Butters "Winter Upgrades". . Starting a Little Early
My new main bearings came in Saturday afternoon and I was able to resume putting this thing together. The MS2296Hs were fine, right outta the box. They actually came in a little better than the original set and I didn't need to do a split bearing. So the .001 set that came in a few days earlier can back and save me about 150 bucks. All of the main clearances came in at .0022 - .0023, which was within my target range.
Once I had the crank sat down in place, I moved on to spending more time on checking the rod bearings. Last weekend, I tossed a rod/bearing together and did some initial checking and thought I was going to be fine (over .002). As it turns out, I was a little light on my bolt stretch/torque, which has some effect on that... plus I forgot to lube my bolts, during that initial check. Add in the slight variations in journals and in the bearings and I'm actually under .002, coming in at .0017 -.018 on the few that I checked.. and plasitgauged one to verify readings. Such a fine line between feeling good about it and measuring everything repeatedly, trying to feel better. So, it looks like I'll be using split bearings here.. Once again, waiting on the next set of bearings to come.
I moved on to gapping the rings. I absolutely hate gapping rings.. the top ring mostly. I did set them at .028 because you just never know what's in the future. I'd rather be a little loose anyway.
After the rings, OCD was still in motion, so I went ahead and began scaling out the rod/piston combos. It's just something I've always wanted to do and I really don't know that it makes all that much difference. By finding lightest piston and pairing with heaviest rod yada yada, I was able to get down to a 1.59 gram difference between the heaviest assembly to the lightest.. including pin. Pins were really close.. 139-139.36. Worst case if I had just slapped it together and the lightest rod found the lightest piston, heaviest rod to heaviest piston, would have been a 4.34 gram difference between combos. Splitting hairs..
I did slip some rings onto #7 and OMG.. the expansion/oil rings can eat a bag of d!cks! Just downright maddening. Popped it into the bore for the plastigauge check and then one more block clearance check. I'll pop it back out when the new bearings get here.
I'm off next week, so I should be able to wrap the shortblock up. Heads are in the shop getting some pac springs and freshened up.. probably another week or two. The ship date for the Mellings oil pump keeps getting pushed out.. 2/7/25. I may just cancel it and go back to the Hellcat pump.
My new main bearings came in Saturday afternoon and I was able to resume putting this thing together. The MS2296Hs were fine, right outta the box. They actually came in a little better than the original set and I didn't need to do a split bearing. So the .001 set that came in a few days earlier can back and save me about 150 bucks. All of the main clearances came in at .0022 - .0023, which was within my target range.
Once I had the crank sat down in place, I moved on to spending more time on checking the rod bearings. Last weekend, I tossed a rod/bearing together and did some initial checking and thought I was going to be fine (over .002). As it turns out, I was a little light on my bolt stretch/torque, which has some effect on that... plus I forgot to lube my bolts, during that initial check. Add in the slight variations in journals and in the bearings and I'm actually under .002, coming in at .0017 -.018 on the few that I checked.. and plasitgauged one to verify readings. Such a fine line between feeling good about it and measuring everything repeatedly, trying to feel better. So, it looks like I'll be using split bearings here.. Once again, waiting on the next set of bearings to come.
I moved on to gapping the rings. I absolutely hate gapping rings.. the top ring mostly. I did set them at .028 because you just never know what's in the future. I'd rather be a little loose anyway.
After the rings, OCD was still in motion, so I went ahead and began scaling out the rod/piston combos. It's just something I've always wanted to do and I really don't know that it makes all that much difference. By finding lightest piston and pairing with heaviest rod yada yada, I was able to get down to a 1.59 gram difference between the heaviest assembly to the lightest.. including pin. Pins were really close.. 139-139.36. Worst case if I had just slapped it together and the lightest rod found the lightest piston, heaviest rod to heaviest piston, would have been a 4.34 gram difference between combos. Splitting hairs..
I did slip some rings onto #7 and OMG.. the expansion/oil rings can eat a bag of d!cks! Just downright maddening. Popped it into the bore for the plastigauge check and then one more block clearance check. I'll pop it back out when the new bearings get here.
I'm off next week, so I should be able to wrap the shortblock up. Heads are in the shop getting some pac springs and freshened up.. probably another week or two. The ship date for the Mellings oil pump keeps getting pushed out.. 2/7/25. I may just cancel it and go back to the Hellcat pump.