pr0zac wrote:
there is no point in trying to get them to see the light. they already have their reservations on you i and the parts they want to use. let them spend all their hard earned money to have these "rare" second line engines keep up if not beat them. not my problem. i have about maybe $5000 in my engine and its running. took about three weeks casue i was being lazy. mojave on CF has the same setup and produces 449rwhp and 400rwtq. but i am idiot for choosing my second line parts, right.

PeteK wrote:
My personal projects have always been value engineered.
I grew up dirt poor, and learned the value of a dollar at a very early age. Because I have never received a dollar that I didn't earn I always factor in value.
Anyway, I always have, and will continue to build my stuff as I see fit. Never paid much attention to the guys that told me what I was doing wrong, because my stuff typically runs faster and is reliable.

jsup wrote:
Quote:

PeteK wrote:
My personal projects have always been value engineered.
I grew up dirt poor, and learned the value of a dollar at a very early age. Because I have never received a dollar that I didn't earn I always factor in value.
Anyway, I always have, and will continue to build my stuff as I see fit. Never paid much attention to the guys that told me what I was doing wrong, because my stuff typically runs faster and is reliable.

Pete, you are the master of this. I always applaud your methods. Wish there were more people to hear about YOUR example and the tile guy grinding on your heads and kicking the ass of motors with shiny, expensive parts.

You, Joe (anesthes), Pr0zac, and a coupe others are real hot rod guys. You guys get it.

PeteK wrote:
Thanks.
One of the benefits of being broke I guess.
A good friend of mine built a 383 stroker for his 86 vette.
He spent $2,200.00 for the crankshaft only. Called it insurance.
My crank was $139.00 plus $100 to balance it.
My combo makes more power, and neither of us has broken a crankshaft.( By coincidence, my entire shortblock cost $2,200.00)
Moral of the story is I used the $2,000.00 difference to buy groceries. Even if I tripled my income, I don't know I could every buy "top shelf parts" for the sake of insurance.
I am quilty of buying a canton pan, but I paid $260 including shipping and oil pump pick up, and at that time options were very limited.

biggrizzly wrote:
I cut corners where I thought I could and put my money where I wanted the most bang. "My money" is also a relative term. Mine being less than some, but more than others.

PeteK wrote:
One of the benefits of building stuff now is readily available, quality used parts. E-Bay, forums etc really help us budget oriented people.
This was not really possible as little as 10 years ago.

PeteK wrote:
My personal projects have always been value engineered.
I grew up dirt poor, and learned the value of a dollar at a very early age. Because I have never received a dollar that I didn't earn I always factor in value.
Anyway, I always have, and will continue to build my stuff as I see fit. Never paid much attention to the guys that told me what I was doing wrong, because my stuff typically runs faster and is reliable.

cuisinartvette wrote:
Quote:

PeteK wrote:
My personal projects have always been value engineered.
I grew up dirt poor, and learned the value of a dollar at a very early age. Because I have never received a dollar that I didn't earn I always factor in value.
Anyway, I always have, and will continue to build my stuff as I see fit. Never paid much attention to the guys that told me what I was doing wrong, because my stuff typically runs faster and is reliable.

Same here never had a bunch of money to drop but would save longer for somthing I thought was strong enough yet not overkill so I could do it once.

The 383 Im doing now doesnt need:
-4340 crank;but a Scat 9000 series should do the job
-4 bolt main; 2 bolt with ARP fasteners will do. Heck, even Pioneer is stronger than stock and cheap.Motor doesnt know what brand it is.
-Fancy oil pan, the stock one will work fine here.
-Expensive intake when some grinding on used parts will do.
In fact every part of the intake system is used parts.
-$800 long tubes when a $269 set of quality made shorties gets it done.
-We were going to use roller tip rockers (1.5). Due to a decision last night we decided to go 1.6 full roller for reliability only. Probably a cheap (but not cheap junk)Scorpion or something like that. $400 rockers wont help a thing.
Did spend money on good head and machine work where it counts.

cuisinartvette wrote:
$4900 in the longblock, but thats with every sinlgle little thing except headers and injectors.

To use "good stuff" cost easily could have doubled.

Torque/low rpm motors are cheaper to build.

Rpm/bigger CI motors add up.

$10k easy in the 408 I recently finished and that was with me doing a lot of "favors" labor wise. By the time its installed and running it will be 1000s more.

12k in my 350.

IMo the higher they spin the more they cost.

Danspeed1 wrote:
I've made this mistake for years, and I still find myself making the same mistake. Yet the COOLEST cars on the road are the rust bucket fox body mustangs you see people running 10's in all day long.

We did this with our C4. Purchased the most expensive parts, one by one, waiting till we had everything to put it together. And you know what happened. We sold the car, and I had to resell all those accumulated parts at a lower price than I paid.

I remember in high school, (I can remember one car very specifically) a guy with a mid 80's cutlass with a 307. He put the engine together for like $800. It was a freak of junkyard parts, and head porting with a dremel. It was the fastest car cruising up and down the road on Friday night though.

I always had the car that had the shiny stuff on it... and didn't go anywhere... Kind of like my Impala SS now :rolleye: with its $2000 Rear end, and Edge Converter, and Goodyear GS-D3's that suck in the cold weather, and sling gravel from the road all over the car.

DG

bogus wrote:
I had an interesting conversation with Dave McClellan last spring. He is on the board of directors of Mosler, they make the MT900 super car.

Dave's take is simple: use OEM parts where available. Most aftermarket manufacturers do not have the time or money to be sure a product is going to have the long term durability that we really demand.

It also comes back to my bitch about parts cost. Be it a crank or what not (and I know for a fact that the high-dollar cranks are forged here in the states), I don't care what it costs if it works.

And this is not a new issue. Back in the 50s, when Ferrari was almost affordable, it cost $300.00 for a new V12 crank, whereas a SBC crank was only $30.00!

jsup wrote:

Great stories!!! A friend of mine had a 70 Cutless with a Rocket 350 2BBL. He lived 1/2 mile from a junkyard,and scraped up parts here and there where he could. One of the fastest cars around at the time.

What you describe is what I point to. On both counts.

Danspeed1 wrote:

I only wish I had the guts to give it a try ONCE MORE. Like I said, on the last car, I just accumulated parts. But throughout my accumulation I felt confident that "some-day" I would have a car that put some power down. On occasions that I cut corners with my past vehicles it always seemed to lead to more expense in the future. My Beautiful Chevelle for example; I purchased a set of Ebay rotors, later to find that the studs had not been hardened. The wheel sheared off at 30MPH, and that was the demise of my Chevelle. I have never had such "hot rodders" luck.

But for a lot of duck tape junkies it works out well. I shake my head at those. Like I said... Guys putting 400HP cars together for under $1000. I always wondered if it was a lie, or they were trying to down play their cars. But after becoming friendly with these guys I realized they just had incredible skill, and even more incredible luck.

MY POINT: I understand these people get lucky and I can tell you all for sure I am not one of them. I am having problems with my Impala's rear after spending $2K on it. But at the same time, you read a lot about people using $1000 forged cranks for 400HP engines... it's just not practical.

If you step over to some of the other forums today.... alot of the Camaro guys and Trans AM guys are pushing out a lot of power on stock bottoms without failure. They don't have as much to spend as people on the Vette sites. I think sometimes this stuff is overkill.

DG