I am using late model rods that have been maged, shopeened, polished and resized with ARP bolts. Hope these will stay together until I can build a serious short block. This engine is to get my wife and daughter trained to race and then we will get serious with another big block in the car or a aluminum rod, light piston seriously ported heads and turn it up. I almost wish I had not fooled with this 350. Seemed like a good idea at the time but I will have as much money in it as another BBB and 200 less HP. I had the car together and ran it at one NMCA race in Open Comp, but I thought it would have been a hand full for the girls, so I decided to go small block and it's a year later and still not together. If I can get a little more weight out of the car and some serious compression and good heads I think we can go low 11s and keep it together, then again I may be fooled. JIm Nethelrand
Jim if you are talking about running low 11's in your car with 350 I see no reason why not . What does your car weigh now ? Mine has been 11.90's @3980 , full exhaust and manifolds . I feel if I put it on a serious diet and headers I could drop some good numbers . Er let me rephrase that , if I still had that motor , its running dirt track now .
The car will weight about 3250 with me in it. It hooked extremely well with the 455. That was the problem. I didn't want the girls driving it with the wheels 3 feet in the air. JIm N.
I fully understand about letting the girls drive with the wheels in the air . The 41 Willys I am building , my wife wants to drive it some but I will have to de-tune for her . It is a blown hemi on alcohol .
Checked with Venolia and they're very flexible. Recommended shorter pin heights so the 6.5" length would probably be the better choice. Waiting to hear from you. Jim
I guess I misunderstood the post. I'd still like to have the 6.5" rods if any are available though. So anyway I have a question. How well will the 350/340 stock crank stand up to having the rod journals cut down to 1.850? Let's say for a motor that wasn't expected to go over 500hp or 7000rpm for instance, do you guys who know about such things think it'd live OK in a street engine or would it just be too weak? I can get some Arrow billet rods that are 6.400 long, right width, and priced right. But it's priced wrong if I break the crank. Jim
OK, how about a 7" rod, C-C. Ring package might be a little tight and rod ratio is about 1.8 but is there any reason not to use it? Jim
