I noticed that thread about the Eagle cranks, guys saying they have heard a lot of bad things about the old Eagle cranks, but no updates since eagle claimed to have fixed the problem, so I figured I would post my success story, so next time, when (if) someone searches, here is a little reassurance though that being said, before I decided to go Eagle, every where I searched, there were a few posts saying there have been ton of bad reviews, but I didn't the 'ton' of bad reviews...a few, but not a lot. Anyhow.....

A few months back, probably Aug. or Sept. the thrust bearing had failed on my '01 LS1 with 30,200 miles, allowing the crank to walk, and take a few rod bearings with it. Being on a budget, not wanting to spend a lot of money, but hated the idea of putting all the work, effort, and money just to be at the same power level as before, I decided to try the Eagle rotating assembly. These kits can be found pretty regularly just over $2k. I bought their 383 kit, with an Eagle 4" crank, Eagle rods with ARP rod bolts, and JE pistons, all forged of course I purchased the kit from TSP, and requested the send the kit to their local machine shop, which I believe is Race Craft, or something, I always get the name confused with 3 or 4 other places (name I remember is usually a combination of the 3 or 4 lol ). They are the same shop that hand finished their Patriot 'race version' heads back when they offered those. They balanced the crank with out any complications (that I heard of) for between $120-140, cant remember the exact price.

Assembly we very smooth as well. Only modifications I had to make was putting a little notch in the aluminum just under the cylinder sleave (but not actually into the sleave itself) for rod bolt clearance, and put a few washers between the main caps and the widage tray to make a little more room there as well. I think I used 3 washers per stud....I also decided to swap my FLP headers for QTP 1 7/8 headers, with their dual cut-out y-pipe. I had the G5X2 cam, and actually ran that for a week or two, but with the 4" stroke and the small combustion chambers on the 5.3 heads, my DCR was around 9.2 to 9.4, so I installed a TSP cam, 240/244 .608/.612, 112lsa, which lowered my DCR to 8.6 I believe (from memory) My static compression ratio is around 11.8:1, which with the G5X2 on the street, was running into problems with detonation in 5th and 6th gear, under load on the highway. I plan on sometime soon, going with an LSx 90mm intake and TB, but hopefully they come down in price, or something else comes along before then!

So far, the motor has been running great! Does not appear to have any oil consumption problems. I think I've added one quart of oil during the break in period, but has been fine every since. The car runs very strong! I hope to have dyno numbers by this weekend. I've taken it to the track, but with my factory 10 bolt with 4.10 gears, and on street tires, you can imagine it wasnt a very succesful night, I didnt expect it to be. On my heads/cam (stock bottom end) tune, running very rich, spinning off the line and shifting slow as not to put shock on the rear tires and break them loose (or break my 10 bolt), I was runnin 12.1 at 122mph, with awful 2.2-2.3 60' times. I think with a little traction and after all the tuning I've done, I can trap 122-124 pretty easily. Car weight's 3550 too Nothing great, but alot of room for improvement.

Anyway, just wanted to share my story. Here are a few pics from the assembly/install. Enjoy
(note: The motor and tranny were installed through the top, as you see it on the work bench, had to remove one of the motor mounts to clear the motor mount bracket on the k-member, but other than that, very straight forward!)

http://arctic98z.com/images/ss/engine/eaglecrank.jpg
http://arctic98z.com/images/ss/engine/bareblock.jpg
http://arctic98z.com/images/ss/engin...kinstalled.jpg
http://arctic98z.com/images/ss/engin...gassembly2.jpg
http://arctic98z.com/images/ss/engine/shortblock.jpg
http://arctic98z.com/images/ss/engine/longblock2.jpg
http://arctic98z.com/images/ss/engine/enginetranny.jpg
http://arctic98z.com/images/ss/engine/install2.jpg

 

Sounds awesome, glad to hear that the eagle crank worked out for you. I will be very interested in seeing some dyno numbers. So your total cost for upping to the 383 stroke cost like $2300-2400? (obviously not included head, cam, etc. just the rotating assembly kit). Thanks in advance.

 

looks good

 

awesome man!! glad to hear another eagle success story.

 

That makes me feel alot better about going with the Eagle crank. It is rated to handle the HP I was going for and the price is right but all it takes is a couple of bad stories to make you think. The Lunati is the **** but It is alot more and I wasnt planning on the HP they can handle. Great pics to man! Thanks!

 

Thanks guys! Total cost on the rotating assembly and machine work (hone the block, balance the crank) was probably in the $2,300 to $2,400 range. Money well spent I drive this car every day, about 80% in traffic (anywhere from bumper/bumper to moving pretty steadily at 50-60mph) and it drives amazingly smooth for what it is. I'm dying to get some numbers as well. Heopfully this weekend, and will check back as soon as I do!

 

Also will add a success story to the Eagle brand.
Absolutely no issues, my bro has around 8000 miles now.
Now for my tuning and cam choices, well there's another story...

 

I will add another eagle sucess story.

I have 383,tea heads,612/244/114 xer comp cam,ls6 intake,1 3/4 jet headers.

The only problem I have is 1st and 2nd gear it will do nothing but burn the 275/35/18's down to the rim at 1800 rpm and above with the gas pedal at or above 50%.

 

I know of yet another success story too.

 

My Eagle setup runs like a champ.

See Sig...

 

My eagle 383 balanced and went together without any issues either

 

Good see to good news spread

Anyone have a good formula to compute DCR?

Thanks,

 

There was a link to a cool program to calculate that. There was also a pretty god thread not too long ago that had some formulas in it. Don't have a link off hand, but I'm sure you can get it pretty quick if you were to search

 

http://users3.ev1.net/~black_ops/cam...calculator.xls


- Sean, do you have any new pics of your car, i've used them for wallpapers before and im in need of an update

 

 

Thanks! The most current ones I have (August '04) are the ones in front of the hangar and cruising on the tarmac of that old airport. That was just about a few weeks before my motor started knocking. Trying to plan a few more appearance mods I'm planning on taking some new ones soon in attempt to make the cut for the new LS1tech calender :crossfingers:

Sean

 

do you have a different URL for your black SS? the old 98 in front of the bridge is a bad *** pic

to keep this on tech, whats the IVC point on your new cam verse the old one? i've got a 12.02 SCR w/ an 8.5 DCR, IVC is 84* on mine. spec's cam out to 240/238 112+0

 

Looks sweet, what are you doing for knock sensors?

 

I know Sean. His car is sick and he knows what he's doing. Its gonna run strong and get better and better.

 

Thanks man. When I first got the car, I rememberd how nice a smooth driving and quiet car was.....not two weeks after I bought it, had a G5X2 on order, a month or so later had heads on order, then almost two months after that, a stroker Damn my inability to just leave things alone Wonder where the SS will be in another month or two

jrp, I don't have a site just for the SS yet. I'm working on some flash stuff for the SS, and hopefully should have something up before not too long!

As for the IVC, according to that spread sheet you psoted (very nice BTW!) mine is 74.5* on my current cam, and was 67* I believe with the G5X2. Since we didnt have a cam card with the G5X2, we kinda made our own using micrometers, though my notes are so sloppy, getting hard to tell what was what.

I can't remember how far off hand the piston came out of the hole. I want to say .002, nor can I remember the composite head gasket thickness when compressed, but I want to say I saw .042 somewhere. Anyway, based on those (which aren't very far off from what was in the calculator before) my DCR now is 8.8 or 8.9, depending on what values I used for deck height and gasket thickness