4340 Forged H-Beam Connecting Rods
Saturday, March 10, 2007

Sorry for not getting any pictures of the rods before I assembled them onto the pistons. I have always used H-Beams rods when I build my motors with this type of expected horsepower. Typically H beam rods are a bit on the heavy side and these weighed in at 685 grams, a bit heavier than a 4340 forged I beam rod, but that's ok. This is not an all out racing motor, the weight won't effect anything in my opinion.

They come with ARP 8740 7/16th capscrew bolts, the caps are dowel pinned and the small end has a silicon bronze bushing for full floating pistons. I weighed all the rods and they were all within 1 gram of each other, so far so good. From my experience when you receive your rods, the bolts will be torqued down or very damn tight, so unless you have a specific vise for rods your going to have fits getting the bolts out. I don't have a rod vise so here is what I did, whatever you do, do not use a regular vise to hold the rod.

Go to a place like home depot and get a wooden clamp like the one shown below, cost about 5 dollars. I then put the wood clamp in my regular vise and secure the rod in the wood clamp, then you can proceed to get the rod bolts out.




My rods were assembled with the use of some sort of oil on the rod bolts, I dont use oil when I assemble them. I use ARP's Moly Lube, so I take all the rods apart, and clean the oil from the rod bolts and the threads on the rods. The bolts were literally drowning in oil. I clean the rod bolts and coat them in ARP Moly Lube and thread the bolts into the rod and coat the threads as shown here.



Then run them through the rod a few times to coat the threads.


OK moving on, I always seem to run into one snag when buying aftermarket rods, the small end of the rod always seems to be a little too tight for my liking, sometimes downright too damn tight, which would mean I would have to take them into a machine shop along with the piston pins and have them hone to small end. The last time I had to do this, it cost me 65 dollars I believe. Well low and behold, this time was different. Every single small end of the rods seem to be spot on, nothing was too tight, just perfect for me. I was very happy to say the least.

While looking over the rods, I always look at the crosshatch on the small and big end, very nice finishing hone job in my eyes. Here is a picture of one of the big ends, nice hone job.





Sorry I don't have a pic of the small end bronze bushing, I was too anxious to assemble the rods and pistons. Next time I will talk about the assembly of the pistons on the rods and the headaches associated with those damn spirolox. Thanks for looking.

Labels: , , ,

posted by SteveO @ 11:05 AM, , links to this post  




Probe Forged 408 Pistons
Friday, March 9, 2007

Let me talk on the pistons I ordered with my 408 stroker kit. My buddy learned the hard way 2 years when he screwed up a few things. His first mistake was running keith black hyper pistons. I am not a fan of them and I told him this, but he saw the price of them and couldn't resist. Im not gonna talk about the pro's and con's of the hyper piston, search google for all the info you need. Anyways, his second mistake was that he ordered a flat top piston for his 408 stroker he was building, well he found out later that a 408 stroker with the typical 58-61cc small block ford head the compression ratio was damn near 12.5:1 well out of the range of using pump gas. Live and learn is what we both did.

My cylinder head of choice is a canfield 195, 58cc chamber, 2.08 intake valve and 1.60 exhaust valve. So now that I know my head specs, I figured out which head gasket I was going to use. I chose to use the Fel Pro FPP-1011-2 which is .039 compressed thickness and has a 4.100 bore.

My block will be zero deck, so using these numbers I chose the Probe 22cc dish pistons. Using a compression ratio calculator I come up with 10.5:1 compression. 4.030 bore, 4.00 inch stroke, .039 head gasket, 4.100 gasket bore, 22cc dish piston and zero deck.

The Probe pistons have the following specs. 22cc dish with valve reliefs for either inline cylinder heads or a twisted wedge head. They are 4.030 bore size, have a compression height of 1.235, use a 1/16th-1/16th-3mm ring package. These are the SRS series of pistons. Lastly they weight 418 grams, and the piston pin does NOT intersect the oil ring, which isn't a big deal either way.

