Looking to upgrade crank & rods

[84BuickGNYorkPA]

Hello Buick Brothers (and Sisters),

Long time no see, out for knee replacement surgery 11/14, it went well, back to walking at lunch time and riding bicycle, knee is doing great, no more arthritis (racquetball injury from the early 80's) and no more pain!
Finally got the Buick from Marley Hay's house last weekend (thanks for letting me store it there since October), was on my way to local car show cruisin down I-83 in Oct last year and a freakin Prius went on my back bumper. I told my brother Joe and son Travis that is was time to show the Prius what's up. And ca-boom, that was it, the Prius won before it started and I'm sure it made his day. The engine made it 5.5 years and has 24,700 miles on it, had good compression and pulled good vacuum at idle.

So yesterday I pull the motor with the help of brother Joe and son's Travis and Andrew, put it on the engine stand and the crank is broken right between the #1 and #2 journals. This engine is bored .040 over with torque plates and diamond pistons in the holes. The mains where lined honed and a rjc girdle was installed, with the roller rocker valve train and the used champion heads, I was up to $7k. I decided to chance the crank and connecting rods and not spend another couple grand on a forged crank, aftermarket balancer and flywheel.

I'm leaning toward new forged external balanced crank, and on the fence about aftermarket connecting rods. Rarely hear of stock rods failing, or should I just spend the money? Looking at $1400 for everything including ACL bearings and fresh set of rings. Plus $$$ to have rotating assembly balanced. All of this is assuming that #1 bore is ok, as 2-6 the crank is solid.

Looking for thoughts and opinions, thanks.

Chuck

 

[TRICKSIXPA]

Wow that's horrible Chuck you know the whole Prius thing....sounds like your gonna be block shopping as well! Plus you have to find out why it detonated! Fuel?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Mark T-TB]

Wow Chuck, sorry to hear about this (but glad that your knee is good).
Hopefully you'll get the car fixed up and back on the road soon... we did miss you at Kirban's on Saturday.

 

[84BuickGNYorkPA]

Stephan,
I have the stock short block still buttoned up from when I pulled it 5 yrs ago. It ran fine, but needs to be freshened up before going back into service.
I'm hoping to drop a fresh forged crank in the built motor, add decent connecting rods, bearings, a hone job to take the glaze off and a fresh set of rings. But right now I'm in the disassemble and inspect mode, of course it's hard to find time with (3) teenagers.
Source of detonation is probably the ECM wiring harness, I've been having problems with the car randomly shutting off and the SD chip losing setting although not as much with the SD2. It got to the point where the car would die, I would pull over, take the ECM kick panel, rotate the bottom up 90*, rotate it back down and I was good to go. I did order a new harness from Casper's Electronics yesterday..

Mark,
Hope to have it running by the end of May, before the NSRA comes to town.
Chuck

 

[TRICKSIXPA]

I had that problem with my t top rust bucket. I spliced a new ECM harness to it and problem solved. If was like fifty some wires!! Hope the block can still work for you.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[84BuickGNYorkPA]

Block passed the magnetic particle (MT) test, ordered new forged crank, rods, full set of King bearings (including cam), and rings from full throttle speed Friday. Thinking of getting some more stuff from T/A Performance, they have a SFI rated flywheel and solid balancer...