New Dart big m
02-24-2008, 07:42 PM
#11
Senior Member
DYNO OPERATOR
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: VA Hospital, Dallas, Tx (214 302 1924) cell-972-464-7400
Posts: 540
The Merlin III Block will probably be fine for you. It is heavy and beefy.
I suggest to check or get someone to check the main bores for size and alignment, Hone the cylinder walls the minimum amount to take out most of the marks. You won't need to take them all out. I know it sounds uts bt trust me on this one. If you buy custom pistons you can buy for any bore you want. My piston that I have made by BRC is always on the oney and I usually have it all bored and honed even before the pistons are here, because I know what size they will measure. I can do any size or any piston you want when doing custom pistons. I do the design different depending on the application and the engine.
We always do our best to use what the customer has already if at all possible.
Ed
I suggest to check or get someone to check the main bores for size and alignment, Hone the cylinder walls the minimum amount to take out most of the marks. You won't need to take them all out. I know it sounds uts bt trust me on this one. If you buy custom pistons you can buy for any bore you want. My piston that I have made by BRC is always on the oney and I usually have it all bored and honed even before the pistons are here, because I know what size they will measure. I can do any size or any piston you want when doing custom pistons. I do the design different depending on the application and the engine.
We always do our best to use what the customer has already if at all possible.
Ed
02-25-2008, 07:22 AM
#12
Senior Member
RACING JUNKIE
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 4,137
Originally Posted by altereddoug
On a budget what would be a better block to buy?
I doubt if I could afford a new block that is cnced to exact specifications. In a perfect world I would love to have one, but the reality is that most bracket racers can't. The masses of older Gm blocks would probably fail miserably if you were to probe them.
Basically what I am getting at is that this post really makes me wander what to do. Becasue on my limited budget I previuosly bought a short block from a east coast builder, complete 540 bbc with a merlin 3 block. And I ran it about 60-70 passes. Inspected the bearings a few weeks ago just to inspect it and found that it had some slight bearing damage. So I pulled it all the way apart and had the crank ploished. Then while cleaning the pistons off I noticed that they were wearing funny. So I measured the P/W clearance and it varied from .0075 to .0085 and spec from wiseco was .005. And #1 cylinder had a nice .003 scratch down the side. So it was eother bore it .030 ( because it was cheaper than going .010 for the pistons), buy new pistons,rings and have it rebalanced or sell the block and buy a new one and keep the rotating assembly.Which had just a very slight wear on the skirts and top ring land. Where as, I would still be almost the same in price for upgrading to a better billet main block. Unless I have to spend a additional 500-800 in block preparation.
Decisions, decisions..
I doubt if I could afford a new block that is cnced to exact specifications. In a perfect world I would love to have one, but the reality is that most bracket racers can't. The masses of older Gm blocks would probably fail miserably if you were to probe them.
Basically what I am getting at is that this post really makes me wander what to do. Becasue on my limited budget I previuosly bought a short block from a east coast builder, complete 540 bbc with a merlin 3 block. And I ran it about 60-70 passes. Inspected the bearings a few weeks ago just to inspect it and found that it had some slight bearing damage. So I pulled it all the way apart and had the crank ploished. Then while cleaning the pistons off I noticed that they were wearing funny. So I measured the P/W clearance and it varied from .0075 to .0085 and spec from wiseco was .005. And #1 cylinder had a nice .003 scratch down the side. So it was eother bore it .030 ( because it was cheaper than going .010 for the pistons), buy new pistons,rings and have it rebalanced or sell the block and buy a new one and keep the rotating assembly.Which had just a very slight wear on the skirts and top ring land. Where as, I would still be almost the same in price for upgrading to a better billet main block. Unless I have to spend a additional 500-800 in block preparation.
Decisions, decisions..
JMO
