Because this Barracuda is a low production factory musclecar the original numbers matching engine was pulled and set asside. This way the car could be put back to original in a day if desired at a later time.
The engine came with main caps, pistons, rods, a timing cover and some bolts and other small items. The pistons and rods were later sold to recover some money.
The engine block was sent to the machine shop to be cleaned and checked for cracks. After that they line honed the main, bored the cylinders .020" over, decked the block to get the pistons at zero deck, and installed new freeze plugs. No block modifications were needed for the longer stroke crank shaft.
After all the machining was done the block was returned back to me.
The rocker arms are Comp Cams Pro Magnum steel. These were selected for the durability for street driving. The rocker arm hold downs and bolts are from Hughs Engines. These parts fit onto the Edelbrock heads without issue.
The first thing to go into the block was the camshaft. By putting it in first I could insure the cam bearings were not too tight. Also, without the crank and rods in the way one can put a hand up there and guide the cam into the block.
Next the main and rod clearances were checked. I measured .002" clearance on all the mains and .0025" clearance on all the rods. The piston ring gaps were all measured by placing each ring in the bore and using feeler guages to measure the gaps.
After everything was checked the crank was placed in the block and run out and thrust were checked. One thing I did do was fully assemble rods, pistons, and crank with no piston rings to insure engine would spin freely which it did. Then pistons, rods, and rings were assembled and slid in each bore and rod bolts torque to spec. Extensive time was spent to insure the camshaft was degreed in perfectly. A 1 degree key was used to retard the cam to bring it completely into spec.
After the bottom end was assembled I installed the oil pump, oil pan, all the lifters and ran the oil pump with a drill. The passages going to the cylinder heads were blocked off for this test. The goal was to make sure the roller lifters did not bleed off oil as the camshaft rotated. I did find that oil hemmoraged between the lifter and lifter bore at max lift on various lifters. The solution was to get a custom ground camshaft with a small base circle made. This allowed the lifters to ride lower in their bore and prevent the oil bleed off problem. I was able to return the original cam so no additional cost was incurred going with the custom cam.
Lastly the cylinder heads were bolted into place. Extensive grinding on the push rod holes in the cylinder heads was required for push rod clearance. Other than that bolting on the cylinder heads was easy. However because they were milled the intake manifold did not fit. The best solution is to mill the intake manifold surface on the cylinder heads but that would be time consuming and expensive. So I opted to have the intake milled instead. That took care of that problem.
After the engine was fully assembled it was degreased with Brake Parts Cleaner and blown off with compressed air. Once dry it was painted turquoise as was original for this car. I found a set of original style valve covers and used the original air cleaner to give the engine a stock looking appearance.
After that all the other components were installed to complete the engine swap. Since the engine had moly rings and a roller camshaft no engine break in was required.
That is how I built my stroker engine. I hope you enjoyed reading and looking at the pictures.