Excellent! I'm glad Sean can help you, I would if you needed me to but being in a different country and however thousands of miles away, I'm not sure of the time line to get this done, then there would be all the shipping and such as well? I hope Sean's shop does a good job for you, with a virgin crank they should be able to get 3,990" of stroke out of it. With a 3.990" stroke and your 10.190" deck height, that would still leave the pistons .020" in the hole!! That's why it is important that your shop can measure the actual deck height number without mocking anything up! Getting the actual measurement of the deck height instead of a comparison measurement from mocking up the assembly would of avoided the short compression distance situation. Thanks Sean for lending a hand to Ivan, I wish yous guys were closer so I could of been more helpful, my best wishes for your build. If you plan on anymore engine builds I can help you by giving your shop a couple of pointers on how to measure actual deck heights and how to be able to parallel machine the deck to the mains using some simple spacers that are super easy to make if they have there own lathe. I actually made the spacers for Dave's machine to be able to "parallel mill" the deck to the mains. He was the same way with telling me I had to mock it up and I was like, what what? Then he showed me his machine and I said, oh I see why! Then I was like how about some spacers to slide over the IIRC that 2.250" bar, the size of the housing bores of the engine you are going to mill the deck? And he was like what what? And I say yeah, just indicate the spacers in, set the block's main saddle on the spacers on the proper 45* lock the block down on the spacers and ta da you're parallel milling the deck to the mains. He was like how do I measure to the mains and I loaned him my depth mics with the proper rod to measure the deck height and the switch turned on in his head and he can't remember even having to deal with the mocking up deal. If that crank shop near you will work with you to make things right and that they realize that you demand excellence, giving them a second chance wouldn't be such a bad thing(how are they going to learn?). That is if you plan on any more engine building after this one is done, if not just go with Sean's shop. And if Sean's shop isn't that far, then that's a good thing too because now you have a shop that hopefully you can trust a bit further. Set backs, delays and unforeseen incidents, sorry this is happening to your build. Derek
Years ago, Used to O.D. & I.D. grind spindle bearing journals and housing bores, large and small, 70lbs-5lbs. Undercut and regind after hard chrome plating to bearing tolerances. (50 mil-.0002). If the grinder had his table taper off slightly, he would have that .012 taper you are seeing.(for that length the crank is). Dressing the grinding wheel for such a short length, probably abt 1" width wheel, wouldn't affect the grinding that much. I used balanced 2" width silicon carbide wheels, 18" dia. Yes Straight is best! And scraping the ways wouldn't affect the taper. Good practice for the beds, ways, and bronze spindle bearings too. Very old tradesmen are still involved in doing that practice. Don't forget, you have to be careful with piston rock in the bore while measuring also!
The shop we are using this time is about 5 1/2 hours one way for me...so for Sean to drop it off, it saves me 11 hours of driving, or the shipping charges to get it there. They said they can have it done within the week, so I have already planned to drive up to get it when it's done, visit with some family, and meet Sean. Once we get the new crank installed and measured up, we will go with zero deck height by either cutting another 20 thou from both sides of the block, steel head gaskets, or take it off the heads. In the end...it will have the full 10.61:1 compression ratio on all cylinders.
With .020" in the hole and .020" head gaskets your quench would be @ .040" which is right in the range you want it. Its either buy the more expensive steel shim head gaskets or spring for the extra deck milling for the .040" fel-pro head gaskets. Is it the shops fault that Scott B. went .025" short with the pistons? If so then the shop should mill the extra .020" at no extra charge so you can use the lessor expensive head gaskets seeing how you have to get new pushrods anyway because of the roller cam. Seems like if the shop could of measured the deck height to the number after they cut it then the pistons could of been ordered to the number without guessing the number and they would be what they're supposed to be. Maybe if you point that out they'll machine the extra .015" to .020" off the deck? Derek
It would be awesome, if the shop grinding the new crank could make it a perfect 4.000" stroke. I know that isn't possible, but even if they can get it to 3.990" that's 0.020" more stroke then we gave now. (3.970")
Fingers crossed for 3.99 stroke LOL! Then in my opinion bite the bullet and if the pistons still sit in the holes a bit then mill the block to get a zero deck. Randy the shop owner there at the engine shop was looking at me like I had two heads when I was talking about the Buick 350 specs and what I am doing with the turbos and such.... He did not have to say it I heard what he was thinking "these Buick guys are completely nuts", and he is right but at least we are different.
Got home at midnight last night. Picked the crank up on Friday. They said the mains were perfect, so they didn't do anything but a light polish on them. I asked how much stroke they were able to get, and he replied, 3.990" so 0.020" more than we had before. WooHoo! Only 10 cubic inch shy of a full 383ci. (3.860 x 3.860 x 3.990 x .7854 x 8 =373.53) We will take it to the shop Monday afternoon...but can't set it in, because now we need standard main bearings. (We have 0.010" under presently, so they will have to order them in....probably a couple days.)
