I would upgrade the rods before bothering with upgrading the stock crank.

look for decent forged pistons. SRP, J&E, or Diamond are all ones i have personally used. Then maybe a set of SCAT or eagle Hbeam rods (not real cheap but will handlt a lot more rpm and power then even truck rods) I have known several guys running stock cranks in excess of 7k rpm and even one guy that ran one for most of a season hitting 10k on a offset ground 429 crank.

 

Give Trav's 4x4 a call - 859-991-4996, he's great to deal with and can hook you up with all your clutch pieces. Someone else is going to have to chime in on pistons, but in my opinion, I would save your money and run the factory cast crank. Use the money saved on an aftermarket crank and invest in some Eagle rods or something along those lines............once again, just my opinion on the engine stuff.

 

I agree with Monster Baby and The Freak. Ditch the rods, keep the crank. I run a stock crank up to 8K rpms and even on my first motor the crank held up when it exploded (cam pin snapped and valves hit piston and exploded the #1 piston). I run KB hyper pistons and Eagle ESP H beam rods. These are just off shelf parts, so not extremely expensive as opposed to having custom pistons made (roughy $100 a hole to do that) which was my orignal plan, but my engine builder said it wasn't nessacary.

 

what is an offset ground crank?

 

The crank pin is reduced in diameter from the inside (or outside) of the crank throw.
Offset, rather than concentric...
(Imagine a crescent removed if you were to look at it axially)
This effectively increases **edit; or decreases**the throw (stroke) by moving the new center of the crank pin closer/farther from the centerline of the crank.

 

is this an expensivething to do

 

Not expensive, but not often worth it in my opinion.
There are plenty of different stroker cranks available now.
These will use standard sized bearings (or chevy sized, depending on the rods intended)

If you are trying to reach a very particular displacement for your combo, or a certain crank pin diameter, or a certain rod to stroke ratio it may be the only answer.

Say, you wanted to DEstroke a 429 to 400cid to meet some rule or piston speed...

 

Jim pretty much hit it on offset ground cranks. In the past it was the only way to get a stroker.
Now it's pretty simple to buy an off the shelf stroker crank, so really no reason to do it much anymore.
the reason for the one I mentioned above was the guy was building a 460 (actually 472cid limit rule) and was trying to reduce bearing speed for high rpm application (read the part about turning 10,000rpm)

BUT this is all stuff done on high end all out race engines and really is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. There is a ton of stuff done to on the edge racing engines or even just pure race engines that helps when your looking for every last ounce you can get out of it that really aren't worthy in the typical engine where something as easy as say dyno tuning it will net you 50-100 times as much power increase. Or stuff that makes a extreme rpm engine survive that you don't need unless your turning extreme rpms.

A really easy example of this is, wasting the time and money to convert a factory 2 bolt block to a 4 bolt for a 450-500hp engine (385 series engines here) when a 2 bolt block has been proven to survive 850hp+ all the time.

 

well, i was gettin a few ideas around before actually ordering. whats ur thoughts or opini9ns on this.....
COMP Cams CL34-250-4
COMP Cams CL34-250-4 - COMP Cams Xtreme Energy Cam and Lifter Kits - Overview - SummitRacing.com

COMP Cams 17045-16
COMP Cams 17045-16 - COMP Cams High Energy Die Cast Aluminum Rocker Arms - Overview - SummitRacing.com

Keith Black/KB Pistons KB206-030
Keith Black/KB Pistons KB206-030 - Keith Black KB Performance Pistons - Overview - SummitRacing.com

Eagle Specialty Products 6605FP
Eagle Specialty Products 6605FP - Eagle SIR I-Beam Connecting Rods - Overview - SummitRacing.com

get the ARP upgrade one the rods,

 

Not a fan of KB pistons. They work ok I guess but make darn sure you have the ring gaps right or your pistons won't live period. Don't ever use nitrous and make sure it's warmed up before turning any rpms. Me personally I wouldn't put hyper pistons into anything but a mild street build.

I was going to tell you my preference for rockers is the crane golds and their variants (FRPP blue and TFS black) But I see they have gone WAY up since I bought any. So the comps will work fine.

That cam is pretty rowdy for a hyd cam. I suppose if your building a dual purpose engine then maybe it would be ok, but I would look for a solid flat tappet for a pulling engine.

 

Yeah NOS would be a no-no on hyper pistons period no matter the brand. On my first motor I'm not sure if the rings got gapped right, because I have less blow by on this 2nd motor, but some blow by is something to be expected at 7,500+ rpms.

Any idea on the spring pressures your running with this hyd cam setup and rpm combo?

I have hyd cams in other engines and they seem to be fine/problem free, but in my 2nd play pullin truck I was constantly adjusting my valvetrain it seemed, just annoying the hell outta me when I hear it start popping down the track at 5K or less when I just beat it down the driveway 2 days before up to 6K and it was fine. Annoyed me to no end, everything for me from now on is solid or roller personally. Never have I had so much trouble with a combo. When I picked up the motor I understood why the guy sold it so cheap, he thought it was a piece of junk b/c he had the rockers to tight and it maxed out at 4,500, so I just kept loosening and loosening until it was almost clattering like a solid lifter motor. Another thing I like to use is stud girdles for the vavletrain, if you do get into that 6-6500 range it might be a good idea.

 

so just forget the KB pistons and run something along the lines of a decent set of SRP's

 

well, unfortuneatly my build hasnt made it as far as i'd of liked it to since i've last posted. gotta have your priorities in line..... but as it looks its goin to be a 4.140 eagle cast crank. bore it .030 over. stock rods w/ARP fasteners be ok if i put a 6-6,200 limiter on it?

 

who builds a 4.14 crank that will work with stock rods? And who would want to? Not sure if anyone even makes an off the shelf piston for that combo anymore. most of the stroker cranks I know if anymore are set to run the BBC rod bearings and utilize 6.7" rods.

I personally would still look at a 4.3" crank but that's just me.

 

is there another advantage thata a 4.3 would have over a 4.14 other than making more cubes?