496 RB Stroker

[MOPARHOUND]

  Hope noone minds this combo on here, the old Dodge-Charger.com board went into oblivion, so all my info and engine history went with it.  Hopefully someone can learn from my experiences.  Will update as life goes by.

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Combo was originally built with a Hughes hydraulic camshaft, which promptly ate several lobes on break-in.  Fast rate of lift cams and 1.6 rocker ratios aren't the best mix, as it really stresses the cam lobe.  Hughes said race piece only, no warranty, though the car never left the driveway, nor been on the race track.    Hughes blamed builder, builder blamed Hughes.  So, I no longer do business at Hughes.  Hughes has since switched cam suppliers.  2 Comp Cams have since survived break-in with the 1.6 rockers, no problems.

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100% street driven, daily driver most of the year.  A/C (though I've yet to have system charged), P/S, manual brakes.  The combo, pieced together from swap meets, eBay, etc.:

Factory 440 block, .040 over
4.15 Stroke Eagle Crank  (required only minor clearancing at the bottom of block bores, no big deal)
4.36 bore Ross flat top pistons, 10.5:1
Manley 6.76 H-Beam rods
Comp Cams 292H Hydraulic Cam and Lifters, Approximately 246 dur @ .050, .536" lift with 1.6 rockers, single pattern.
Hughes Engines 1.6 Ratio Rockers
Hughes Single Valve Sprngs, good to .600" lift
Factory "452" Heads from Aeroquip, part of Indy Cyl. Head, oversize 2.14"/1.81" valves, basic port work. (Had to have tune-up work out of the box, :rolleyes:)
Holley Street Dominator Intake
Holley 870CFM Street Avenger Carb
Old headers laying around the shop of former builder
(Ran Factory HP Exhaust Manifolds in the car)

Dynoed 514 HP @ 5000 RPM, and 586 FT LB's torque @ 4000 RPM at crank.

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HP/Torque peaked early, as one builder on a mopar board said, "Great engine for a 1 ton tow truck, but not a muscle car."  So we put in a larger Comp Cam 305H, with the 1.6 rockers - approximately 255 dur. @ .050", .560" lift, single pattern.  Did not re-dyno, bolted it in the car and went.

MPG with this combo was 7 city/ 10 highway.

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After 7100 miles, I was following another car at 35 mph on a city street, when the engine shut off.  Coasted onto a side street, and engine would not turn over.  #8 rod bearing had spun, stacking 1/2 on the other, ruining the rod with it.

New builder discovered race bearings, "M" series, in the bottom end, meant for drag racing applications, so many rounds then out (narrow race bearings have to be used with the full radius journals of the Eagle crank).  All the rod bearings were shot.  Should of had the "HD"(?) series race bearings in my daily driver, as they are meant for endurance type racing. Also discovered the 4.15 eagle crank had .004 clearance on the mains.  

Crank was then turned .020 under on the rod journals and .010 on the mains.  Crank grinder ground the mains .010 from where they were, DOH!    So now I have $$$ Calico coated main bearings, with .003 clearance (considered "loose"), what my builder uses for clearance in the 1000 horsepower Super Comp race engines he builds.  Should be okay, as I'm not much of a hot rodder.

While the engine was apart I decided to go with Eddy heads, as they are the hot ticket  to making a 493-500 cid RB stroker make power.  Also installed TTI 1-7/8" headers and full 3" exhaust at this time.  Really woke the engine up, from very fast, to scary sickening fast, LOL  .  Engine runs noticeably cooler on the temp gauge with the switch to the aluminum heads.

MPG went to 6 city/11 highway.

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At 9800 miles, #6 intake lobe on the Comp Cam died on the way home from a local mopar show cruising at 65 mph with a couple of other Dodge Chargers.   My engine builder called up Comp, and the guy he has dealt with for several years said my 305H was a Pro-Street type cam, only good for 8-10,000 miles.   Ah, what to do then??  Considered the new hydraulic roller cams that have came out, but the $$$ price tag was going to be in the $1,400-1,700 range  , with some changes.