Also got to meet up with Sean and his wife and kids. Super nice people. Can't wait to get together again, and talk more about litterly everything! (Should be a car show this summer we can gtg at.) Thanks again Sean, I know you're an extremely busy guy with everything going on, and to have taken the time out of your ridiculous busy schedule to find your pristine, virgin crank and take it in for us is incredible . Not many people that would be willing to do that for anyone now a days. Greatly appreciated.
Excellent! A 373 should run nice, 23 extra cubes will help out a lot with low end torque. Now you have more cubes than some of the big blocks made! You can actually call it a 374 because we round up when the decimal point is above .5 which yours is 373.5313 that is over .5 so rounded up is 374! But if 373 sounds cooler to you then you can round down, dealers choice. Thanks for helping Sean, I would of donated a crank but shipping would of made things even more pricey, besides you were probably helping Sean out to clean up some of his horde pile. Hopefully you got a refund from the hack crank shop the effed up your original crank too. Hopefully you'll have smooth sailing from now on? GL Derek
Thanks for the kind words, so sorry I was tight on time... I am sunburned, sore all over but got the new roof on my rental house all done... It was great meeting you as well, I love the father/son projects! Take care and keep in touch!
Well we dropped the crank off yesterday, and got an update on the heads...still nothing done to them.... I called earlier in the morning and asked them to order a set of standard main bearings, so that was done. Talked to the shop crew, and manager about the build, and they asked if we had a balancer for them, so they could balance the assembly once everything checked out for proper clearance. That's when I explained we had two balancers, one that was not in the best of shape, and the one on the engine in my son's car right now....and after a small informative debate, they convinced my son to buy a new aftermarket balancer. (Why skimp on something so important at this point, right?) So we will be ordering up a new balancer from TA Performance today. Gettin closer!
Just be sure to get the external balanced version of the balancer unless you want to go to a nuetral balance balancer and nuetral balanced flexplate. Personally I would just but a rebuilt stock one from "damper dudes"
Good to hear you're making progress. Question for ya, what year crank did Sean hook you up with? If its a later model cap screw rod crank you may be able to have the crank internally balanced without adding weight. If its an earlier model one, don't even bother trying to internal balance it, they WILL have to add weight to do that. Worth looking into, you can get a really nice internal balance v6 balancer that will fit a sbb 350 crank IIRC. If you have it internal balanced, the shop won't need the balancer or flex plate to balance it. They will need to set up the bob weights on the crank anyway to balance it so have them do it without balancer and flex plate first to see if it will neutral balance without adiing any weight. You can tell them to go ahead and internal balance it if they don't need to add any weight, if they need to add weight, order the external balancer and have them wait until that shows up to finish balancing. You'll need a neutral balanced flex plate to match the internal balance balancer. IIRC the weight is welded on the flex plate if you ordered that already you maybe able to grind the weight off to make it neutral balance? Contrary to what Sean suggests, get a better balancer than a factory rebuild. I would hate to hear that your balancer flung apart while the engine is being revved to 7,000 + RPM! A factory unit might hold up but why take the chance on something that was NEVER intended to see more than 5,000 RPM. You have that huge roller cam that will want to spin to win that will probably still be pulling to 7,000 RPM if the lifters let it, if not it will still be a beast to 6,500 RPM which is still 1,500 RPM more than the factory ever intended the sbb 350 to spin. What does everyone else think, better balancer for this build or a "stock" rebuilt one? Derek
Part number TA-2027 ordered. External balance, SFI approved. I remember Sean saying this crank was from an earlier Buick 350, so it's lighter right off the get-go. I gotta throw this damn 2015 TA catalog away....prices have jumped a lot since then.... $465.00 in 2015, now $550.00 in 2017.
Seems like a good deal from TA. BHJ site lists that balancer at $681.25! We need Derek to customize a "Rattler" to fit a Buick 350.
Thanks for reminding me, I forgot all about that! Need to measure one of my BBC cranks I have laying around because we already looked at the puny sbc crank that won't work! To bad because those are less expensive than their big brother's balancer! We're talking the neutral balance ones if anyone was wondering. Derek
I do agree that an SFI damper is a must for 7000 RPM I did not know he was planning to spin it that high...
Yeah, go back and look at that monster cam he ordered! Not sure if the hydraulic roller lifters will let it spin that fast though, but 6,500 RPM should be no problem. But what he paid for his lifters they should be the limited travel high rev hydraulic race lifters so he may indeed be able to spin that fast!? Derek
