cast steel crank and the Eagle S/R 5.7 rods, they almost didnt need clearncing. The machineshop that clearanced my block used a template mesurement they had and I have almost twice the required clearance, with no jacket intrusion. My pan rail didn't need notched either , just the bottom of each cylender.

 

bottom of the cylinders and the cam are most likely places for stroker clearing

 

ARP makes a short head "1/2 head" bolt, I bought them for mine. You have to take ALOT less material out with those.



David

 

All right...thanks guys...I will let my machinist know!!

 

One more option if you haven't bored the block is to put a small amount of block filler in it. That will seal it up just in case you grind thru anywhere....

 

I have the same rods and crank. On a 383 those rods are fine I clearanced mine with lots of room to spare.