[James L Miller]

Larry, my engine guy is an old tool and die machinist and ran a MP Colt back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He worked at the Dodge NASCAR engine program with Arrington and Ted Flack when Dodge got back into NASCAR. His rod methodology is to torque the rod bolts, measure the roundness on his Sunnen rod hone dial bore gauge. He redid a set of Manley Hemi Pro I-beam rods that I bought from Mike Bogina. Mike had them on the shelf, brand new in the box. Apparently Manley did not use enough assembly lube when they torqued the rod bolts and there was galling on the threads and under the bolt heads. Robert resized the big ends with new rod bolts, dowels, ground the caps and big end and resized the big ends to under ,0001" (nearly zero). The next day they must have stress relieved to be .0001" out of round.

On the stock rods, he measures the out of round, un-torques the bolts, and retorques them. If they don't repeat they end up in the junk pile. Apparently the stock 383 rods are weak, maybe a low alloy steel or medium carbon steel like AISI 1053. He was building a 383 for a guys pickup and they got a set of Jim Hales (Manley) rods, but they needed work as they were used. Overkill for the pickup build for sure.