[DeTomaso] Best stroker kit for a Cleveland

[Daniel C Jones]

> What would be the best suggestion for a high power output, complete Cleveland ( or Windsor ) stroker kit

The best bang-for-the-buck kit for a street driven Cleveland is the 4"
stroke Scat 9000 series cast crank, forged I-beam rod and forged
piston kit.  9000 series crankshafts have a 351C crank snout (takes
standard 351C balancer and timing set).  Note that all of the
reasonably priced forged crank kits, including Scat's, use a 351W
snout crank with 351C main bearing diameters and require either a
snout spacer or a timing set with integral spacer.  Depending upon the
desired compression ratio and your cylinder head compression ratio,
the 393C Scat kit may be a better fit but custom or option pistons can
usually be substituted for a small price increase.  The cost to
upgrade to a forged crank is only a few hundred dollars and is
recommended for higher HP applications or racing applications which
shock load the crank.  Note that some of the low cost 4" stroker kits
are designed for 9.5" blocks with 6.2" long rods and will have piston
skirt to crank clearance issues.  Turning down the OD of such a crank
and re-balancing can be a very expensive proposition.  For higher RPM
applications, there are shorter strokes which can be used to keep the
piston speed down as desired.  The Scat 3.85" (393 cubic inch if
4.030" bore) and 4.0" (408 cubic inch if 4.030" bore) are both
designed to require no expensive Mallory metal to balance to 28.2
oz-in.  Depending upon the rod and piston weight, they can often be
internally balanced with only a small amount of Mallory metal.  My own
403 (4.005" bore by 4" stroke) is internally balanced.

Like all the reasonable cost stroker kits, Scat's raw forgings are
Chinese sourced.  Scat can claim "Made in the USA" in their catalogs
because they do final machining on their forged crankshafts in
California while the cast 9000 series cranks are machined in China.
Mike Drew and I toured Scat's facility in California and had an
interesting discussion with Tom Lieb (Scat's founder) on Scat's OEM
level quality control process and the difficulty of running a
manufacturing business in the United States (and California in
particular).

If you know what you are doing, it's no big deal to piece together a
custom kit of crank, rods and pistons to fit your specific needs.

> What carburettor and intake ? Wet sump ( not a race engine ) Cleveland heads.

In our testing of 8 different intakes (along with various spacers) on
a 408C, the Holley Strip Dominator and Edelbrock Scorpion single
planes and a ported Blue Thunder dual plane were very close in
performance.  Note that none of these fit under a stock engine screen.
Our best results have come with a custom Holley carb from Bobby Oliver
at Competition Carburetion.

> We are working with a company that is attempting to make us forged crank and rods stroker packages that is internally balanced already. At this point nobody has an internal balanced package for a 9.200" block

That will be a welcome addition Tim.

Dan Jones