My street/strip 302 is morphing into a full drag setup this season. What is the best budget minded rod for an 8,000RPM, 500HP 302? My current stock, polished and shot peened rods are my weakest link. I was looking at the Scat or Eagle I beams.
I run the eagle H beam with the ARP2000 bolts, I make around 540 hp and turn 8600rpm, the scats and eagles are both china rods. whatever rod you use, make sure you have the big ends checked, it seems that sometimes when they install the 2000 bolts, they take the others out and just put the 2000s in, the problem is they are a higher torque and distort the hole, it is a common problem that gets over looked. Duane
^^^^^^ this^^^^^^ But PROBE Sportsman Racing Series pistons with ARP upgraded bolts have held up for me pretty well.
Thanks guys for all of your input. The true HP and RPM will more than likely end up a little less, but I'd rather guess over than under. So it's looking like Scat I beam or Eagle H beam with upgraded bolts. I would like to keep the rotating assembly as light as possible with the stock block.
I think you are right at the edge with a stock 2 bolt block at 500hp and 8000 rpm, I think 450hp is fine, if you think you are gonna be just under 500hp, I would suggest a main stud girdle, I ran the DSS one on mine for a while, but once I went to the roller and went to 8500, I upgraded to an a4 block. but if you line hone the mains, and use the main stud girdle, I think you will be ok. Duane
I'm running reworked Canfields with a Parker intake. Also have ARP main studs with a girdle. The lifter bores are bushed and centered.
in order to make those cheaper i-beam rods work at that power level.. and more importantly.. this rpm level.. you need to have the lightest pistons you can posssbly afford. In this situation, I would even opt for thinner/lighter ring packages(less drag too) combined with shorter pins(lighter piston designs will already have shorter pins) and pay the extra money for tapered/or thinner wrist pins too. The h-beams will be much heavier, add slightly to the windage losses(especially at this rpm level), but give far greater stength margins without the need to spend as much on lightning up the piston package to keep the rod alive. I actually prefer a really light i-beam at more moderate power levels like this because there is some extra power to be had with their benefits.. but you must spend more money to lighten things up for the sake of longevity at higher rpm. And.. Boss302 knows his stuff in regards to not trusting these cheaper rods. Many horror stories and I've had a few sets out of spec straight out of the box. Also keep in mind that some aftermarket suppliers will order/stock the cheaper bolt'd version and just install their own bolt upgrades to make some extra cash on their parts purchases. The rods should ALWAYS be machined with the actual bolts being used.
Thanks for your input guys, looks like I will be going with the Scat I beams and the ARP 2000 bolts. I'm confident my machinist will make em right, he's a perfectionist.
No problem. I've used several sets for mine and others builds in the past few years and they are decent for the cash as long as you make damned sure they're right on spec' and better matched to the combo before hanging the pistons off of em'. And just so you know.. I was dead serious about lightning things up to make those rods live. Reason I say this again is because.. IIRC.. they are only rated to around 500 horse @ 7,500 rpm. The nice thing about the little Fords is that the rod ratio(more importantly.. the rod angle) is more livable for lessor quality rods like these and lighter assemblies add even greater strength margin in the long run. The last really nice set of similar budget rods(Eagle SIR's with 3/8 inch ARP L19 series capscrews) I did up was for my Blazers 383 motor freshening and that thing pushes just over 500 horse at right about 6,800 rpm these days. But that's the detuned version of this motor from it's original solid roller configuration of 563 horse at around 7,150rpm before I detuned it to go back onto the street with it. I've pushed that thing past 7,600 several times(typical shift points of 7,400) when it had 4.10's gears in it and even touched above 8,600 once when I missed a manual shift for my 700r4 and found out real quick that my rev limiter chip had been inadvertantly left out of my ignition module. Luckily I didn't slap any valves that time. To give perspective here.. my Chev's 6" rods finished total weight after some serious grinding and meticulous sculpting was about 517 grams and swung pistons(including the optional .090 thin walled 2.5" pins) weighing around 499 grams. I also hunted around to find a shop that still did shotpeen work(tougher than you think these days) and had them done twice to help harden the newly ground and poilshed surface back up to spec again. Your 5.090 rod lengths should be fairly light to begin with.. but there's still some uneccesary meat that can be removed from the beams to lighten things up without reducing the shoulder/big end/pin end strength. Piston weight will still be fairly important with that rod choice though and without a really light design being used to reduce G's on that rod?.. you may even consider moving to another mfgrs choice with their larger 7/16 bolt offering. Or.. adding some upgraded L19's at only slight price increase over the ARP 2000's would be the least I would do here. Not everyone can afford Crower or Oliver rods and it's still good bang for the buck as long as you make sure it'll live without failure. Good luck with it.
