Forum: Racing From The Past (go)
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Pinning works. Screw in studs allow for pushrod guide plates, although Mr Gasket made some pushrod guide plates that attached under the head bolts. There are two kinds of screw in studs. The hex nutted type require you to cut the stud boss down the amount of the hex (and guide plate). There are repair type studs that don't have the hex nut and don't require the bosses to be cut down. Can't use guide plates, but they won't pull out. Loctite them in place to seal and lock the threads because in some later modeled heads, the stud hole goes to water.

I think genuine "Pink" rods were all large journal. Genuine Z28 302s were large journal. Totally unnecessary. If you have one, sell it and use the proceeds to build two engines.

Stock rods with the beams properly polished and a good set of racing rod bolts will keep them together. Small journal rod bolts are 11/32". Large journal rod bolts are 3/8". You can drill small journal rods and caps out for the 3/8" bolt, but I don't ever recall breaking a stock sized racing rod bolt on a small journal. The lighter your piston and rod assemblies, the higher you can rev and keep things alive.

If you have the crank ground, ask the grinder to put a larger fillet radius than stock for strength. Your going to run looser side clearances on the rods and this will help keep the crank from breaking. Our experience is that it isn't the high revs that break things, it is how abrupt the engine will unload. 194 six cylinder cranks were stroked 1/2" to make 250s. When matched up with a torque converterless Powerglide, the rev up was tremendous (7000 - 8000 rpm with a straight six!). You could definitely run it into the corner deeper. The problem was that when you let off, the engine slowed so fast that you'd yank a rod in two or break a crank. I know that lightness cost money, but THINK LIGHT.

One thing I forgot about is that with most 283s, you can bore them the 1/8" needed to make a 4" bore for a 302. That keeps you from scrounging for an old 327. Some 283s can go the additional 0.020" to the limit we used to run in the city. NONE THAT I EVER TRIED TO RUN could go 0.030" without exploding down the front straightaway in Lawton.

HM

TXRACER & HM,...Have you ever lengthend the slot on stock steel rackers? I ran factory steel rockers & pinned studs the first couple of years and slotted them. Don't recall if it was a safety measure or recommended by the cam co. ...Luther

Luther, We used to slot the rockers on the old 6 cyl. chev. & we took a used In. rocker ball and put it on the exhaust and put new one's on the intake rockers with the poly lock nuts. I do remember those rods breaking like HM says so we looked for the 327 clover pad rods. I had Nix build me a 194 stroker and it ran good but it finally broke one of the rods, if I remember right the 194 & 230 cranks just had 4 counter weights so they spun up quick, the 250 cranks had 7 counter weights were cast and heavy. Richardson out of Wellington Ks built us a 4" bore 283 and it ran good but finally split a cylinder wall out, the last 302 that he built me was a 327 SJ blk. with a 283 crank and the 327 clover pad rods, TRW 11.5 pistons, Engle cam, Crane 492 Fireball heads, had an intake w/spacer and 780 Holley that I bought from Steve Scott that Gilmore had built, man I was in tall cotton had a store bought motor, well it lasted 4 laps at OKC on the 1/2 mile in the #01 with Lyndon Moss and blew up, spun the center main. That did me in I was broke, Moss bought the Hampton #94 and we raced it until I could get some money together and fix my motor. I remember the first Roller Rockers the Old Man had made by Harland Sharp Copper in color 3/8 stud size man they looked neat when you pulled the valve cover off. He used the stock chevy guide plates and studs.

What did you do for oil pans, we had an assortment of pans for a while they worked we finally started using Morosco Left Turn pans and they worked up until about '80-'81 then we struggled with engines until mid '83 when we were introduced to Aviad pans by Bob Ewell after that our engine program took off.

We never had anything but Corvette pans. In reality, I think they were heavy truck pans because the baffling was a little shorter than a true Vette pan. But they did hold a little extra oil from a longer sump, and that seemed important. We also put a skid plate on the bottom to protect it from some of those smooooooth tracks.

230 six cylinder cranks were much lighter counterweighted than 250s. 250s are great if you're pulling a load of rock out of the quarry and don't want to lose momentum, but that kind of defeats the purpose for us. 194s were forged and therefore more sucessfully welded and stroked. 230s were cast steel.

Yes, we slotted stock rockers. Stock small blocks are 1.5 - 1 ratio. Sixes were 1.6, so, you guessed it, we tried making our own lowbuck 1.6 rockers using 250 rockers. Then we found out big blocks were 1.72! I don't remember ever trying it, but I had read about hotrodders doing it.

Those were fun times because you were rewarded for trying things, not just writing a lot of checks.

HM