Also agreed on the choice of rods. Who came up with Carillo's being the best? It surely has not been proven.

We use ONLY one billet steel rod in our engines now, only ONE. The Crower's, no other rod has proven to us to be as good. We also use aluminum if they are requested. Groden's.

The Crowers were in our black car for I don't even know how many passes/dyno runs. That's what was in the car when we went 8.95 at 164. I have NEVER seen a Crower fail. The Groden's are in John's engines that I built and have gone 7.72 at 195 mph in an AWD.

Opinions on this matter are worthless. The proof is in the records that have been set with the 4G63 and the races won. Any other point is absolutely rediculous to even bother typing.

There are 4G63's out there being built that are such POS. Companies not taking the time to balance the assemblies. I can sit in an EVO/DSM and tell you if the engine isn't balanced. It is critical to having the engine hold up and stay together if you plan to make any power/rpm with it.

Also, going directly the a companies machine shop is flat out BS. Yes, you can go around myself or AMS and find the places that do our machine work. In the case of our shop, you still won't get what we have to offer as I won't sell them our parts. You will get the same machine work as I am sure you would from AMS's shop BUT where do you think those machine shops got the experience to machine a proper 4G63 engine? It wasn't from their first guess and years of small block Chevy's. It was from doing it, finding out what needed changed, doing it again, finding out what needed changed, doing it again, etc., etc., That experience was paid for you and brought to you buy US doing the work and having the experience to change things.

I'll go out on a limb here and say we have built more 4g63's than anyone in this country. The first engine we built was probably as early as 1991-92. Since then I have lost count. I am sure we've done 500 engines. It's nothing to have 3-4 engines leave here a week some weeks.

Anyway, buy what you want, try what you want. The other way to do it is go with the proven parts and spend the money once getting the best the first time.

Ive learned the hard way when i went with my last 2.4 Brian Crower build. I had taken my block to a local machine shop to have it bored out and assembled well they put it together and 1500 miles later i developed a knock in the bottom end and once i had English racing tear it apart they found all my bearings were gone and 3 of my Brian Crower rods had eaten into the crank. Long story short i didn't do my research and thought any ole machine shop would work shoot my V8 machine shop thinks my 4g63 head is a work of art and needs nothing done Well the cost of labor to rebuild and plus parts and labor from when the engine was put together was $15000+ The machine shop didn't check line of sight on the rods.

ifarted, you are speading absolutely INCORRECT information. Please edit your post as it is not correct.

Crower rods are NOT Manley rods. BRIAN CROWER rods are Manley rods. BRIAN CROWER (BC) is NOT CROWER. He is as seperate company and does relabel Manley rods as BC rods. THE ACTUAL CROWER ROD is manufactured by CROWER and THAT is the rod we use, recommend.

We will NOT sell, USE or ENDORSE a Manley rod. Last time I checked AMS will not either. They can correct me if I am wrong.

So the rods you got that were machine incorrectly were MANLEY's sold by BRIAN CROWER (BC). I don't think you will find an actual CROWER rod that has been machined incorrectly. SB uses Manley rods.

Ahh yes David you are correct when i had my conversations with Brian he did say his fathers company is separate from what he does. My bad David
Here is some pics of my rods. Lesson learned the hard way

Man I seriously wish BR or AMS would open a place in the South. If I had to do a rebuild these two places would be the only places I would trust. The question is, how do you get a torn up engine 800 miles north?

Thanks for the great expertise BR and AMS!

This 3rd time around i went back to 2.0 and ordered Oliver rods and Ross pistons from AMS and have zero problems

This is OT, but David, what bearings do you guys use in your builds these days? I remember you saying that you used to use stock ones, but you ended up swapping to a different bearing for more durability I presume? Can you shed any light on this?

i am most likely going to slowboyracing on friday to drop my shortblock off. THey are going to basically rebuild it with the stock good parts. new bearings. cut the crank if needed and Eagle Hbeam rods for a grand total which is where I want to be. Plus this way I know exactly what my shortblock has and can handle

I saw the words "cut the crank" as if they were jumping out of the computer monitor at me.........

I'm wondering if they mean cut the radius on the crank?

if the crank journals are a little scoured up. they need to be machined some

MRevo2006, I'm not sure about your timing on your build, but, I'll be going back to BR within the next 4-6 weeks. Since I'll be pulling a 2 car fully enclosed trailer, I could take it with me. I could even possibly be at the 'River' in the next few weeks. PM me if I can help any.

Crank journals should never be machined in my opinion. If they are too bad to be polished, then it needs a new crank period.

I don't agree on the turning of the crankshafts.....................

With that said, we don't turn EVO cranks but have turned hundreds of early 4g63 cranks.