Engine – Day 11

So you may recall I ended up deciding to try a new set of forged rods I picked up when I was sourcing parts for the new build instead of the stock or reconditioned stock rods I’ve used in the past new build or rebuilds.

Now I admit I didn’t pay much attention to the difference in these new rods, but I knew they had a different bolt mechanism (bolts instead of nuts) compared to stock and when I started assembling yesterday I realized I did not have torque specs for these.

When opening up the question on Facebook, I got a couple of comments that indicated I’d need to treat these 200K bolts differently, and I had not prepared for that.

One negative comment was made about them being Chinese bolts and the whole “China is bad” came out. I really didn’t want to spend more money on a better set of ARP bolts since I’ve got other big expenses hitting soon (transaxle and heads) so will just put these aside for now and use the rebushed VW rods I had for the original AS engine rebuild that did not happen and use those on this. Basically, swapping in stock for stock-ish and moving any purchases into the future for another block with these rods.

That’ll give me time to research in more detail the very different installation of ARP bolts, the lube needed to do them, and then the whole verification of torque and bolt stretching that apparently has to be done, which I’m not prepared for on this built. (All of that applicable research and methodology is on my life for the way future 2776 stroker build I would like to some day make.

I need to look for vendors or machine shops in Ohio that can rebuild/rebush all of the original rods I have that have a lot of miles on them as well. Hell, as with past problems, I doubt anybody would have any idea what to do with ACVW rods anymore.