Buying a stroker kit doesnt mean you dont have to do all that machine work. I have yet to buy H or I beam rods brand new that didnt need to be re-honed. Even many of the cranks I have bought had to be machined. With 90% of stroker kits coming from china I would not trust their machine work.
This brings up an interesting subject. It is a fact that most of of the lower end cranks and rods made by Eagle, S.C.A.T. and C.A.T. are made in China. With that said, the cranks and rods are shipped to the good ole USofA and the final machining is done here.....................at least for now. To be able to say the product is made in the USofA it must contain at least 35% manufacturing content....................and the final machining certainly fills that requirement. Now, I know that a few people (running Ford V8 Flatheads) have had some serious issues with cranks made in China and machined here...............but I have not heard of any other motors other than flatheads that have had issues with the Chinese made cranks, and I have not heard of issues with the rods. Now talking about buying any new part for a motor, be it rods, crank, pistons, bearings, rings..................these need to be checked to make sure you know what you have. Buy this I mean, check a crank for straightness, check all the main and rod journals to make sure they are the same diameter, check side clearance on the rods and end clearance on the crank..................the same goes for rods, and the same goes for rings and bearings...................this is just good practice and also is a part of blueprinting................it will make any motor live longer and run smoother..................less friction means more HP..........Just a case in point...............I bought some new H Beam rods and when I got them home the rod journals were far enough off that they needed to be resized. If had not checked the big ends I could have some potentially serious bearing/oiling issues. This is just something you need to know, even if you just get something back from your favorite machineshop................check to make sure they are giving you what you just paid for..........if not, then shame on you.............because if something goes wrong with the motor it is your fault also for not checking..............................IMHO
with the heads you have and all id stay with the 306. Shop the price on cranks at all the parts stores before you spen $120 on a regrind. The stroker kit will cost more and will need better heads to be worth the cost as far as performance goes.
Justin has a 74, It depends if you are balancing the motor internally or externally.......this makes the difference.
If you think down the road you are going to stroke it,,, stroke it! Use the heads you have and save your coin for better heads later! I read your posts, sure sounds like you want more than a 306! Sure, the heads will hold you, and YOU know that! [hats all that matters! Gonna cost more now but cheaper in the long run, should be,,, 99% of us look at our needs but get what we want! wallet allowing of course,,, You could pick up a good used engine, saving even more mu-lah to get even closer to your complete stroker,,, Hey, GOOD LUCK!
When I got my Cleveland built at the speed shop, they first re-surfaced my flywheel, then bolted it and a new damper to the SCAT stroker crank and balanced it as an assembly.
Even if an engine is balanced internally the balancer and flywheel should be balanced with it - I even had the shop balance my clutch cover - yes I know they come "balanced" but they had to add about 1 1/2" of 1/4" rod to bring it to zero balance. All reciprocating and rotating parts should be balanced together to ensure the smooth operation of the engine and that all the power it produces isn't eaten up fighting imbalance. It isn't nearly as important at 5000 rpm as it is at 6200 or 7200 rpm but it does make your engine perform better.
I guess that's where my train of thought was heading. I know I won't get all I can out of the stroker with what I have... but do I really want to have to do it all again later? I can swap a set of heads on in a weekend, but tearing the whole bottom end apart again would be a lot of repeated work.
Well, I think you hit the nail on the head. The most important thing to do, just like building a house is to have the strongest possible foundation, then you can pretty much put anything on top and it will only get better. There was an article in Hot Rodding's Engine Masters where they stroked a 289 to 331...................and for a street motor they made 540+hp on all motor and when they added 150 squeeze and then made over 700hp, as expected the 540+hp was just over 7,000rpm. It was a two bolt block but they used an early 289............which is almost as strong as the "famous" 302 Mexican block....................a forged RPM crank, 5.4 RPM H beam rods and Ross Pistons/Mahlerings/Clevite bearings along with FPS main girdle...................the cam was a solid roller (it was a single pattern around 256 druation and 640 lift.......and AFR heads. You could certainly put together a similar shortblock...........then add the heads later.........................
Hey hey hey, im still learning but i know enough to make my way through "what the heck is everyone talking about" class. The reason i thought this is because i thought a 50 oz balancer was a 50 oz balancer, i didnt know they were balanced differently with everything else.
The reason everything that rotates together needs to be balanced to gether is manufacturing tolerances. If your crank is off 1 gram in one direction at the same end as the flywheel is off 1 gram in the opposite direction then they have to be balanced together to remove the harmonic between them. A diagonal imbalance can happen even though the crank is balanced statically. That is why the parts are balnced both statically (not moving) and dynamically (moving). Flywheels should be balanced properly from the manufacturer but only within the tolerances that they use. I can't speak for anyone else but I demand very close tolerances.