So I decided to pull the Comp Cam 292H off the shelf I already had paid for, that only had 20-30 minutes of dyno time on it.  Swapped it in with about $50.00 spent on gaskets and such and had the 496 going again.   With my driving habits, the engine rarely sees over 5000 rpm anyway, and the smaller cam should have a longer lifespan.

As if I needed more torque in the lower RPM's, I can tell the torque curve moved down in the RPM range with the next size smaller cam.  While I didn't have a complaint about driveability before, the smaller cam has improved the quality of idle somewhat, and the engine doesn't dog down so much at stop lights while the shifter is in drive.  Big surprise was:

MPG 9 city/?? highway (have yet to go on a road trip).

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10,400 miles, still going, EXCITEMENT CITY!     

Wall to wall torque, smokin' em from a 30 mph roll, hitting second and they just keep boilin', hittin' the gas at 70 and getting nailed to the seat .......it's insane, and that's just a routine trip to the car wash yesterday.   
   
........and then you wonder what it would do at W.O.T.??     

The big cubes tame down what would be a relatively large camshaft in a 440.  Gobs of torque and horsepower, and great driveability are some of the greatest benefits of the 4.15 crank in the factory 440 block.



(This post continued farther down the page.  Tried to modify this one again, but discovered an individual posting is limited to 10,000 words.)

[black71]

sweet thanks for the post! I am starting on my 543 stroker from 440 source...... can't wait to get her done!

[tx9rt440sixpack]

 i totally agree. what  a great post i  will be doing  a rebuild on the 440 soon and  was thinking of going  the stroker route. can you please  explain in  detail  exactly what you do when you clearance the bottom of block bores? any pics? can i do this myself ?  also the heads that you used (eddy heads) are they the edelbrock rpm heads?

thanks

[67 CHARGER]

SOUNDS LIKE A GREAT 496 MOTOR BUILD UP, EXCEPT FOR THE CAMSHAFT LOBE & CRANK PROBLEMS, WHAT BRAND OIL AND WEIGHT WERE YOU RUNNING ? WHAT DID HUGHES OR YOUR ENGINE BUILDER RECOMMEND FOR OIL? WHAT OIL PRESSURE DID YOU HAVE @ IDLE & CRUISING RPM ?
I'VE BEEN PLANNING A STROKED 440 FOR A WHILE, THE MORE HONEST INFO I GET THE BETTER I CAN PLAN THIS ENGINE. MOST PROBABLY SIMILAR LONG BLOCK SETUP, BUT WITH ROLLER CAM AND EFI HOPEFULLY IN THE PLAN $$ (hopefully stashed enough cash)

[Silver R/T]

nice combo

[EVIL72]

 Thanks for the info, it's always nice to hear of some engine builds, especially stroker motors. 

[moper]

Your experiences are typical of a build using Eagle or other medium priced parts. Everything MUST be checked for correct sizing BEFORE it's used. As far as the 305 giving up the ghost, I have an egnien still on "street duty" that runs that cam. It has since 1994. Over 20K miles on it. There's a good chance the lifter collapsed or the cam wasnt getting enough oil tossed on it at that exact moment, and it wiped. Unfortunate, but it happens. That "292" cam is a great idling cam in a 440, and pulls from about 2K on up to 6500. You should have one whale of a torque engine now. Generally, with smallish ports of the 452, and the not-so-fantastic work of Aerohead's "gurus" , you needed the bigger cam. With the better Edelbrocks, you will make good power with a smaller cam. Good ports=smaller cam, factory ports (even ported ones on that engine)=big cam.

[v8440]

Hi all,

     I wanted to weigh in with a couple of opinions, not substantiated with personal experience.


The 543 talldeck stroker kit scares me in a stock block.  The reason is that the stock 440 block does not have a tremendous amount of main webbing strength.  Certainly, it's weaker than a 400 block simply because the webbing is thinner on the talldeck blocks than in the lowdecks.  That's a lot of stroke to have swinging around in a stock block, and it's a lot of stress on the main webbing.  Of course, the main caps need to be replaced with better ones unless you're gonna REALLY limit rpm on the thing.  There you get into another whole kettle of fish-the aforementioned main webbing limitations also limit how firmly the caps can be retained to the block.  After all, the main cap bolts screw into the webbing...

