Off-season engine freshen

[anitrowarrior9]

I'm curious what level of refresh most of you do?
In my case I have a 440/493 that runs 10.50s 1/4 and 6.50s 1/8.
M1 intake, stock rpm heads, smallish solid roller, eagle rotating assembly.
Thanks.

 

[Jeremiah (jd)]

Is the engine still performing to your expectations? Gaskets, bearings and piston rings should be visually inspected. Roller lifter, rockers, cam ans oil punp/pump drive should also be examined. I'd also takes the heads in for a refresh on the valve job and if needed a refresh on the cylinder bores if the ceoss hatch is worn.

 

[anitrowarrior9]

Yeah it runs great! It smokes a little when I leave, the bottom end has been together for quite awhile though. I went through the heads in the middle of the year, new valves, springs, locks, retainers, pushrods, and new rockers. When I had the heads off I noticed a small groove in 1 cylinder so I figured it would get a bore and hone, new pistons, rings, bearings and mag the crank. I have rebuilt lifters to put in also. Also ill put in a fresh trans and send the converter in for freshening. At what point are people replacing rods and or rod bolts?

 

[MOPARMAGA]

Yeah it runs great! It smokes a little when I leave, the bottom end has been together for quite awhile though. I went through the heads in the middle of the year, new valves, springs, locks, retainers, pushrods, and new rockers. When I had the heads off I noticed a small groove in 1 cylinder so I figured it would get a bore and hone, new pistons, rings, bearings and mag the crank. I have rebuilt lifters to put in also. Also ill put in a fresh trans and send the converter in for freshening. At what point are people replacing rods and or rod bolts?

Your rods could just be magna fluxed checked for cracks, if they're forged rods they might last the entire engine life and on to the next.
People are racing with 50+ year old rods all the time....
I'm not sure about the bolts, but I'm interested to hear what guys have to say.
One thing that needs to be checked if you do replace the rod bolts with a dial bore gauge to the tenth .0001 is the i.d. of your big end.
Check them torqued with your old bolts and rechecked with new bolts torqued up. If it's tighter by even a tenth, I would send them in to get resized, just honed round again.

 

[moparstud440]

I typically go around 400-500 runs before I "freshen" up my engines. I always tried to do it during the off season. A freshen up for me is usually includes new rod and main bearings and gaskets as long as everything looks okay. When I used to race weekly from April-Oct that would be about every 2 years. Now that racing is a lot lower on my priority list my last refresh was 2 years ago and I only have about 75 runs on my combo since. At this pace I figured this freshen up will probably last me 10 years. I do run a milder, lower maintenance combo for today standard those with 10.5:1, running on pump gas, with a .557 MP flat tappet solid cam. Shift at 6,000 and mainly only run 1/8th mile anymore.

 

[71Demon528]

New rings, bearings, head gaskets and other gaskets. New valve springs, rebuild lifters or replace (depending on run count). New belt, crank seal, and cam seal (belt drive). ATI damper sent to ATI to be rebuilt. (I no longer run the ATI damper but when I did, I had it rebuilt with every overhaul)

Rods and crank get magnafluxed. Check the runout on the crank to make sure it’s not bent. New rod bolts with the big end checked (as stated by others above). Pistons get skirts re-coated.

As for machining, align hone, torque plate hone, and valve job (if necessary).