Blackstone 383, page 1
Stefs oil pan Blackstone heads Final assembly
After proving at the Sacramento drag strip that stock rods won't tolerate 600hp forever, it was time to put together a shortblock that could stand up to major boost. I went back to Mike Blackstone, who did the head porting and machine work on the recently departed motor, to figure out what to do next. After listening to what I wanted, Mike selected a Lunati 3.75" stroke crank, Eagle 5.85" h-beam rods, and JE blower pistons with a 21cc reverse dome. He considered using a 6" rod, but that pushed the pin so high in the piston that he felt the dome thickness would be inadequate. Piston rings are also by JE, and the coated bearings are Clevite parts.
The CamMotion hydraulic roller cam in the foreground has been replaced, without ever having been installed, by a completely custom grind by a small, independent cam grinder Mike has hooked up with. Mike has sworn me to secrecy on the cam specs, but I will say it has significantly more duration than the 212 intake/224 exhaust cam in the blown up engine, and that the lobe lift is more than I've ever seen with a relatively short duration hydraulic cam. Because it's a hydraulic roller grind with fairly mild duration (limited lobe lift), and because Mike's heads flow well at above 0.600" valve lift, I insisted on high ratio shaft rockers. Neither Jesel nor T&D had anything ready to go for the LT1 head, so Mike contacted T&D about putting something together. As you can see in the pic on the left, they showed up. You now know everything I'm going to say about valve events.
The block has been fitted with Oliver 4-bolt main caps and ARP main and head studs. If you click on the middle pic, you'll see that the oil receiver in the rear main has been deburred. The right hand pic shows the grinding done on the front cover to allow timing chain oil to drain back to the pan. Mike promised me a front crank seal oil leak if I didn't do this! The pic also shows that Lunati and JE sign their work.
Below left is a close-up of the grinding done to the front cover. The center pic shows the hollow journal in the crank, done to facilitate balancing and to lighten the crank. To its right is a shot of the pan rail relieving needed to accommodate the stroker crank.