As far as an around-500 inch stroker goes, I feel the 400 block is a better choice from an engineering standpoint.  First, it's a few pounds lighter, a little shorter height-wise, and a little narrower.  Besides having thicker main webs, it has shorter cylinders.  By that I mean the unsupported length of cylinder wall hanging out in the coolant jackets is shorter than a talldeck.  That means if you take two blocks, one talldeck and one lowdeck, both with equally thick cylinder walls, the lowdeck motor will have stronger walls that are less likely to crack.

Final advantage-the piston will be shorter and lighter in the lowdeck, giving a significant advantage in reduced bobweight.  In turn, this does two things:  Stresses the already-stronger bottom end of the block less, and lets the engine rev more quickly.

To top it off, 400 blocks are usually cheaper than 440 blocks!


Like I said, these are my opinions based on a bunch of reading over the years, including but not limited to Chuck Senatore's book on big block chryslers.

[MOPARHOUND]

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Posting 11-17-06

10,850 miles,  Ever hear the old saying, "Knowledge is what you gain from personal experience, Wisdom is what you gain from observing other people's experiences"?  I'd rather learn from wisdom myself.  If you agree read on.......

There is a reason why 69-1/2 Six Pack engines, and Hemi engines came with a 3 bolt timing gear.  In high horsepower applications, the timing gears are under major stress.  Think about it.  A 496 stroker putting out 600+ foot lbs of torque at the flywheel, is applying that same 600+ foot lbs of torque to the timing gears and chain at the crank's front.  This torque stress comes in even sooner on a stroker engine, as a major portion of this torque comes in on the lower end of the RPM range, before the engine really gets to revving, in comparison to a factory 440.

I searched the internet, and came up with a couple of quotes/comments:

"We try to always use the three bolt cam set up and prefer the stock six pack , hemi style timing gear set over the exotic tru roller stuff.", Don Dulamge, author, "Old Reliable".

"The "custom" (cam) version installed in this engine has a three-bolt "Hemi" timing-chain cam-sprocket snout in lieu of the single-bolt snout normally found on big-block Mopars. You'll probably be upgrading to a new roller timing chain anyway; the price for the safer three-bolt retention setup is about the same, so why skimp?", Bob Mazzolini, as quoted in a CarCraft article, of interest to guys reading this doing a 440 build:  http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles/116_0111_535hp_440_engine/index.html

In the latest catastrophe, the cam gear bolt backed off, allowing the dowel in the end of the cam to disengage from it's slot in the cam gear.  As you can imagine things were in a heck of a bind, with the cam's dowel scraping along the back side of the cam gear, until it revolved back to the slot in the cam gear.  It eventually chipped/wore about half of the dowel off and a chunk out of the dowel's slot in the cam gear.  Between the parts wear, and the more the cam bolt backed off, the cam gear finally "free wheeled" on the end of the cam, not turning the cam and thus the valve train. 

IIRC, hemi68charger on the www.DodgeCharger.com board also had a cam bolt failure.

The why of this cam bolt failure is mostly my fault.    At the risk of embarrassing  myself, I would rather someone learn from my mistakes. 

1050 miles ago, I installed this Comp Cam 292H, used only on the dyno previously in my 496, in place of a Comp Cams 305H that had a lobe go flat.  This was my first cam swap on my own, with the other being as a teenager 20 some years ago with some buddies.

When I began installing the bolt for the cam gear to the 292H, I noticed the bolt threads in the cam were like a 1/4-size to big.  Kinda like screwing a standard bolt into a metric nut, or vice versa.  It was odd enough to make me check it on the 305H cam I had just removed - fit like a glove.  Why the size difference I can only speculate.  Possibility Comp somehow tapped it wrong at their facility (I doubt).  Or, the original engine builder overtorqued or used an impact to install the cam gear when this cam was first installed in my engine at 0 miles stretching the threads.  Or, the original engine builder undertorqued the cam gear and it wobbled around during break-in on the dyno, and during the subsequent 8-10 pulls, damaging the threads.  (Long story, but engine then went directly to my current builder, this 292H was removed being deemed too small (not quality issues), and the 305H installed that would later have the cam go flat 9800 miles later.)   Irregardless of why the threads weren't right in the 292H, I should have done something different. 

