I am rebuilding a 390 for my dad to be used in a farm pickup. I have the engine apart, all cleaned up and ready to put back together. I was looking in my garage and I have a extra set of ARP rod bolts. My question is should I replace the bolts or leave the stock ones in there? The engine will be lucky to see of 2500-3000 RPM with my dad.

My next question is if I do replace the rod bolts do I need to have the rod's re sized?

Jeff

 

If you replace the rod bolts you must resize the rods. Resizing the rods is a pretty good idea in any case.....

 

I've replaced the bolts in an assembled short block, one at a time and it was fine. That was a roller 5.0 and was subjected to daily floggings to 6500 rpms and then 7500 for 4 months after that. Sold them to another fellow who used em in his motor. When I pulled them from the first motor, all bearings looked normal. If they're not assembled in the motor, I'd have em resized if changing the bolts, but for what you're going to do, I'd skip em.

 

I just want to make sure this engine does not fly apart. When I rebuilt my 360 in high school I just reused all the old bolts, heads, mains and rods. Knock on wood nothing has come apart.

Since then I have rebuilt a few other makes of engines reusing the old bolts and both times the rods flew out the side of the block. The worst part about it is I wasn’t doing any kind of hot-Roding, going down the high way both engines started knocking and shortly after that out came the rods.

I would hate to spend the money to rebuild this engine and have the same outcome so I just wanted to get the opinion of the FE goo-roos in here.

If the stock bolts are good enough for retirement work on a farm then I will do that and save my ARP bolts for another project.

If anyone else has an opinion on the subject please let me know. Thanks,

Jeff

 

I've never put new rod bolts in without resizing the rods. Worked in an automotive machine shop many years ago and have seen first hand what happens when you don't.....If it worked without resizing for some, they were lucky....

For the trucks intended usage, think I'd just re-assemble with the OEM bolts as they are.....

 

I agree with Dave on that. Pioneer makes stock type rod bolt's (little better then stock) with out spending BIG money on it.

We used stock rod bolts in our Poor Mans 427 just to prove a point on what a person can do with stock stuff. JMO

 

Thanks for the info! I will just leave everything stock and put it back together.

Jeff

 

bolted my 352 back together with the original rod guts and frankly I drive the crap out of it Upgraded to a 4bbl/RVcam during the build and it really likes it.. doesnt seem to be coming apart yet "knock on wood" heheh