383 stroker kit questions?

[Ticker]

A Vortec 383 is perfection IMHO

I am not a Skip White fan, and I don't personally care for that kit. I see it as a real mismatch of parts. Cast crank (NOT FORGED, despite the headline), forged pistons and heavy stock-type rods that are clearance-ground.

They note themselves that the pistons are "700+ horsepower" (and another place, 800+ horsepower ) which a cast crank certainly won't hold. Note also that the assembly is not balanced which makes it a low-RPM kit. Frankly, I believe it would be very difficult to balance given the bobweight of the rotating ass'y. They also flat-out lie in their ad with this contradiction:

"We do our own balancing with a Hines balancer. Our machinist has been with us for 18 years. When we balance this setup, it will be within race engine specs. We include a balance sheet with your setup. We have noticed several rotating assemblies on the market, at surprisingly low prices, only to find they are not balanced. These sellers fail to even mention if they are balanced or not, but upon inquiry we quickly finds them not to be balanced, hence the lower price. Beware of such. "

AND:

We only offer the external balanced crank, as this offers much more clearance for the block than the internal cranks do. Using internal bal. cranks, may cause problems in clearance within the block, and oil pan. You must still check oil pan clearance before completing your engine.

This is complete and utter BS. They rip non-balanced assemblies, sidestep the fact that theirs isn't internally balanced and then cover up the fact they're using stock-type rods that require significantly clearancing by blaming it on the balance!

Another one I like is:

"SBC CHEVY SCAT 383 FORGED ROTATING ASSEMBLY FT 2PC+30 "

AND:

"SCAT 383 CAST NODULAR STEEL CRANKSHAFT RATED AT 500+ HP 2 PIECE MAIN STYLE."

My biggest bone with Skip White is their ad is full of - excuse me - BS. They throw out a lot of terms and "buzzwords" that either are misused or meant to spread FUD. Liars seldom make good business partners...

I seldom come out quite this hard, and I'm sure folks have made these assemblies work - but IMHO, they're junk. I caught a lot of Hell for this perspective in another post...but I can only call it the way I see it

[dznucks]

no offense taken at all, ticker. Thanks for the honest opinon.

I am not a skip white fan due to going through several of his distributors. That link might not have been to the correct kit i was looking at, but i did notice some of the discrepancies in the write-up. The only reason I was looking at his 383 kits was due to the fact that it was a Scat.

Which 383 Kits would you recommend?

[Ticker]

Originally Posted by dznucks

no offense taken at all, ticker. Thanks for the honest opinon.

Which 383 Kits would you recommend?

I just don't want to come off like a dick - I'm really not

I really like the Scat internally-balanced rotating ass'ys. A forged one is going to set you back $2K+ by the time it's ready to drop in. IMHO, the block should always be align-honed and studs used with a forged ass'y as we're planning on making some serious power and turning > 6K RPM.

I no longer purchase anything from Eagle due to continual quality control issues. On that, Skip White and I would agree

[GASoline71]

Originally Posted by Ticker

I seldom come out quite this hard, and I'm sure folks have made these assemblies work - but IMHO, they're junk. I caught a lot of Hell for this perspective in another post...but I can only call it the way I see it

Tick' ol' buddy... I couldn't agree more. I'm not trying to be a cheerleader, or to pig pile on Skip White's stuff...

But eventually one of these kits is gonna bite someone... and I sure wouldn't want it to be me.

Gary

[Ticker]

Originally Posted by GASoline71

But eventually one of these kits is gonna bite someone... and I sure wouldn't want it to be me.

It's such an odd mix of parts; they say a camel is a horse designed by committee...and evidently Skip White has a committee doing their package design

I'm not a super big fan of external balance - it works for sure and it's OK for a towing engine that's never going to see serious R's...but it is not a performance engine approach.

[matchstick]

There's a guy on Ebay called Super Engine Builders. He has great deals on 383 kits etc with name brand parts. He's in Chicago. His name is Frank Eskra. Get ahold of him and tell him matchstick sent you. www.gofaststuff.com

[dmartin1]

so if i have a block thats .030 fresh bore/hone whatever the only machining thats left would be clearence for the crank?

id love to turn my tired as hell 350 into some monster ha

[Ticker]

Originally Posted by matchstick

There's a guy on Ebay called Super Engine Builders. He has great deals on 383 kits etc with name brand parts. He's in Chicago. His name is Frank Eskra. Get ahold of him and tell him matchstick sent you. www.gofaststuff.com

I don't want to dis a guy you've had good luck with - but looks like his kits are all Eagle based.

After sending back a bunch of cranks that had unacceptable taper and were out of index, I gave up.

Just a note to check any Eagle cranks over *very carefully* before use.

[GASoline71]

Originally Posted by Ticker

I'm not a super big fan of external balance - it works for sure and it's OK for a towing engine that's never going to see serious R's...but it is not a performance engine approach.

Got a buddy of mine that has a '67 Chevelle with a P.A.W. 383 stroker long block in it... I had to tear it down for him right after he bought the car. Previous owner installed the External Balanced engine with the Internal balanced 350 flex plate and damper.

It ended up eating some of the main bearings and the vibes were horrible. He wanted to rebuild it with all brand internals. I tried to steer him toward an internally balanced kit from Skat. Pricey, but worth it...

He opted for some kit from Ebay to save money... Then come to find out, the new rods and crank he got were not clearance for the stroker kit, and the block from P.A.W. was clearanced poorly. So more machining, because he refused to use the rods that were already clearanced.

Needless to say... I put it together for him... the way he wanted... and told him, that when it comes apart, or you have problems later on. Don't come crying to me.

Now I'm not sayin' that I have deep pockets and expect everybody to pony up a lot of cash for BRAND NAME parts... but ya just gots to be careful of what you are gettin'.

I have learned tons from Ticker and cableguy here in the "Engines" forum in the last year, and it has been great! I've been building SNC's for a while, and it's nice to learn new tricks.



Gary

[Hottrucks]

Easy Ticker easy....lol

I have noticed in the past that an internal engine will last ALOT longer...chances are your not going to beat it like a race truck..not only that but is you want to squirt it, the parts will be of better quality and will tned to stay together longer....

I think a vortec 383 would be the balls.....If I had to guess your looking at and easy to drive 350 to 400 ponies with decent mileage....well when your foot isn't stuck in the carb

[Ticker]

Originally Posted by Hottrucks

Easy Ticker easy....lol

Yeah, I know I get kinda wound up

For a lot of guys, they only get one shot at engine building and there's not a lot of budget to fix stuff...so I get more than a little tweaked when a vendor takes someone off in a bad direction right out of the gate.

I do somewhere around 20 engines/year - just for fun; I don't charge for my time. I can't count the number of times I've quietly eaten $2-300 of machine work to fix junk a guy got from a vendor (or based on bad advice from someone that's never actually built an engine) that just wasn't right...and he didn't have the budget to fix.

Must....relax.....