Well i'm about to purchase a Compstar 383 Speedpack. Everything comes balanced and ready to be put in. My question is should i put everything in myself or have a machine shop do it? I really want to do it myself so i can gain the experience, but i also want the thing to last for a while and not break due to poor installment on my part. Tell me what you guys think.

 

Since it is all balanced I dont see why not. It should be a very straight forward process. Just work slowly and double check the torque on all of your bolts and you shouldnt have problems.

 

Your going to have to have the block machined fvor the clearances of the stroker kit. Even though it is balanced your still going to have to have it rebalanced after installing it into the block. Its not something you can just throw in and your done. There are clearances, tolerances, and other measurements that need to be dead on or your going to ruin a perfectly good rotating assembly or even a perfectly good motor.

 

hell yes you should!

just have somebody stand by and help to make sure that everything is right. like 9formula4 said their is a lot to double check when your block comes back for the machine shop.

but yes you should, i think everbody that wants to even talk cars should have put a motor together.

 

^completely agree. find someone who is experienced to help walk you through it and make sure you dont screw up. it will be valuable experience and you will feel good about it.

 

building ur own car.... it would be an amazing expirence

 

No re-balance. I have almost never heard of anyone doing anything like that. What would be the point in balancing it in the first place? None. If that were the case, no one would pay the extra cash to have a nice assembly come pre balanced. They would spend $150 at the machine shop and be done there.

You can put it together... grind here and there for the stroker ("machine" is a little bit of a extreme word).. Make sure it rotates without ANY binding. Paying someone to clearance it for the stroker wouldn't be very $$ though.

Assembly. Make sure all ring gaps are right. Make sure the pistons are in the hole right. Plastigauge EVERYTHING. It's cheap and the time is yours (so free) so use it to make sure everything is right.

No reason you couldn't do it yourself except maybe putting in cam bearings.

 

When people buy cheap crap like Eagle the balance is bad even when "balanced" from the factory. The Compstar stuff on the otherhand is balanced by Callies, I would trust their work over almost any local shop unless you have a exceprionally good local shop.

 

^Good call on the Eagle/Scat stuff. The parts are usually pretty good aside from a bad apple here or there, but I wouldn't recommend ever buying their balanced rotating assemblies. You're much better off to buy the rotating assembly unbalanced and have a trusted machine shop balance it.

 

Thanks guys. I think this is going to be a fun experience as long as i take my time and triple check everything.

 

Yup. Best thing to do is get a good book to use as referance in case you have any questions or doubts.

 

I bought the "How to Rebuild Small-Block Chevy LT1/LT4 Engine" by Mike Mavrigian. It's a really good book, thats very descriptive with lots of pictures. I've already read it once and i've started back through it again

 

Good book helped me build mine ,just take your time and its easy and fun.After its over and you know its done right and by you is a good feeling.

 

if you do it yourself,make sure the work envoirnment is as clean as possible.