I will be running the edelbrock 420 horse package here in a few weeks, 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.

 

It's not torque that kills a motor. It's RPM. Stock bolts even correctly torqued are not gonna be happy past 6000 for long. And with the nitrous on the motor will easily sing right past 6000 if you don't watch yourself.

Word of caution about nitrous from someone who uses it: DON'T EVER RUN LEAN. Not every now and then, not once, not EVER! Build the mother of all fuel delivery systems. My Carter high volump block-mounted pump ran out of fuel pressure around the mid 13s due to the long draw from my Malibu's fuel tank (NOT lack of pump capacity!). Fuel pressure drops can happen even when you don't think they could. MEASURE fuel pressure at the carb and the fuel solenoid by getting a guage and flex line and DUCT TAPING THE GUAGE TO YOUR WINDSHILED (temporarily!) so you KNOW for sure if you have a problem.


[This message has been edited by Damon (edited November 13, 2000).]

 

Do the rods need to be resized when u use different rod bolts? Thanks for the info man, I hope to have plenty of fuel.

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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.

 

is this the wrong forum? ? ?

 

It's not the right forum but we'll get the question answered pretty quick, just the same.

You don't have to resize the rods just becuase you are using different rod bolts than stock. Aftermarket bolts are designed to be stock replacements and fit right into the rods.

Resizing involves changing the diameter of the connecting rod bearing area (the big open circle on the bottom of the rod that connects to the crankshaft) and/or the wrist pin hole up at the top of the rod. It would be up to your machine shop (whoever is building the engine) if you need to have this procedure done. The only reason you absolutely need to resize the rods is if the bearing seating area has gotten out-of-round and won't take a stock bearing any more.


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94 Firebird Formula M6- No options but Z rated tires. No mods over $10. 13.5@105.
79 Malibu "beater" w/junkyard 400 SBC, tweaked QJet 4bbl, finally a decent set of heads, a few other tricks. A maddening 13.000001 @ 108 on the motor with little traction. No nitrous runs with the new heads yet.
Grandma's old 78 Malibu (33K miles!) soon to have the powertrain from the 79 put in it.

"One of the last remaining QJet tuners on Planet Earth!"

 

Well, now that that's pretty answered, i'm moving to general tech

 

You should always re-size rods after putting in new bolts. Even if you take the stock ones out and then reuse them. When you press rod bolts out and then press them back in they do not register in the same spot and will distort the big end by a couple thousands. Which is enough to cause bearing problems.