I will be running the edelbrock 420 horse package here in a few weaks, on a cast crank turned .20. The rods are stock along with the bolts. I will also be shooting up with a 150 shot of juice, will they hold it? thats 550 horse on stock rods, nitrous wont be all the time though.

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Bright red 87 GTA with 350 tuneport. Basic mods such as K&N filter, Flowmasters, Wells MAF, TPIS air foil, Accel 8.8mm plug wires with , Accel distributor cap and rotary buttons.Gutted cat. B&M Shift kit, 100HP shot Nitrous, soon to change over to carburator.

 

i'd go for some new ones, but thats me, its your engine

 

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the stock fasteners wont cut it up that high either. get a set of decent rods and ARP fasteners to go with forged pistons if the budget allows. A stock small block bottom end can hold a lot, But 550 HP might be asking a bit too much

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91 RS W/carbed 350, Vortec heads, performer rpm, Comp cams Xtreme energy 280 grind. BFG Drag radials. 3.42 posi,Corvette servoed 700r4, ****ty stock converter
13.24@104

 

Horsepower dosen't kill rods RPM kills rods. I would definatley get ARP bolts but as long as your not spinning a lot of RPM I don't know if I would worry about the rods. If you want the stock rods to be a little stronger than you can beam polish and shotpeen them wich will increase the strength by about 30%. It also depends on how heavy the roatating asembly is if your using heavy pistons it's going to put more load on the rods. Rods don't usually break and if they do it's usually due to a rod bolt faliure and not the fact that the rod wasn't strong enough. If you decide to use the stock rods make sure you have them magnafluxed.

 

My engine finally let go after about 200 passes down the track. The bottom end was bone stock and had a lot of street miles on it also. I was shifting at 6400 rpm and red lined at 7000.

The reason to upgrade the rod bolts is because of how stock bolts stretch. That's when the rod bolt will fail. When the piston comes up to TDC, all the mass of the piston and rod is trying to go up through the head. When it comes to a stop, the rod bolts are the only thing keeping the piston from hitting the head. When the stock bolts stretch and break, damage is produced (look at the pics on my web pages). ARP bolts have a higher strength and can withstand much more abuse before they fail.

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Stephen's racing page

87 IROC-Z Pro ET Bracket Race Car and knocking on the SuperPro ET class
383 stroker (carbed) with double hump cast iron heads and pump gas
454 Big Block buildup now in progress for the 2001 racing season

Best results before the 383 blew up
Best ET on a time slip: 11.857
Best corrected ET: 11.163
Best MPH on a time slip: 117.87
Best corrected MPH: 126.10
Best 60 foot: 1.662

Racing at 3500 feet elevation but most race days it's over 5000 feet density altitude!
Member of the Calgary Drag Racing Association

87 IROC bracket car
91 454SS daily driver
95 Homebuilt Harley

 

Another nice thing about the ARP's is that they are magnafluxed from the factory. Stock bolts are not.