knock knock

stroke or not to stroke? with minor worked J heads

  • stroke to 416

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  • stroke to 372

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    8
i am currently debating if i am capable of assembling myself or let a local machine shop assemble it.

I know i want to go over the machining with a fine tooth comb to be sure things spec out.

I know how to spin wrenches and read specs so i am leaning on doing it myself, but someone that has to put up with my bad moods due to problems with dartie is leaning towards having a machine shop do it. I am looking at more of the finances to fund this build
 
Assembling an engine isn't exactly brain surgery, (but close to it...:shifty:). The main things are cleanliness & precision. And after you re-check, check it again. There's a lot of literature available to help walk you through it. Also there's more than a few members here that have gone that road more than once. Plus the money saved can be used for other niceties. And to top it off, there is no music ever recorded that sounds sweeter than that first fire-up after you screwed it together yourself. :cool:
 
this is why i wont let anyone assemble my engines...at least if i screw up i know who to blame..but even better..i know every thing about the build

Assembling an engine isn't exactly brain surgery, (but close to it...:shifty:). The main things are cleanliness & precision. And after you re-check, check it again. There's a lot of literature available to help walk you through it. Also there's more than a few members here that have gone that road more than once. Plus the money saved can be used for other niceties. And to top it off, there is no music ever recorded that sounds sweeter than that first fire-up after you screwed it together yourself. :cool:

I don't think your going to get any better advice then that....:2thumbs:
 
And to top it off, there is no music ever recorded that sounds sweeter than that first fire-up after you screwed it together yourself. :cool:

its about as close as you can get to child birth id assume.....not only is the engine built by you youve given it life and a pulse...its a feeling that cant be rivaled

as far as the work itself..its by no means dificult..but...shouldnt be rushed..or atleast..shouldnt be rushed untill you done a couple handfulls lol..ive done a few of them that i was litteraly out flogging them the same day i built them IE drove the car to pickup the fresh machined parts built the engine then ripped out the old engine dropped the new one in

if you follow a FACTORY shop manual its pretty hard to do anything wrong..and it dont get any easier than a mopar small block imo
 
All those professionals had to build their first engine at some point. They loved that feeling of accomplishment, too. They're what you call "addicts".

It's well within your abilities, and in my estimation it's not the most difficult task to accomplish when it comes to building a car. One advantage you've got is that you've already got your fuel/air system somewhat sorted, so when startup time comes you know that stuff works. Just drain the fuel completely right now, and bag it up for its shelf nap.

Build it yourself. You're a precision guy by nature and I think you'll really enjoy it.
 
ya i have everything sorted out. Just have to get the engine pulled

but i keep cycling back to stroker cranks and piston packages.
 
.......but i keep cycling back to stroker cranks and piston packages.
Ca-ching....ca-ching....ca-ching....that's the sound of somebody's cash register as you throw your money out the window trying to squeeze a baseball thru a garden hose. :doh:
 
NO stroker nonsense unless you go buy heads and an intake first

youd be better off getting your heads worked and the nastiest cam/piston setup you can and stick with the stock crank
 
Unless you luck into a good set of W2 or better heads at a reasonable price, you're wasting your time. Go back and read the first response to the question, then read 68R/T's last response, then start pricing out cylinder heads. Expect to drop $3,000+ on a totally-new top end to make the stroker worthwhile... adios, Six Pack and sayonara, J heads. Of course you could keep them, but you won't make any more power for all the money you spent on the long-arm crank. I haven't seen a single instance yet where anyone has, unless they've artificially aspirated it.
 
i am very partial to hold on to my six pack
hmm w2 and a one off made w2 six pack manifold:hmmm:

My brain is more convinced to stay with the 340 stroke and stock heads.
 
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OK, in the interest of fair disclosure I must tell you that running a Six Pack intake on a set of W2/W5 heads is not only possible, it's been done probably dozens of times. Is it easy? No. Inexpensive? Well, you work with machine tools so that may offset some of it but overall, no. It's also essentially irreversible, so if your intake has a Chrysler part number cast in it I definitely would not recommend it on that intake. It involves a whole bunch of TIG welding, redrilling, and tedious hand porting to work correctly. It's not really for the faint of heart, nor is it something I'd recommend attempting at home. It also looks like ass unless you really want to spend a lot of time with the die grinder. I have not seen one used on a stroker, but I would think the fact that it's a dual-plane intake wouldn't be as much of a detriment in that configuration as it would be on a stock-stroke engine.

One other possibility that would work would be "W1" heads, the 1970 T/A heads. Originals are obviously expensive but I had a set offered to me within the last year (I can't remember who it was, though) and Mopar Performance catalogued reproduction versions of them for a long time. You absolutely need the oddball rocker arms, which MP sold for many years as well. The T/A heads had the intake pushrods moved outboard from the intake ports, which allowed grinding that enormous clearance hump away for a straight port wall. The factory never ground it out or made a change to the casting, mind you--the porting was left up to the end user. The intake rocker offset isn't as much as W2/W5 heads and the rockers are getting hard to find, much like the other W-series stuff. The upside, of course, is that they're 100% stock port window so not only would your Six Pack work, the fact is that it's what every factory 340 Six Pack had from the factory for heads. Though they're based on the J castings you've already got, yours can't be modified to that configuration. You'd need new castings but could use your existing valves & springs, but you're still faced with the hard-to-find ductile-iron rockers and would have to have custom pushrods made.

In either case, you're still looking at a couple of thousand bucks worth of heads and valvetrain on top of the stroker combination, which for the record is not a bolt-in-and-go affair in the first place. Even if you buy an already-balanced assembly, you still have block clearances to grind out. To make any combination worth doing and keep your Six Pack setup, figure another $5,000 on top of what you've already got between the stroker kit, balancing, clearancing, and workable cylinder heads.

Regarding the largely-ignored (to this point) 372, which is actually a 373: I can't imagine why this combination exists. It's just a .070"-over 360. That big a bore is not recommended with any factory 360 block, but I can't imagine how the cost of the crank alone is worth the 5 cubes you gain over just just punching a factory 360 .040" over (368 cubes). Is it really that important to have "340" cast into the side of the block?
 
The Mopar engines my racer-buddy Dave Whitlock ran a few years ago in the Canadian Tire Nascar series were 372 cube versions, based on 360 blocks.
'Course they were basically full-on race engines and money wasn't the primary concern - kicking other manufacturer's engines and staying together for most of the season was. They did that pretty well. :)
I think they were W headed powerplants as well... with 390 cfm Holley carbs
Something like 400+ rear wheel horsepower and loads of low and mid-range torque to get them off the corners let them win a LOT of races.
 
id start by swappin in a 360 myself...just for the stump pulling power..wont wind as high but the torque is worth it
 
dont tell me about 360's ... i sold one that was stump pulling monster to stick with the 340 .. (more iconic muscle car engine in my families world)

but i did stumble on some w2's race version but undecided
 
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that IS the exception to the rule...but as i recall...with your speficis it was oddly better on smaller cubes but only maginaly?

i still wonder what a pair of hair dryers on a 273 would do...i say this cause those lil bastards like to wind out!!!!
 
A couple of little ones would probably turn it into a screaming retard, properly sized of course.
 

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