Chevy 383 Stroker Kit Chevy Suburban - Stover's Stroker

Here you can see our machinist,... 

   

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Here you can see our machinist, Joe Ganz of Los Gatos Auto Service in Los Gatos, California, preparing to bore out the cylinders 0.030 inch over on our Sportsman block.

More To Come
Well, we're out of space, folks. Next time we'll showcase our head selection, cam choice, fuel injection, and a whole assortment of other parts that we're using to make our stroked small-block come to life. Stay tuned. To see Part 1 of "Stover's Stroker," log onto www.fourwheeler.com and check out the "Tech" department.

Check out the sweet ARP 8740...        read full caption Check out the sweet ARP 8740 alloy 12-point 7/16-inch cap bolts. These bolts are perfect for a high-revving engine because they have an excellent strength-to-weight ratio. When you consider how fast these parts are stroking back and forth inside the engine, you start to appreciate why Manley uses high-quality ARP bolts.

Take a look at the wristpin...        read full caption Take a look at the wristpin wear surface on the Manley H-Beam rods. They feature a bronze alloy bushing to help prevent galling. Also visible is a small oil-galley hole to help keep the wristpin lubricated. Notice how these rods have smooth radiuses around all edges-this helps prevent stress risers which can lead to failures.

The wristpin and big end bores...        read full caption The wristpin and big end bores of these rods are honed to plus or minus 0.0002-inch tolerance. Notice how you can't see a seam between the two halves of the connecting rod in this photo? A really nice finish job is evident when you can't tell where the rod ends and the cap begins. We just love high-quality components like these.

As mentioned earlier, we wanted this engine to last a good long time, so we looked into the idea of having our Keith Black pistons coated with two purposeful coatings for added protection. The first of which is a lubricating Piston Skirt Coating (darker color) intended to reduce friction, as well as inhibit galling and seizing. This coating is applied to the skirt area only. The typical dimensional change is 0.0003 to 0.0005 inch. The second coating is a Thermal Barrier Coating designed to help reflect heat away from the top of the piston and into the combustion chamber, thus increasing exhaust-gas velocity and greatly improving the engine's scavenging potential. Both of these coatings were applied by the coating experts at Embee Performance of Santa Ana, California. These are the same type of coatings racer Robby Gordon uses on his Dakar and Baja race-vehicle engine components. The cost of these coatings was under $300, and the turn-around time was just three short business days.

Another trick coating we decided to try on this engine was intended to increase the service life of the wristpins. The coating is called Carbon Raptor by a company known as Extremeion. The diamond-like carbon coating is applied by a Plasma Assisted Chemical Vapor Deposition (PACVD) process to permanently coat the parts' surfaces with a micro-thin carbon film to reduce friction and surface wear. Carbon Raptor is highly flexible, won't break off, and is known to be the highest-hardness and lowest-friction coating available today. Application thickness is typically between 2 and 4 microns (80 to 160 millionths of an inch), so no additional requirements are necessary for component fitment. This coating was super affordable at only $6 per wristpin. We think this coating will pay off when we throw a 100hp shot of nitrous at the engine while trying to scale sand dunes.

We turned to the professionals at Keith Black for a set of high-quality forged-aluminum pistons for the buildup. Keith Black pistons have a legendary reputation for quality and performance. We ordered ours 0.030 over stock to achieve our desired 383ci displacement. We like Keith Black pistons for a variety of reasons, one of which includes a fully machined step dish "quench" design, which helps maintain a more complete combustion closer to the spark plug. When the piston is compressing the fuel/air mixture, as the piston nears the head, the flat areas on the head and piston come together and force the mixture from those areas into the chamber where the spark plug and burning mixture reside, so you achieve a more complete burn. The quench area also runs cooler than the rest of the chamber/piston. These lower temperatures are where the word "quench" comes from.

Total Seal hooked us up with a set of rings that will stand up to serious punishment. To figure out what ring set we needed, we simply called Total Seal and spoke to one of their helpful sales techs. We explained the nature of our buildup and included the fact that we bored our block 0.030 over stock and that we intended to run a 100hp shot of nitrous. Just like that, the correct set of gapless rings for our application was on the way. We couldn't see how this could have been any easier.

We picked these steel 5.7-inch...        read full caption We picked these steel 5.7-inch H-beam connecting rods from Manley Performance because they can handle up to 700 hp and 8,000 rpm without issue. They are made from forged 4340 steel alloy and weigh just 665 grams each. We liked that these rods feature a compact uniform-grain structure for ultimate strength plus stress relieving and Magnafluxing to ensure consistent quality.

While on the subject of wristpins,...        read full caption While on the subject of wristpins, take a look at this super-simple new tool we found online. It's called the Lock-In-Tool, and it's designed to make an unpleasant job much simpler. Spiral pin locks and wire pin locks commonly used on piston wristpins are notorious for being extremely difficult to install. The Lock-In-Tool makes installing these locks a breeze. Take a look at how you reverse-thread the wire pin on the tool.

This shot shows how easy the...        read full caption This shot shows how easy the Lock-In tool makes the job of installing each wristpin lock. Simply push against the wristpin and twist the tool clockwise to manually feed the lock into the piston groove. It really is that simple. Available for a variety of sizes, the Lock-In-Tool comes in either steel or plastic and is a must-have time-saver for anyone building engines. Prices are $120 for steel, $30 for plastic.