Stock engine basics

[Gary Smith]

Originally Posted by X-TECH MAN

I know you are looking for a somewhat honest answer here but I will leave that for another to answer. A lot of the combos are....shall we say "Enhanced" to the limit and in a lot of cases beyond. They would make a poor STREET engine. The cams are way to radical, the spring pressures are way to high and the piston rings would not seal for very long in everyday street use. Not to mention the operating range (RPM's) they are twisted to with 5.13-5:38 and up rear gearing. You would not be happy with this type of rear gearing in an everyday street car. Its a combination of precision machine work, careful assembly, and picking the right combo to begin with. On the street you are stuck with pump gas (no lead) and lower compression ratio's. Use a stroker kit for your brand of engine and go for torque to run on todays junk gas and you will be happier for it. If you want to fool your buddies just make the engine "LOOK" stock on the outside.

I think what he's looking for is how to apply some Stock Eliminator technology to a street engine, not building a class motor for the street per-se. There are a lot of good practices to get in the habit of doing when prepping a motor. Many are no nonsense basics that are often overlooked. When I was in tech school 30 years ago we took a tired Olds 350 that was burning coolant and oil past the rings and guides. While other students completed rebuilds on their projects much quicker than my group, we simply took the time to ensure everything was matched, head cc's were the same, proper clearances, tightly sealed chambers, etc. The result was a tire frying engine that certainly produced more power than it did from the factory, with no aftermarket parts whatsoever.