Fordnatics List Archive

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Mail From: (email redacted) (Dave Williams)


Racer Walsh's new ad shows prices for Keith Black pistons, probably
their hypereutectic types. 302/351W flat tops $216, 351W with Cleveland
heads $264, 351W with 400M crank and Chrysler rods $264, 351W with 240
six cyl rods $264. The one for the 400M crank and Chrysler rod ought to
be 1.375 or so pin height.


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, which appears to
be a 5.0-type rod with a "flat strap" cap. Other pictures (forging mark
not visible) show the "ridge cap" 289 or SVO rod. Other than the
289-type caps there's no visible difference between a plain old 302 rod
and an SVO rod. You can, BTW, use 289 or early six cylinder rod caps on
your 5.09 302 rods, just have the big ends resized. Or fiddle the pin
height and just use the 289 rods.

Quote: "the stock Ford 302cid small-block rods are forgings that have a
finished weight of 557 to 559 grams" BRAAPP! They're castings, Ford
must've used twenty different suppliers over the years. It's not
unusual to get three or four visibly oddball rods in the same 302; not
only beam width and thickness vary, the caps vary and so does the
hardness and overall weight of the rod. I sold Bob Hale a set out of
one of my old motors, matched up from four different core motors and a
boxfull of caps, then resized to spec.

Of 137 rods tested, there were 39 failures. 28 of the 39 were rod bolt
failures. The other 11 were rod failure. We're given five photos of
cap failure at the rod bolt notch. In my experience that's the most
likely place for a Ford rod to fail - in fact, I've never seen a broken
shank on a 302 rod, and only once in a 351W.

Though some high power talent from Ford did the tests, the article was
written by Peter Sauracker, who seems to check his brain at the door
when writing about anything to do with Fords. I'd have liked to have
known what part of the rod failed, for certain, rather than inferring
from the photos. And ripping apart a bunch of rods at 9500 pounds
tension at over 9000 RPM didn't prove much, other than stock rods won't
do 10 million cycles at that load. I'm not sure I see the point in the
article at all, other than "gee, they had this neat machine that could
destroy rods."