Racing Engine Build - The Ultimate Street Stock Motor

Once the cam is installed in the block, Santelik presses the Clevite main bearings in place and applies a light coat of assembly grease. For the main and rod bearings, Santelik mixes the Joe Gibbs grease with motor oil to thin it a bit so that the rotating assembly will spin smoothly.

The K1 rods are checked after honing to make sure the clearance, once the bearings are installed, will be between 0.002- and 0.0025-inch.

In order to minimize the chances of a rod failure, the rod bolts must be checked for stretch and not simply torqued down. Stretch should be between 0.0055- and 0.007-inch. In order to make measurements as precise as possible with a bolt stretch gauge, RCE dimples the center of the rod bolts with a carbide drill bit. In this photo, the top bolt has been done while the bottom two are still unmodified.

The ring package is 1/16, 1/16, 3/16. Santelik grinds the gaps to approximately 0.020 for the first ring and 0.022 for the second. He says he would rather the gaps be too loose than too tight. A ring gap that is too loose doesn't really harm you in terms of power. But if the gap is too tight, the ends of the rings can butt together and cause serious damage to the piston and cylinder wall.

Once the rings are assembled on the pistons, and the pistons on the rods, the rotating assembly is installed. Santelik double checks to make sure the top of the JE forged piston is level with the deck at TDC for the best combination of compression and squish.

The block did require a small amount of work to clear the rods with the stroker crank.

The Cometic MLS head gasket is laid into place. Take a moment here to make sure all the coolant holes match up. Santelic uses ARP bolts to torque the cylinder heads into place.

When you are racing with an aggressive camshaft and stiffer-than-stock valvesprings, never go cheap with a stock-style timing chain. This double roller timing set from Comp is much more durable and can actually help provide steady dependable spark timing.

With the camshaft, rotating assembly and timing set installed, Santelik can now degree in the camshaft.

RCE uses this valley tray from Moroso because it helps keep hot oil from splashing up on the underside of the intake (heating the air/fuel charge). With the Dart block, it bolts right to the bosses in the lifter valley designed for the lifter spider in a roller-cam setup.

Santelik pointed out that RCE uses this hydraulic damper installer to press the damper into place. He says that with the hydraulic unit you can use a tighter press fit between the damper hub and the nose of the crank, which reduces chatter between the damper and the crank and helps dampen harmonics even further.

Another view of the hydraulic damper installation unit.