Butters "Winter Upgrades". . Starting a Little Early
Love the attention to detail Dan. This thing is going to be a monster! I didn't mic anything on my 5.7. I put it back the way I found it. If it was good enough for the chrysler assembly line, its good enough for me....lol
I really enjoy it and hate it at the same time. There's alot of details to this one and if I hadn't really dug in and did a ton of homework, I might have overlooked some pretty important steps.. If you look at the rod, you'll see that the journal bore is chamfered. That's only on one side of the rod and it needs to face the counterweight. Also, the pistons are labeled D and S, which is a small blurry stamp on the bottom off the piston (valve relief). Obvious if you look at the piston tho. So they are directional and there is a left and a right. With the 2 of those details combined, you really have to pay attention to how you assemble the piston/rod sets. Something else these pistons have is the lower oil ring support because the piston pin actually passes through the lower rail. just something I've not dealt with before. Easy enough tho.
So many details and when all of them are combined.. The deep clean, slug assemblies, ring gaps, rod/main clearance, mixing bearings, rod bolt stretch and then questioning every detail repeatedly, even at times feeling like you need to take it apart and check it all over again... Dion can relate with these thoughts, I'm sure.
It's definitely not something that a guy is gonna toss together in a day or maybe even a weekend. I've had a few delays, waiting on parts but I've got plenty of time. The 5.7 in Hoopty went together much like yours. Everything looked great and it all just went together.. Bada bing, bada boom.