Very nice with awesome pictures... were those H-bean rods? It looks like a freaking beast I bet you can't wait to get it in...

 

4340 I beams. They'll take more than the block will, so there's no need to go H on a stock block. Been driving it almost a year, and right when I pretty much get the thing dialed the thrust bearing fails and takes the crank with it. Oh well, at least I'll end up with a lighter crank out of the whole deal. It's set up to take spray. I could prolly put about a 150 shot to it reliably, after that I'd start to question whether the block will hold.

 

I beams should definitely work. I actually have a hard time wanting to put spray at all in mine.... It is a love hate relationship and I know if it hates(lack of air or the right amount of fuel) I will be building a new engine... That scares the junk out of me if ya know what I mean. Do you think you will really run it with spray? It is your daily driver right? I can't remember...

I can't believe it failed after a year, were they just bad bearing you think? Hey sometimes a break is a good thing especially if it leads to higher perfomance parts

 

I'm pretty sure the bearing failed cuz of the newer low zinc/phosphorus oil. Everything was fine until the first time I used it, then the bearing just took a crap(cut the filters I had too, the one from the new oil had a ton of metal in it, the others from before were clean). I haven't found anything else that could explain it, though running a high performance clutch prolly didn't help. Straw that broke the camel's back and all that, but it happens. Who knows, maybe the bearing was bad and the material just sheered off the backing plate suddenly at the same time I changed oils.

And yeah, it's my driver. I know it'll take spray(stout bottom end, forged pistons and fat ring end gap etc), and if you set it up right with a good wet kit and the proper safegaurds nitrous is plenty safe. You get trick and run a seperate electric fuel pump just for the nitrous, rig it with a fuel pressure safey shutoff switch hooked to the nitrous solenoid, so if the shot doesn't get the fuel it needs(pressure drops too low) then it shuts off the nitrous solenoid. No fuel, no spray. Whether or not I do spray it I dunno. I'll see what I can get it to do the way it sits, I may eventually get a custom solid roller setup and a trick carb, and see how fast I can get it to go just on the engine with the AFR 165's. I think 165's have a lot more potential than most people give them credit for, but most folks jump to the 185's so there's not much evidence of what 165's can really do. I'd like to try and see how far they can be pushed in a street driven n/a application.