Bad day on the dyno...

[carbuff]

Thanx guys... I agree with all of you, and even though I may sound like I am doing it, I won't scrimp on any selections just to meet the event timelines. I completely agree that I would regret that down the road. But I should be able to accomplish a simple engine rebuild in a 6-week timeframe, right???

Now, that said, nothing can be simple with this project, so I got 2 more doses of bad news today that are pretty much going to make my decision for me. I hadn't heard back from TSP about the crank, so I decided to call Callies directly myself to see what the story is. It turns out that every crank is serialized, so with the serial number they could tell me what was originally done to it. This crank was nitrided, and per my 2 discussions with Callies today, it should be rehardened after being turned.

Interestingly, it turns out they don't do the machine work and hardening in-house on a fix like this. They have a local place do the work for them. So they gave me their number to call. Shaftech in Ohio. I called them to see what we could do, and they also confirmed the need to reharden. BUT, they don't do it in house (even though their website implies that they do). They would do the machine work and ship it out for hardening, then back to me. They also quoted me 3.5 - 4 weeks to do the work, and a price of $525. Yikes!

At that price, and on that timeframe, I'm not sure if makes sense to repair this crank myself. So I made the second call to Callies to discuss my options. I wanted to understand the difference between their DragonSlayer cranks (which is mine) and their Compstar line (the step down). The Compstar is forged and rough-cut overseas and finish cut here, while the DragonSlayer is forged and cut in the US. But the real difference is the intended application. The Compstar is good for about 900HP while the DragonSlayer is good to about 1500. This engine will never see those levels, so the Compstar should be fine for me.

Ok, decision made, or so I thought... The other little trick here is that the original engine was built with 2.00" rod journals. The LS standard is 2.10" journals. It would seem the 2.00" journals are not popular. Callies lists a part number on their website for the Compstar with a 4.00" stroke and the 2.00" rod journals, but apparently they don't actually make that one anymore. So if I want to use those journals, I'm back to the Dragonslayer.

This means my options are:

- buy a Dragonslayer and use my 2.00" journals connecting rods
- buy a Compstar crank and a new set of 2.10" connecting rods

Given those options, I'm back to considering abandoning ship on salvaging parts from this engine shortblock and looking at TSP building me a completely new one. I've asked them to price me out using my block (which I can still use) and just do a completely new 402 (actually 405 I think) ci rotating assembly, and additionally pricing out a completely new 418ci shortblock. I'm about sure that I'll do one of these, and sell off the leftover pieces that I have. The crank and rods will make a nice setup for someone who is on a timeline that can have it fixed...

So I'm back to making another decision tomorrow. Hopefully my heads arrive at TEA so that they can determine the chamber volume and I can finalize my piston selection. That may not happen until Monday though.

While I'm at this project, I'm going to add an Accusump to the car. I don't want to take any chances on losing oil pressure with this setup after this investment! I'm sure that I probably caused the crank damage with some pressure loss at either an auto-x or a track day. I've had the oil pressure light blip on me before in extended-G turns. So I can't say that I'm completely surprised by the crank damage, I just didn't expect it to cause so many problems in the rebuild...