650HP stock block

[jim_howard_pdx]

I must say I am very impressed with the group on this thread.

As for crank scrappers, it is very very simple to make your own. I used to be able to get titanium sheet stock when I was building heat shields for electronics. The stuff was very thin, and very firm. You can probably get some stainless steel stuff pretty easy.

For kit strokers, please look into probe as well. What I like about them is that they will customize your stroker kit for exactly what you want to do. They use ROMAC balancers, which I think is one of the best high rpm balancers for FORDS that I have ever used.

I am especially impressed with their light weight pistons. I really like one kit they did for a friend of mine. The pistons, pins, and rods weighed just 467 grams for a 408 displacement engine. The owner is hunting for the mid 7's on NOS. The 467 grams allows the engine to reciprocate safely to 10,000 RPM.

I cannot remember the manufacturer of the crank, but it was about 1,850 dollars machined. It was built to run 7's at 10,000 RPM. Everything about the crank was gorgeous. Running the ultra light weight pistons and rods allowed us to knife edge the crank AND have it balanced. Ususally when you knife edge a crank, you are not left with enough counterbalance material to use mallory metal to get the engine balanced. The knife edging is critical in the 8 second brackets. Without it, you are just waiting to grenade the crank. It is not a matter of if, but when....

My street rod 358 is back together. The compression is 9.75 to 1. The cam is an Edelbrock RPM unit installed straight up. Later we will try it 2, 4, and 6, degrees retarded. I did alot of extra porting work on my heads this time. I kept the bowls nearly stock less the gubbers I cut off. I also tear dropped the valve guide supports. I widened the ports to 1 5/16 wide and 2 1/4 inches tall. This is just a quarter inch shorter than the 428 ports I ran at 9.23 seconds. I like the trick flow heads even better than the 428 heads. They have better cooling jackets and they do not store heat like cast iron. The cfm flow on these is just stellar for a street engine. My computer predicts 12.00 second quarter mile times with slicks and our 3.25 gears. I figure we will probably be around 12.19 to 12.29 which puts us in the company of 12 cylinder Ferrari's and Lamborghini's. This is a really great street rod engine guys. I am happy to share everything I have done. Only our gas mileage stinks. I might try to get a Holley 900 CFM fuel injector and a victor jr intake. That would put me at 435 HP and about 15 mpg with the C4. It is really time for us to step this car up to a Tremec or a T56 tranny. We could possibly get 16-18 MPG with a good overdrive transmission and fuel injection.

Right now I am not happy with my ignition curve. I have to set initial at 2 degrees to keep maximum advance at 31 degrees. The engine really struggles with this so we run it at 5 now, and keep our foot out of the accelerator. I plan to recurve it this week. I want to have an initial 10-12 degrees advance at idle, and have the advance go up slowly to about 3,800 RPM and max at 30-31 degrees. This is what Denny Aldridge recommended for the car, and I think he is right on target. Ron you probably know Denny. You other guys will just have to trush me when I say he really knows how to button up a 427 SOHC engine!!!!