{"id":3881,"date":"2014-03-06T13:44:40","date_gmt":"2014-03-06T21:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=3881"},"modified":"2016-11-30T15:26:47","modified_gmt":"2016-11-30T23:26:47","slug":"horsepower-in-a-box-what-to-look-for-inside-a-crate-motor-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/horsepower-in-a-box-what-to-look-for-inside-a-crate-motor-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Horsepower in a Box: What to Look for Inside a Crate Motor, Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Crate<\/a>\u201cHorsepower in a box\u201d is nothing new.\u00a0 Yours truly sold a considerable number of Chevy LS7 454 motors in a speed shop over three and a half decades ago (at one time, we had 14 of them stacked to the ceiling, but I digress). There wasn\u2019t much choice then:\u00a0 Chevy sold the LS7 and a few different short blocks and that was it.\u00a0 Chrysler didn\u2019t have a crate motor and neither did Ford.\u00a0 Equally important, those early Chevy crate motors were pretty much an assemblage of parts.\u00a0 They were meant to be disassembled, inspected, clearanced and reassembled.\u00a0 Honestly, some were decent inside. Others weren\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to today.\u00a0 All three Detroit automakers offer a huge number of crate motors. So do an equally large number of engine builders.\u00a0 When you search the Internet for \u201ccrate motor\u201d, you get more than 2.6 million hits!\u00a0 Yikes.\u00a0 Sure that doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re all available motors, but you the get the picture.\u00a0 The reality is, there are a number of decisions that must be made before you decide which crate engine to buy (or if you are a crate engine buyer in the first place).\u00a0 What kind of decisions?\u00a0 There might be more than you think.<\/p>\n

Figure Out The Mission <\/b><\/p>\n

One of the biggest decisions you have to make is to honestly evaluate the mission of the power plant.\u00a0 For example, if you need to replace the tired big block in your motor home, you certainly aren’t going to slide a romping stomping, roller cammed, high compression ratio 572 under the dog house.\u00a0 On the other hand, if you have a dual-purpose muscle machine that sees regular track duty, you’ll likely need (or want) more horsepower than an RV-style engine can supply.\u00a0 You will find that when you go through the lists of available crate engines, some are more suited to certain applications than others.\u00a0 First and foremost, decide what the engine is going to do.<\/p>\n

The Parts In The Mix<\/b><\/p>\n

Once you\u2019ve determined the mission, then you can start to look at the parts used in the mix.\u00a0 Different applications usually mandate different parts.\u00a0 For example, a nitrous engine will likely have a piston ring that’s down further on the piston and may have a thicker dome.\u00a0 An engine that’s destined for street strip duty will likely have steel rods.\u00a0 Meanwhile, a power plant that sees plenty of high RPM drag strip use might require aluminum rods.\u00a0 Because of those varying needs, let’s take a closer look at some of the options available inside crate engines.<\/p>\n

Cylinder Blocks:<\/b>\u00a0 The majority of crate engines are based upon iron blocks.\u00a0 Some use after market iron blocks.\u00a0 Some crate engines use aluminum blocks.\u00a0 Which is better?\u00a0 It depends.\u00a0 In some cases, to get the large displacement necessary for the engine combination, there is no choice but to use an aftermarket block.\u00a0 Many factory blocks just can’t accept massive crank strokes and\/or do not have the deck height necessary for very long stroke combinations (for example, some aftermarket big blocks can be ordered in deck heights roughly two-inches taller than a Chevy passenger car block).\u00a0 And in other cases, Detroit manufacturers have revised block castings, leaving out features that are desirable for certain applications (case-in-point:\u00a0 some late model Chevy crate motor blocks don’t have a provision for a mechanical fuel pump).\u00a0 Some aftermarket blocks incorporate wider-than-stock bore centers, which allow for larger cylinder bores.\u00a0 And some blocks use billet steel caps with splayed fasteners, which inherently, provide more ultimate bottom end strength (this feature is particularly useful in extreme output applications).<\/p>\n

Reciprocating Assemblies:<\/b>\u00a0 Over the years, the sheer numbers of different reciprocating pieces has increased manifold.\u00a0 Not that long ago, it was over the top to have a 4.25-inch stroke crank available for a big block.\u00a0 Today, it’s commonplace.\u00a0\u00a0 4.75-inch strokers are just as easy to find as “little” 4.25-inch jobs.\u00a0 Ditto with pistons and connecting rods.\u00a0 They’re pretty simple devices.\u00a0 And like crankshafts there are probably thousands of different combinations for the small block alone.\u00a0 As pointed out previously, some combinations are built for nitrous.\u00a0 Others are built to run on pump gas.\u00a0 Others built for superchargers and so on.\u00a0 Because of this, you have to really know what works for your combination.\u00a0 Remember too that some rods are available in aluminum.\u00a0 Others in steel.\u00a0 Then you have the option of “H” beam rods or “I” beam rods.\u00a0 Quality is another issue.\u00a0 Some parts in today’s marketplace are made offshore.\u00a0 Naturally, this drives the price downward, but it can also have an effect upon the overall quality of the engine.\u00a0 And believe it or not, the quality of the offshore parts varies greatly too.\u00a0 These are just some of the many issues you have to resolve when deciding upon the hardware that goes inside your engine.<\/p>\n

Next time around, we\u2019ll take a closer look at the top end of the engine (valve train and cylinder heads).\u00a0 As you can well imagine, there are plenty of options for you to consider, and we’ve got some of them in the photos below.<\/p>\n

This slideshow requires JavaScript.<\/p>

<\/div>\n

See other articles in “Horsepower in a Box” <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cHorsepower in a box\u201d is nothing new. But these days, there are far more options out there for crate motors. This four part series takes a look at what you need to know about a box full of power.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":3883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5008,11,9],"tags":[611,609,612,610,614,613,321],"class_list":["post-3881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engine","category-how-tos","category-tech-tips","tag-chevy-ls7-454","tag-crate-engines","tag-gm-performance-parts","tag-horsepower-in-a-box","tag-motorhome","tag-rv","tag-wayne-scraba"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Crate-1Feature.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-10B","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3881"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4275,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881\/revisions\/4275"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}