Here is a picture from the top of the piston.


Here are some more pictures of these excellent pistons. I don't think you can find another 2618 alloy forged piston that are this cost effective, last I checked they were going for about 399-429 for a set of 8 with pins, pin fitted and dual spirolox. Check here FordStrokers.com


I will leave you with a few more pictures of my 22cc 408 stroker pistons. I am very excited to get this motor done and fired up.




Labels: , , , , , , , ,

posted by SteveO @ 9:39 AM, , links to this post  




The 4340 Forged Stroker Crankshaft
Thursday, March 8, 2007

Let me first talk about the crank from my perspective, keep in mind I am not a professional engine builder. I have built about 10 engines in the last few years, so I have a fair amount of experience. I took a bunch of pictures to show you guys. When the ups man dropped off my parts, my biggest concern was the crankshaft and the packaging. Figuring the crank had to weigh atleast 50lbs, I was concerned since we all know how ups just throws shit around.

Well I was pleasantly surprised, the crank is packaged very nicely and very tight in the box. The box is constructed of heavy cardboard and then lined with more cardboard. The crank is then sealed in a plastic bag. All in all I was very pleased with the packaging, no physical signs of any damage. Thumbs up!

OK heres the first picture of the crank as I took it out of the box and its plastic bag.

This is a Probe Industries 4340 Forged crankshaft for use in my 408 windsor.
I bought the Pro Street kit listed here
408 Pro Street I can assure you I did not pay the price that's listed. I called jim and he gave me a killer deal I felt I couldn't or shouldn't pass up.

Click the picture for a much large image.

I know many people talk bad about chinese crankshafts, but I have to tell you, the fit and finish on this crankshaft so far is very nice. Journals look excellent, and most surprisingly there is none of the usual chatter marks on the radiuses of the journals, like I have witnessed so many times on the extremely cheap chinese cranks. The real test will come obviously when its fitted into the block and I check things like runout on the journals and so forth, but as of right now, its one hell of a nice looking piece.

I am electing to keep it with the stock 3 inch main journals, I know there is about 15-20hp at most by going to the cleveland 2.75 inch main journal size and I can easily take it to my machinist and have him turn it down, and I have always done this in the past, well for this build I am leaving it alone seeing as I am looking at a 6700-6800 rpm window, I am very confident it will be just fine. I will leave you with a bunch of other pictures now, showing the excellent fit and finish on this crankshaft.















Here is a picture of the triple keyed crank snout, very nice!
Click picture for large image.
















Here is a photo showing the large chamfered oiling holes on the journals.
Click image for larger picture.















Here is a photo showing the lightening holes on all rod throws.
Click image for larger picture.















Here is the last picture, just a shot from the rear main seal area looking forward, again, I am very happy with this crankshaft, the first impression is very good. Can't wait to get it together.

Till next time, take it easy and check back in a few days for as I get into the pistons and rods.

Labels: , , , , ,

posted by SteveO @ 6:28 PM, , links to this post  




My 408 Ford Stroker Engine Build Up

Hey everyone, I started this blog which will cover in detail the build up of my FordStrokers.com 408 pro street rotating kit. I bought this kit on recommendation from several local racers that have used these kits and have dealt with jim before. I will be taking alot of pictures and detailing my build from beginning to finish.

My first impression of FordStrokers after talking with the owner jim, was very good. I feel very confident in this kit and my ability to put it all together. I am looking to make between 500-600hp at the crank and to propel my mustang to low 10's and possibly a high 9 second timeslip. Stay tuned as I will updating this blog frequently several times per week.

I also want to thank the guys at SBFTech.com and most importantly Jim at FordStrokers.com for all the awesome help so far on my journey to building a kick ass pump gas 408 stroker engine.

Labels: , , ,

posted by SteveO @ 12:35 PM, , links to this post