Has anyone ever ran into a machine shope that would NOT do the machine work for fear of hitting the water jacket due to machining for clearance? I know more clearanceing when machining a 396 vs a 383 but is this really an issue?

 

Depends on the rods, some rods are profiled loe in the bolt area for better clearancing, example is the Lunati pro mod and the eagle h-beam which i run. I've seen how much clearancing was done to clear the rod bols and it was not much.

 

A simple block fill is almost a must for a 396. Even if you dont break through the water jacket.....it will be thin. Most people just block fill the lower half and be done with it. I block filled half my block for strenght.

 

Can u daily drive a block that is filled? or will you have some cooling issues?

 

My block is not filled and not had any problems so far.

 

You can do a partial block fill and have no issues. Mine is half filled and I dont have any cooling issues.

 

Filling the block is really not an issue, we do the 396's fairly often and have never seen a problem, however if you use the Eagle rods with the L-19's you could have issues as they are a much taller bolt head and the can penetrate the water jacket. I usually leave the fill for the "racing only" engines.

-Bryan

 

Ours was not filled last year and there were no issue. It is half filled now but I haven't run it on the street yet so i don't know how it will be.

 

Guys, thank you very much for your responses!