Well the time has come for my own build thread!!! Before I dive in I really want to thank all the active members here for giving me the courage and knowledge to go forth with this "budget build" of mine especially Grinder, Gatsma & Buzzard apologies if anyone slipped my mind. Without you guys I would still be running a stock motor full of wasted potential. The activity in this community goes far beyond what I ever expected to get out of this and strangely enough it has a place in my heart. I often get excited just being able to get home and read the latest posts by experienced members so I can hopefully learn and follow the same path of success and fun. Cheers to all the future and past build threads as we never give up!!!

Parts to be included:
Eagle Forged 4140 Steel Crankshaft 4" stroke :]]] $667
Summit Racing™ Performance Connecting Rods SUM-LS6125927I $400
King XP-Series Rod Bearings CR 807XPN $60
King XP-Series Main Bearings MB5013XP $104
D.S.S. SX-Series Forged Piston and Ring Kits K1921-4030 $715
Uncle Sam + ~8% Total: 2107.53

Not included but included will be my used L76 block running a Torkinator. 200/205 Dur., 113+4, .550/.550 Lift currently as of the last tear down I did to hone the cylinders and get a better feel of how things work. Mind you cylinder 6 was smoked with the deepest bore damage with smoked piston rings that were not as wide visually compared to the others nor did they hold the same tension but it is still running like hell. I plan to reuse the cam for the beginning of this strokers lifespan as long as it comes out the way I put it in nearly 2 weeks ago. The lifters are questionable and i am still thinking of upgrading this component if I can find a link bar set up isn't $700. This engine is still running like hell no smoke after honing the atrocities I shared although it does need an all the way warm up for the idle to smooth and misfire to disappear. Lets not talk about the P0327 and disabling of knock sensors I just did just to confirm that induced water was the only thing that interfered with it back to operationally normal and active as of today.

My order was placed this last Sunday and as usual Summit delivers with no time wasted. I also spoke with D.S.S. Racing pistons on facebook and they informed me the pistons would most likely be sent out this week and not the "shipped from manufacturer" date of 9/16. Overall I am happy with summits reliability and being a one stop shop to make things easy.

Here is where things already start to get interesting... I have to mention that I have never ordered a aftermarket crankshaft before so my expectations are not set. The Eagle crank Showed up in fairly decent packaging but it could have been better especially when they shipped them with a card inside saying to check reluctor lateral runout due to shipping!!! Couldn't one more wrap of hard cardboard prevent this or will the weight of physics always rule?

The crank had 2 scratches that I could easily find/feel and a "divot"? in the middle of a connecting rod journal maybe .010" deep and wide. I assume the small scratches are normal? The journal scratch on the connecting rod journal is not a healthy sign in my opinion although on the few cranks I have dealt with on my budget rebuilds are easily "fixed" by hitting it with 5000 grit sand paper ever so lightly and finishing with caucus. I am not alarmed by these small things unless you give me the ship it back response and I am sort of feeling that coming...

I plan for this to be a budget build and will start to over express how I little I have and how much I get done with my ways so if you have big money Ideas or unconstructive criticism just know I will still take it into account until you go off topic...

Been a hell of a busy day and my mind just went blank trying to get this situated along with dinner, incoming packages, neighbors knocking on my door and talks with my step father of his ongoing project building a friends home out of heart. The rods showed up in the last 30 minutes and I need to give this a break and things are being hairy and I have to add the photos in a moment.

I know some deburring must be done on this brand new crank but I wasn't expecting scratches.... Added a photo of the truck getting this future 408" after i picked up a lift and stand for $100 from a helpful facebook post, truck is running in the photo. All of this will be going to a different machine shop than the one boring the block, I don't plan to make too many shortcuts. Reuse a HV oil pump and lifters just maybe.

 

Your "parts to be included" is in light print and is totally unreadable. Could you change that please?

 

Been a while since I had to edit formatting. I went to copy and paste it In and out of notepad saw that that didn't do anything than just easily changed the text color hope that worked. I use Dark reader as my extension on chrome so may have appeared OK to me but absolutely invisible to you. not sure if formatting as black fixed it... not really right?

Remove format obviously... Apologies!

I know I added crud that could have been excluded but its life as I know it :]

 

Looks fine now. Thanks!

 

Took the crank to Harbor Engine & Grinding this morning and they said the small scratches are nothing and will clean up with a polish. The divot in the middle of the connecting rod journal wasn't a big concern to him either so no more worrying needed.

 

Are these full groove mains or partial?!

 

Partial looks like you spent your money right look like king coated bearings
I just got a set in today Stdx I was a little tight. I’m going to be using a half of shell
to get my clearance right

 

Ty after reading maybe 30-50 builds of using the king XP bearings I figured they were the right choice. I would agree compared to OEM they would be a partial oil groove. What clearances were you getting that made you want to run half n half?

