[DeTomaso] 408 Stroker Life Expectancy

JDeRyke at aol.com JDeRyke at aol.com
Wed Jun 27 14:44:00 EDT 2007


In a message dated 6/26/07 2:12:23 PM, artstephens at charter.net writes:

<< Yeah,  I sure would like to get one of those aluminum Cleveland blocks 
someday! >>

It really depends on what you intend to do with the car. Note that every 
single one of the 'big-power' engines at this year's 'Vegas Fun Rally track days 
had oil temp troubles- a few even with high-buck oil-to-water heat exchangers 
installed. So obviously not all the problems with such machines have been fully 
sorted out. Virtually none of the big motor cars were street driven either, 
which is arguably most of the fun for us. 
One engine, an all-aluminum Trans-Am stroker motor that was pro-built at a 
cost of $30,000' and 'detuned' for the street with 1.52:1 roller rockers & what 
the builders call a 'wimp cam', only puts out 627bhp. It's currently for sale 
after less than 500 miles. 
Another option for about half that cost is a Byars Bros big-block conversion 
that can be built to over 650 bhp pretty easily and will weigh slightly less 
than an all-iron Cleveland. One running at 'Vegas was 545 cubic inches & 
heaven-knows-how-much torque. 
But in all these monster-engines, you really need to re-gear the ZF (budget 
another $3000) so you don't scare yourself every time the ignition is turned 
on. With a stock-geared ZF in the big blocks particularly, 1st & 2nd  become 
useless. And having giant rear tires twitch sideways at 120 mph after a solid 
3rd-to-4th shift focusses one's attention wonderfully well on driving but 
over-tightens the sphincter-muscle on most of us! This may be most of the reason I 
haven't done a stroker myself- street driving is just so much fun in a Pantera!. 
My 2¢- J DeRyke<BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR> See 
what's free at http://www.aol.com.</HTML>



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