[DeTomaso] To stroke or not to stroke

[JDeRyke at aol.com]

Stroking an engine means you're effectively redesigning it from what Ford's 
engineers had in mind. If a builder is not competent to do this or begins by 
cutting corners for economic reasons, trouble is built in. Using junk parts (or 
sometimes inappropriate new parts or inappropriate assembly techniques) often 
means you wind up with a junk engine. A truely powerful AND dependable engine 
will have few if any production parts inside- none recycled, and it will not 
have a production block, crank, rods or pistons. FWIW, it now costs about $2000 
to thoroughly inspect & overhaul a given production engine- pretty much any 
engine from 4 cylinders to 8 cylinders- assuming most of the major bits are 
re-useable. Builders that specialize in drag racing or Chev V-8s won't have a 
clue as to why their $8-$10K Cleveland motor came back from a road race track in 
several boxes and plastic bags, all dripping oil.

At a bench-racing session recently, one guy said he's disgusted with most 
builders who deliver a $7500 street engine that has major problems built in, but 
he can't quite come up with the $15,000 it takes to get into the outer edges 
of the power-with-dependability club, so he's no longer a player. I note there 
are two professionally built, race-quality stroker Pantera engines for sale in 
the POCA newsletter. For $25,000 each, used. If you're trying to play the 
game at 1/3-or less this expense and get by on 'trick' parts, driving talents or 
$20-an-hour after-school engine assemblers, very likely things just will not 
work out. I don't want to discourage anyone from going fast, but this is 
serious business. As old timers used to say, 'You pays the money now or you pays the 
money later... the same amount goes out over time'. Add up the bills from the 
last few well-publicised cut-rate engines that are now in the metal recyclers 
yards and you'll see how true this is. Good luck, all- J DeRyke


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