Hi,

I am building a 383 Lt1 solid roller and need to purchase new connecting rods. The engine is a 12-1 compression, ported AFR 220's, solid roller standard base circle cam 258 268 106lsa with a single plane accel intake and . I will be spraying up to a 250 shot on top of this combo.

I need some advice on the rods. I boguth this engine off of a friend finished but wanted to upgrade the pistons and rods as they were not up to a 250 shot. The engine is in the machine shop right now and I need to decide on which rods to go with. I have my decision down to three:

Eagle H-beam 6.0 with L19 rod bolts
http://store.summitracing.com/partde...9&autoview=sku

Callies Compstar 6.0
http://www.competitionproducts.com/p...CSA6000CS2A2AH

Lunati Pro mod 6.0
http://store.summitracing.com/partde...1&autoview=sku

I would like to know if these three rods are able to 1) handle ~900CHP @7500-7600rpms 2) clear a standard base circle cam. I also would like to know which rod has the best block/cam clearance out of the 3 choices. I am leaning towards the Lunati pro mod rod but the 850 hp rating is right around where I will be at and the h-beams (I beleive) are rating at over 1000hp. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks and kind regards,

Matt

 

What's the lift on your cam? From the looks of it your going to be extremely close. I was very close on my 5.7 rod 383 with Eagle Rods and a cc306.

 

lift on the cam lobe is .400.

Thanks,

Matt

 

What is the lift at .050?

 

I do not know the list at .050 but I would guess that the cam is pretty agressive. The cam is a custom grind that Joe O spec'd out a few years ago and I do not have a cam card as he was the one who installed it. From what I gathered, the Lunati looks liek it has the best clearance and also a 6" rod has less angle than a 5.7" so it "should" have more clearance.

Thanks,

Matt

 

Matt, what happen to the 355... is it still alive??


leo

 

Probably all 3 brands of rods will bump the cam but you can machine the rods where needed.

the Eagle with those big L19 rod bolts are going to be the most difficult to clearance at the block.

The Lunati's with the wide shoulder will bump at the cylinder bottom on the inboard side, (the cam tunnel side). And that is a simple thing to grind on the block down there. But the Lunati does not have better cam clearance than the Eagle or Compstar. Probably just the same cam clearance as the Eagle and Compstar.

The Compstar would be my pick due to quality and block clearance. The cam clearance will be no better or worse than the Eagle or Lunati and it will have typical block clearance issues at the outboard side of the block at the bottom of the cylinder and at the oil pan rail. It will not bump at the bottom of the cylinder on the inboard side.

All 3 of those rod brands should be able to handle the 7600rpm but in theory the Eagle with the super duper L19 bolts will handle the most rpm and power.

I've used all 3 brands of rods and even tried those L19 rod bolts which were way too big and difficult to clearance the block with and so I could not use them. But if you can clearance the block enought for those bolts then that's the one to go with for strength.

Compstar are my favorite but the others are good too.

You might look into the Oliver Billet Stroker-grind. That would be a very strong and very good rod with excellent cam clearance, (you still may bump the cam though).

Karl Ellwein
Ellwein Engines

 

Thanks for the replies. I went with a new small base circle solid roller and the lunati rods as I am only planning on making 850hp total.