The correct beveled washer was used.  I remember thinking about putting lock-tite on the bolt like I do the torque converter bolts, but don't recall doing it.  Rather than buy another cam, and wait another week without the Charger running, I told myself if it torqued down okay (which it did), things would be fine.  Big mistake.

Now, the next move is choosing and spending $$$ for another cam and timing gear set. Yep, it will have a 3-bolt setup.  Did a compression test on the driver's side cylinders, all were fine.  Tried to compression test the passenger side cylinders, but had insufficient clearance to access the spark plug holes.  Decided on pulling the passenger side head to physically inspect the valves and pistons.  Bad thinks happen when valves are fully open, and pistons are at TDC.  Hopefully the big valve notches in the Ross Racing pistons saved our bacon.

[moper]

Ouch..not again..

I've used both signle and 3 bolt, usually it depends on the cam.  It's not the horsepower, but the valve spring tension that determines which method is used. But, I also toss the factory torque spec out, and really lean on it. I dont like using locktite where it wasnt ever used, but in some cases I have used blue loctite as a "just in case" deal. I have also threaded in bolts that were one size too small. IIRC its a 7/16 bolt, but a 3/8 will thread in, and may even tighten up to a degree.

[73EStroker]

  Just my worth.

1.Why don't you guys buy decent cylinder heads like Chryco suggests - Indy EZ or Bulldog are leap years better than those EBs? Boy all the magazines feature Edelbrocks on feature cars and hardly mention the good ones. Edelbrocks are glorified stockers in aluminum. Look at the Bold Beeper project in MA magazine. They changed the EBs for some Indy EZs and got loads more power with just the bolt on application.
2. Sir, you should get some fussy machinist to do your motor work. Probably save you thousands of $$. What about all the metal floating around in the engine when you chewed the cam locating dowell to bits. I read that you simply changed the cam, I am no knowledge freak but I would certainly dismantle the entire engine and clean it out after all of that mess. Also talk to your local hi-po machinist and ask him what to use for street applications like bearings etc.
I hope all goes well this time and better luck for the future. 496 is a killer engine, mine is a 400 stroker out to 451 +0.040 in a 230 block.

[nivvy]

I have a 499 StroKEr with a 3 Bolt roller cam and One day I fired it up and all of a sudden a noise started coming out of the motor...now my new stroker on has 350miles on it!
The noise sounds like it is coming from behind the timing chain cover, now I have pete jackson gear drives...wonder what it is?

[moper]

Which heads do you run 73?

8pack, any noise is bad...Knowing that, how can you tell with a Pete Jackson GD in there? If you have a roller cam, you need a thrust button on the nose of it. If for some reason that came apart, it would get noisey. It might also allow the cam to walk forward and really tear things up. So I would be tearing off the water pump housing and timing cover. Do not keep running it. DO not drive it to a service place. Something is wrong, and running the engine will make it wor$e.

[Hot_Rodder]

  Just my worth.

1.Why don't you guys buy decent cylinder heads like Chryco suggests - Indy EZ or Bulldog are leap years better than those EBs? Boy all the magazines feature Edelbrocks on feature cars and hardly mention the good ones. Edelbrocks are glorified stockers in aluminum. Look at the Bold Beeper project in MA magazine. They changed the EBs for some Indy EZs and got loads more power with just the bolt on application.
2. Sir, you should get some fussy machinist to do your motor work. Probably save you thousands of $$. What about all the metal floating around in the engine when you chewed the cam locating dowell to bits. I read that you simply changed the cam, I am no knowledge freak but I would certainly dismantle the entire engine and clean it out after all of that mess. Also talk to your local hi-po machinist and ask him what to use for street applications like bearings etc.
I hope all goes well this time and better luck for the future. 496 is a killer engine, mine is a 400 stroker out to 451 +0.040 in a 230 block.

I hear ya, but unfortanatly the Bulldog's are no longer made  I was looking into getting a set through one of the dealers who sold them, and he said that they quit making them and no one had any more left. They also said that they quit making them because the owner couldn't "get his stuff together" I didn't ask.... But they are some really nice heads, just can't find them now.....

[Chryco Psycho]

I managed to get 1 set , good heads , worked great & truly bolted on