~~> Great/Bad News <~~
 

Ok, the Great news is that i have enough $$mula$$ to start working on my 351w bar block. The bad news is that I dont know a whole lot about building engines.
-What I have is a "BARE" 351w block. Its kinda dirty so im goin to go get it cleaned up. Someone told me to get it "decked", what does that mean? Anyways, I want to build a 408 stroker. What steps should i follow on building my engine?...is there a diffrence between a stroker kit and rotating kit? If so, what are they? Please fill me up with as much knowledge as possible!! Thankz

RE: ~~> Great/Bad News <~~
 

almost forgot, Im goin for a street/strip and im pretty sure its going to be a daily driver!! and im not tryn to spend a fortian on this!!:D

RE: ~~> Great/Bad News <~~
 

Buy this book!

http://www.amazon.com/How-Rebuild-Sm...076&amp;sr=1-1

It'll tell you all you need to know from machining to selecting parts to final assembly.

RE: ~~> Great/Bad News <~~
 

www.amazon.com
If I were doing this, my first step would be to get a book or eight for light reading. I know there are several on rebuilding a 351W or rebuilding Ford engines in general.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think having a block "decked" means to machine the surface where the block meets the heads to make sure it is perfectly flat.

Good luck!

[edit] gothand beat me to the post... I got sidetracked at Amazon :)

RE: ~~> Great/Bad News <~~
 

That is correct. Normally, you only have enough taken off to make the deck surface flat - a few thousandths of an inch. Note that this operation affects the clearances between the pistons and the heads and valves (and even the optimum pushrod length, to getpicky) Hence a strong recommendation to do the reading.

Plan on doing your own cleaning after you get it back from the shop. Just because it's been hot-tanked doesn't mean that everything that came loose came out.

For a first engine, I really recommend tackling a normal-stroke build instead.A stroker motor is a more complicated build, as there are usually a number of clearancing operations that you must do and more things to check.

Norm

RE: ~~> Great/Bad News <~~
 

I admire your ambition, but it really sounds like you could come out better in the long run by buying a crate engine. However, if you want the experience, then read the books and get after it.

RE: ~~> Great/Bad News <~~
 

When I built my first 351W I soon found out someone had decked the block but it was way more than 1/1000th of an inch. The pistons stuck out about 1/4 inch above the cylinder when they maxed out in a stroke. I tossed that block and got a new one.

Bake, I have an Edlebrock Torker intake if your interested. Also got a stroker crank "laying around" if your still planning on that.

RE: ~~> Great/Bad News <~~
 

umm.... 1/4"??? are you sure you had the right parts??:D[8D]

+1 on the book thing, really its not that hard to build a motor unless your getting crazy with the build. if you get a complete stroker kit you'll be in business - it takes alot of the variables out of the equasion. the only thing i can think of is to make sure the rods dont hit the block when the motor spins (a die grinder and a little bit of love takes care of that).

getting the block decked is a good idea, most people dont do it and they should. usually .005-.010 cleans em up, and thats not enough to significantly effect much of anything.

RE: ~~> Great/Bad News <~~
 

You had the wrong rods in there.It would take about 3 days tomachine off 1/4 inch from that block and there would be absolutely no reason to take that much off anyway.

RE: ~~> Great/Bad News <~~
 

yeah thats kinda what i was thinking.

i did screw up once while decking a block and took about 1/4 off for about oh i dunno..... 5 seconds before i could get over to the machine and shut er down. hell the whole shop heard that thing, poor machine was just a screamin LOL. lucky me the boss was gone so we chucked it in the scrap dumpster and grabbed another core from the back [8D]