Ws6kid.

Guys,
Well i've been working on a Heads and Cam Set up for my car. I was just about to start building the engine when a close friend of mine asked if i got aftermarket rods. And i said "no... arnt they strong enough for my set up?" he said it would be the primary weak link in my set up even with arp bolts.

Here are the specs.
Trickflow 215's CC heads
Ms4 Cam
Forged pistons (the ones on my sig")
Ls6 Intake

Can some one give me some information on if i should get some aftermarket rods and can the stock ones hold up?

Thanks for reading.
Ws6kid.

93Z2871805

iTrader: (5)

Stock rods are pretty tough (usually rods are the weak link in most engines, however it seems the stock pistons are in the Gen III/IV engines), and if you've already had everything balanced and are getting ready for final assembly I would just use what you have. If it really bothers you, forged rods are about $325-$350 or you can look into going with the Gen IV floating style rods. Keep in mind that the LSA uses the same rods (floating) as every other Gen III/IV and they are pushing 580hp with a 100,000 mile warranty. Although FWIW, if you were to go with forged rods, you're bottom end would be able to handle pretty much anything you threw at it.

1970fbody

iTrader: (3)

Personally I think your fine with stock rods and ARP bolts. Unless you're spinning it to the moon and have really heavy pistons. Or massive amounts of boosted pressure.
But maybe one of the more experienced guys will chime in.

chrisfrost

iTrader: (8)

I don't have personal experience but I've been reading as much as I can on here for almost 2.5 years and from what I've read stock rods (first design) are good to between 550-600at the wheels and 7000rpm's with ARP bolts . I read that if You keep the rpm's below 6300 or 6500 You can safely put down 800hp but I personally would'nt try that very many times if at all . Another bit of info that potentially could help alot of poeple is the stock oil pumps pressure drops off like a rock at 6500 and above and they also said that ALL oil pumps after-market included started to foam the oil above 3800rpm's . I forget exactly the source but it was reliable . And Mellings pump which 1 standard or HV or maybe both pressure kept increasing to 8000rpm's

bww3588

iTrader: (49)

If everything is out of the engine, my advice is stick with the stock rods, have them resized after you install the arp bolts and balance everything. The stock rods will be fine. I had the exact same setup except my engine builder didn't balance it or re size the rods. It hammered itself to death in 1k miles.

But that's beside the point.

Stock rods, arp bolts and have them resized and the crank balanced. Done...

Ws6kid.

thanks for the input guys!

PREDATOR-Z

Stock rods, Katech bolt upgrade, no need to resize.

wildcamaro

iTrader: (15)

New rod bolts will allow you to make the power you want with no worries

Stumped1215

iTrader: (9)

I rebuilt my lq4 with the same mhale piston and scat forged I beams with arp 8740 for $300 from texas speed. I know I could have ran the stockers, but I figured for 300 bucks what the heck its apart now.

FastKat

iTrader: (10)

With rods, it is all about engine speed. The loads on the rods are much higher at TDC and BDC than they are during the power stroke of the engine. As long as you keep your RPMs at a reasonable level, you're going to be fine.

Cape T/A

if it was me, and I had the engine out of the car i would upgrade them. mine snapped in half and put a hole in my block with just a 125 shot on the car and nothing else.

Stumped1215

iTrader: (9)

Exactly plus if you look at what it cost to put rod bolts in the stockers you would only be looking at $200 for the scat rods.

FastKat

iTrader: (10)

Wow - do you know what made it fail? High RPMs? Detonation/bad tune?

Ws6kid.

Thanks for all the input i appreciate it greatly. i'll keep tech updated on the engine build.