360 Stroker

[TrxR]

I am looking for opinions on Indy's 408 stroker kit and there Rectangle port aluminum heads??
Should a person go with the Steel crank for the extra 425.00 and do you realy need the Eagle 3D rods or would the Eagle Sir I beam be enough??
Also does anyone make a Standard sized 360 piston for these kits? Or would a newer non magnum block be safe at 30 over??
Last question is with aluminum heads whats should I run for compression for running 92 oct maximum???

[AAR4fun]

I just built a 415 working with Indy Cylinder Head for the design and machine work.

I used a 72 360 block bored .060, used main studs, eagle sir rods and custom Wisco pistons. ICH stocks the pistons as part of their kits but I had them align bore the block and set the deck height. Once this was complete the shelf pistons were .005" out of the block. Top ring was too high in the block so custom pistons were made up for the engine.

I chose the sir rods because of their weight to strength plus they fit in the block without grind for clearance. You just have to be careful with these rods because there were some manufacturing defects in a few of the batches. I was aware of this and had ICH inspect each of the rods.

There was a lot of time spent on my part blueprinting and mock assembly to make sure everything fit.

It's together now running the ICH SA-1 cam and ported Edelbrock heads, small tube headers and a 6pak. It is nothing like the 340 that came out of the car. Once the end carbs begin to open the beast comes to life and tires loose traction.

That's in 3rd...

[tsteiner61]

Keith Black makes a 408 stroker piston in 360 std. size. Part number 356. Summit part number UEM-KB356. Only thing is it's a T6 hyperute, not forged.

With aluminum heads and only pump gas all the time, I would set up for like 9.75-10 CR as the added cooling of the aluminum heads will allow for an extra 1/2 pt. and 9.5 is usually the max for pump gas with having to retard the timing which really defeats the point IMO.

I would opt for the lesser rods if budget is a concern. The guys at Muscle Motors, who I think know their stuff well, told me those rods are good to 450hp and maybe more. It sounds like the buildup is street oriented so save the cash.

Same with the crank. Steel cranks are for the hardcore racing guys. With the correct tolerances and installation, the MPP cast crank is IMO the best buy on the market right now, and I have been told by a number of reliable sources that these are good to about 450hp as well.

1974-1992 360 blocks are pretty much all thinwall castings. All the Mopar books say .030 over is safe, but personally I wouldn't throw 408 stroker power at a .030 over thinwall casting. I once bought a crate thinwall that was bored .040 over and the entire #6 cylinder cracked top to bottom after only 10 miles. Only good casting for 360 is 3418496, all the rest are not really suited for an overbored performance buildup. MPP sells shortblock assemblies bored at .020, but given my past experience and the experiences of others I know, I wouldn't buy one of them.

And heed AAR4fun's advice about mocking all your parts. The KB pistons I ordered were mismachined and without mockup I never would have known. Aftermarket Mopar QA is notoriously bad.

Hope this helps.

[tooomuch2]

I have built several strokers...

depends on what your going to do with them (I mean how mean and how much money do you want to spend).

Are you going to use Nitrous? If so how much?

I generally always use steel cranks but that's me (But my lowest HP stroker is about 540 HP with out bottle and they go up from there). With aluminum heads and the right cam / manifold / timing combination you can run 11 to 11.5 with aluminum on 92 octane and 10.5 to 11 with cast iron.

BTW - W5 is so much better alum head than the edelbrock. I would buy a W5 or an Indy SB head before I would buy an edelbrock. However, I am not a fan of one thing edelbrock makes for Chrysler - it's pretty much all junk Sh*t - or perhaps better said - very unimpressive 1985 chevy engineering turned mopar! But that's just my opinion...

Heck... Even my chevy friends don't use edelbrock sh*t...

[AAR4fun]

Personally I have no complaints with my heads. I didn't buy them directly from Edelbrock though. Mine came from Indy Cylinder Head, who only buys the castings from Edelbrock and finishes them with their machine work and parts. They work great given the constraints of being designed around stock intake, exhaust & valvetrain configurations.

Would I buy them again??? Probably not, simply because there are now products on the market better suited for my application.

2cents...

[TrxR]

The purpose of this motor will mainly be street but will see some track time. I am looking for this motor to pull my newly aquired 87 dakota through the quarter in the mid to low 12's. Nitrous is not going to be used.

[tooomuch2]

That's not to hard to accomplish...

You can do that on Ported Iron heads, 10/1 compression and a cast crank.

Mkm

[cuda66273]

"You just have to be careful with these rods because there were some manufacturing defects in a few of the batches."

Humm....what, they spilled a little rice in the press as they were forging them.....sorry Eagle rods are 100% made in Red China as we've disscussed here on several occasions.

[tooomuch2]

Cuda -

How are you testing them before you use them to find the defects..

Mike

[AAR4fun]

Toomuch,

I assume your post is refering to verifying the quality of the rods.

As posted in a previous post, these rods are manufactured over seas. The problem I was aware of involved batches produced prior to Feb 2001. They were not machined correctly and the big end was out of specs enough to not hold the bearings in place under stress. To correct the problem is not cost justifiable.

What I did was have a competent machine shop verify the machine work on the rods were within tolerance. In other words blueprint them.

Mine came from a batch produce in Feb of 2001 and were fine. It's typical to have a few problems on initial production runs, it's not typical for the problems to slip through quality and get to market.