Chevy 383 stroker build

I made this post to let you guys let you know what we are doing in tech school. There are about 15-20 of us in the engines class. Two of us get assigned to a project wether it is an engine one if us brought in to rebuild or wether it is a vehicle needing work. The engine we are rebuilding isn’t mine but it is my partners. The engine is just a regular 4 bolt main small block chevy. Once we took the pan off we realized that there was a problem with the bottom end, the crankshaft had 10 times the minimum reccomended end play. We took the crankshaft out and checked out the thrust bearing, which controls the foreward and backward movement of the crank, and it only had worn 0.020 of an inch and there was a total of 0.060 of an inch of end play. It turns out that the other 0.040 came from the crank being worn. My partner was going to get new pistons and rods anyway so we just decided on a new 383 rotating assembly kit with new bearings, rods, pistons, rings, and a new crankshaft. In order to make a 383 cubic inch engine from a 350 you put a crankshaft from a 400 cubic inch small block chevy in it. You can get the kits with a cast crankshaft for under $900 all day long so he had no reason to go with it. That is as far as we have came in this build so far. I will try to get pictures sometime this week and I will keep you updated on this build and hopefully we will get to put if on the dyno and run it.

pretty cool Nicholas cant wait to c sum pics

Sounds like a fun project.

We ran all of the numbers on the schools computer engine analyzer and it showed that the engine should make 420 horsepower and 450 ft lbs of torque. The final power numbers will most likely change due to the fact that the engine will most likely be designed for more torque since it will be going into a plow truck. I will try to get pictures on Monday. So far it seems that it will be the most powerful engine that will get rebuilt this semester. I don’t know if we will get to run the engine on the dyno or if the high performance class will. If we get to I will try and take a video for you guys.

Nice man!! Sounds really exciting!!

Sounds like a good time in the making

Here are a couple of pictures. I checked the casting numbers on the block and it showed that it was casted in flint michigan in either 1972 or 73 I believe. It came our of either a car, truck or corvette.

Now that we have the camshaft picked out the engine shows 480 ft lbs and 420 hp. We still need to mess with the exhaust size and port and polish the heads. We now have the valves ground and the seats as well. We are pretty much waiting on parts now so we can get the block sent off to get bored out then everything will get put back together.

great project – sounds like a lot of fun

The rotating assembly made it in Friday. We now have the block sent off to get bored out. The kit came with a new Scat crankshaft and rods, forged aluminum pistons, plasma moly rings, bearings, and came with a balancer and flex plate and is fully balanced. For $879 the kit is a great value for what it comes with. We should have a compression ratio of 10:1 with the pistons in the kit. I will try and get pictures of everything and upload them tomorrow.

Sounds awesome.

Sounds good Nicholas you’ve put a lot love into it already and it’s gonna come out great man

202 or 194 heads? double bump or apartment? if your redoing the guides don’t go with bronze to soft for street/everyday use…….

They are edelbrock performer rpm heads. Bronze is actually a better wear surface than steel or whatever they use. I would assume it is heat treated or harder than normal. Regular bronze would be too soft.

Sounds like u r picking up some pointers in that class. It will be great to have some techs out there that know what they are doing.

We now have the block back from the machine shop. The crankshaft is in the engine along with new ARP main studs. The main bearings had .002 inches of clearance which is perfect. The rods and pistons are also ready to go in other than the rings. After that it should be fairly easy as the rest should just bolt together other than degreeing the camshaft and adjusting the valves. When things get slow in the class, such as when the block was being machined, the teacher will have us do customer work. The work we have done was fixing a misfire on the teachers mothers vehicle and change the tranny fluid. We have also redone four sets of small block chevy heads. We put new guides in two and all four had the valves ground and seats ground as well. I doubt many 18 year olds can say they have done that.

We finally have the bottom end together and everything fits like a glove. We now have the heads on and the valves adjusted. So far everything is looking good and working out. We should prime the engine tomorrow and see what the oil pressure will be. Hopefully it will be done by the end of the week.

Nice!!

We now have the engine primed and it showed a whopping 70 lbs of oil pressure which is excellent. We did go with a high volume oil pump since the engine is more performance oriented. We should have it ready for the dyno by tomorrow. They were testing out the dyno this afternoon since you could hear the high performance class making some pulls with an engine laying around the shop. What do you guys think the engine will make for horsepower.

I’ll say around 400/430 hp is it fuel injection or carb.

Just read through this thread for the first time. Not sure how I missed it until now..

really cool build, it must feel good building that bad boy

I’m excited to see how she does. Gonna agree with rego on the hp figures. Sounds like your going for torque so I’ll throw out 450-475 ft lbs

It has an edelbrock carberautor. He was going to put fuel injection on it but he didn’t have the money.

He’s going to regret that decision going FI is always better than going carburated. I get that carbs are better now than they used to be, but they are still a hassle to own though.

The main thing was the cost of the fuel injection. It would be around $2500 and he already had the carberautor. Automotive carbs aren’t as picky as small engine carbs.

NicholasShetley wrote:

We put new guides in two and all four had the valves ground and seats ground as well. I doubt many 18 year olds can say they have done that.

not many, at 16 I was machining cranks and boring and honing cylinders…..then again I started in the machine shop at 14

The engine made 380 hp and 380 ft lbs of torque. The torque is so low because the pull starts at 3000 rpm. The torque was in the downward trend by then. A couple of valves were adjusted too tight and the balancer rubbed the timing cover but other than that it ran great. It also ran 75-80 lbs of oil pressure which is great. I will try and put the video of one of the pulls on here tomorrow. The engine needs a bigger carb and a spacer to raise the carb. The teacher we could see 400 hp with that. We will try it Monday and see.

Here is the video of the first pull. It made 315 hp and 350 torque on this pull.

Awesome Nicholas!

Nice work, man! At one time, I had delusions of building a 383 to swap into my Jeep, but I think I will probably drop some form of LS motor when I blow up my 258. That really hurts this blue oval guy…

Thanks guys! BK this engine was around the $2000 mark to build other than the heads, my partner somehow got them for free, and it can easily handle up to 600 hp. With the rotating assembly we used no block clearancing was needed. It was pretty much a bolt in kit. The only bad things about the LS engines are the cost of them. Other than that they are great engines.