I am interested in installing an oil squirter kit and cant remember where I found the kit that I did. How much would I be looking at to add this during the build? I know the kit comes with the guided block to drill and tap the aluminum afterwards with the actual brass squirters being extra...

 

I think BTR sales the kit to install the oil squirters ,but why for a NA build?
my RHS block is setup for them,I don’t use them just a street car,just something else to tear up.or fall off.
my old xpc king bearings had clearance of.0024 to.0025 were standard size
I used them when I clearance the block for the CCW crankshaft and I nicked the thrust bearing on the thrust side,I would have used them if not for that.(they were perfect)and the CCW crankshaft turned perfectly.
anyway the new ones come in at.0018 to .0020 (xpc standard size)I was going to try
to run them but I felt a slight drag in one area of the crank.
with the extra clearance bearing I hope to get them to clearance I need.and I should
I’m going to follow the boys on real street and use the thicker bearing on the block side where it expands more vs the steel main caps.shooting for 680rwhp NA this time around

 

I figured it would prolong the life of the pistons/bores especially for when I get hot on the pedal. Just because I don't plan to rev it over 6k doesn't mean I wont race someone on the highway for a few miles.

It was brought to my attention today when I go to place the crank into the block that you can apply thick assembly oil to the bearing to look at the pattern of oil going onto the crank from the bearing. He said if I saw it not evenly shedding oil onto the crank that you could tap the bob weight of the crank closest to that main with a hammer to help it seat? He is an older mechanic been in the industry his whole life and this conversation was brief, can anyone explain this a bit further?

Also I have been running this engine with a 160 degree stat for a few months now with temps staying around 180-190 during driving and gets close to 200 when under high load but still sheds the heat off when I pull into the school parking lot after my 40 minute drive. I am happy with this as the engine retains less heat and cools down after shutdown much faster. Now that I am putting 2k+ of parts into I am wondering if this would be unhealthy for it. I have asked this same question on hptuners like others and it has been expressed there is not much needed to be changed in the tune as it has little effect from what I understand.

I am also interested in spending the proper money on bore measuring equipment I just need some pointers on maybe an all in one kit or what I should look for such as the exact nomenclature of the tools needed to measure rod bearings and journals

 

The last part of the package showed up today :]]] Got my Gen V out of the shop as well but has some discrepancies that will have to be dealt with before I get to tearing this truck down again.

What should i be checking here? I have never ordered a set of pistons and not sure what to check over such as diameter and quality of the wrist pins.

Also wanted to share a phot of my $300 dollar shop that will work for the rebuild and transmission overhauls I do. I am damn proud of my budget life :-D

 

So I received everything back from the machine shop yesterday and did not hesitate to get started. Took me a good 4-5 hours to get it mounted on my stand and install the main bearings and check clearances 2x with plasti gauge. Being my first time doing it the right way is why I checked clearance 2x and it looks like the clearance on the mains is a bit more than .0015 which I am going to be happy with as I dont plan to rev this stroker over 6k rpm. Took as many photos as I could in-between glove changes/breaks. The machine work for the block and balancing of the rotating assembly came out to $1,400 putting my "budget" build at about 4k total and will probably need another 500 in parts and gaskets not to mention fluids. Although there is nothing budget about this I am still happy and confident things will go well. Can someone verify my plastiguage measurement and any tips I may need to help this go successfully.

I also received two in person walk throughs on how to roll the rings onto the pistons today and am confident that will go well after I make sure my ring gaps are good to go.

 

I've always done Plastigage dry as the oil can affect the squish...I may be wrong it's been a minute.

 

looks like you're right, from here:
https://www.plastigaugeusa.com/how.html

Fig.1 . It is recommended that surfaces be clean prior to use of PLASTIGAUGE

 

You guys are 100% right and totally forgot about that but I do believe the clearances are perfectly ok. I also checked all the ring gaps yesterday and then got the pistons installed in the block. I could tear it all back down but I think the clearances will be just fine with the king xp bearings.

I do have a question about measuring deck clearance and how to do so as the block was decked .006 and I would like to have an exact calculated compression ratio to see if I need to get some higher CC heads. I have a magnetic dial indicator just dont know how I would use it to measure the piston coming above the deck.

 

The right way is to use a deck bridge. You can find them for about $30 online.

 

Could I get away with using a regular dial indicator by any chance?

 

Maybe, but I wouldn’t trust the result enough to run quench under .045” or so.

 

And if you want to get silly with it…like I do lol… you use a deck bridge with dual gauges. I rock the piston north to south until gauges read the same. This way I know piston is level in the cylinder and my out of hole number will be right in case the piston is an offset pin piston like a lot of LS pistons are. This ensures me an exact number. This was an engine I wrapped up recently…