Internet Advice....balling vs. substance

As the rest of you I participate in a number of forums. Recently a number of things have come to my attention. Now, not to say that I haven't always noticed it, just never gave it much thought.

A couple examples.....

The first, someone was asking about connecting rods. The person in question was asking what connecting rods he needs for a 500HP motor. Now, I had just had this conversation with someone who builds sprint car motors. He was talking about rods. He uses Callies and Carrillo most of the time. As a sidebar, the "cheap" Callies or Carrillos are just knock offs for back of a better term and have no real relationship to their higher end cousins.

Anyway....I digress.... Point of the matter is on a 500 HP motor, all these internet ball swingers are telling this guy he needs $1200 set of rods. That the $600 set were "junk" and would not hold up. From everything I know, this is a bunch of bullshit. I see no point in putting really high end stuff in a build that does not warrant it.

Second...another forum....Roller rockers. One guy comes on and says "who makes Summit Roller Rockers? I respond that I believe they are Scorpions and post pics and stuff. They look identical and Summit doesn't sell Scrops so I'm pretty confident it's them.

Anyway, someone gets on and says if this person doen't buy Crane his rockers will fail and his motor will explode. This is a 400HP motor barely over stock and the guy is on a budget.

So, I guess my point is, my question is, have you guys seen a lot of this? When is enough, enough? Do we all need $4000 oil pans (yes they exist), $1200 oil pumps? $2000 valve set?, etc.......

Do you guys believe that the right part for an application is the one specified for the application or that overkill is good for a measure of safety or insurance?

The summit rockers are probably not the scorpion rockers. I've seen people buying ford rockers advertised as scorpions without the scorpion logo. Guess what, they are prime 1 brand. China shit again!!

Do you want your rockers to end up like this?

Having a 500 dollar oil pump and a 700 dollar oil pan *cough*

Most people will never need it. But its cool that I can turn my motor to 12000rpm without a shortage of oil or pump cavetation. If I ever decided to run at formula 1 RPMs I am covered.

But thats just my own personal amusement.

Billet rods are totally unnecessary for even the stoutest street build. I mean seriously get a set of good quality H-beams with good arp bolts and goto town.

Everybody has their thing that you cannot possibly buy anything less than the absolute most indestructible bit ever made.

I have seen that kind of response in other forums also,and it is kind of silly.You do not have to spend insane money to have a good HP and TQ. Now if you are running the car in competition meets and you want to be competitive,you will most likely have to spend the insane money for the newest technology.But to say the motor will blow up up if you do not run "X" brand part :suicide:
Where is TurtleVette at,he is a big advocate against these kind of parts (not putting you down TV)

What kind of oil pump and pan do you have?

Titan Speed Engineering georotor oil pump, and a jeff johnston's billet fabrication custom oil pan.

Twin_Turbo said:

The summit rockers are probably not the scorpion rockers. I've seen people buying ford rockers advertised as scorpions without the scorpion logo. Guess what, they are prime 1 brand. China shit again!!

Do you want your rockers to end up like this?

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Now that is something I can agree with you on 100%. I am NOT saying to buy the cheapest thing out there. I am saying there are some good, reputable products that happen to be a bit cheaper and for specific applications will work just fine.

Big difference.

guru said:

Having a 500 dollar oil pump and a 700 dollar oil pan *cough*

Most people will never need it. But its cool that I can turn my motor to 12000rpm without a shortage of oil or pump cavetation. If I ever decided to run at formula 1 RPMs I am covered.

But thats just my own personal amusement.

Billet rods are totally unnecessary for even the stoutest street build. I mean seriously get a set of good quality H-beams with good arp bolts and goto town.

Everybody has their thing that you cannot possibly buy anything less than the absolute most indestructible bit ever made.

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Exactly. You do it for your own personal amusement, and I am pretty sure you would never tell someone they had to have that stuff. We've been talking for what? Three years? Four? How many parts have you been through? It's a drug for you. Not what I'm talking about.

I'm not saying to buy the most expensive either but buying name brand stuff gives you at least some reassurance that it won't do what that part did. I will never buy professional products, procomp electronics, cat pep/california auto transpeed/ cat power, prime 1 and whatever other junk we have out there.

I'd rather waste 500$ of additional buckaroos on a set of overkill rods than save 20$ and end up with a broken engine. overkill is always better than the other way around. Even the eagle cranks are junk these days, I've seen several threads where people broke their stroker cranks, the alarming part is that all the breaks start in the journal radius.

If you want the cheapest parts that work flawlessly, start shopping with GMPP. It's hard to beat a cheap set of stamped rockers for price and reliability.

guru said:

Titan Speed Engineering georotor oil pump, and a jeff johnston's billet fabrication custom oil pan.

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I checked out the billetfab site, I'm now lusting for one of those 2pc wet sump pans...damnit, shouldn't have looked

Thats what I am screaming.

I know, those are hot arent they.

Mine isnt as cool as that. I will find picks of it.

Twin_Turbo said:

I'm not saying to buy the most expensive either but buying name brand stuff gives you at least some reassurance that it won't do what that part did. I will never buy professional products, procomp electronics, cat pep/california auto transpeed/ cat power, prime 1 and whatever other junk we have out there.

I'd rather waste 500$ of additional buckaroos on a set of overkill rods than save 20$ and end up with a broken engine. overkill is always better than the other way around. Even the eagle cranks are junk these days, I've seen several threads where people broke their stroker cranks, the alarming part is that all the breaks start in the journal radius.

If you want the cheapest parts that work flawlessly, start shopping with GMPP. It's hard to beat a cheap set of stamped rockers for price and reliability.

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I agree completely. But to my point, I just used rods and rokcers as an example. Cranks is another good one.

Scorpion vs. Cran on a 400HP engine? I don't see much difference. Now if this were a higher HP motor running at higher RPMs, different issue.

On rods, Scat vs. Manley vs. Eagle vs. something else in the $500-600 range for a 600HP motor, it's fine.

Callies or Carrillo for that application at $1200, over kill.

I am saying buy brand names. I am just saying no need to buy a Rolex when a Timex will do.

guru said:

Thats what I am screaming.

I know, those are hot arent they.

Mine isnt as cool as that. I will find picks of it.

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Like porn for you isn't it?

My personal joy, is in the obscure and obtuse.

Like my Offy manifold, my titan oil pump, my custom oil pan, Ford length Rods.

I also like waiting and pondering deals. Like when I pour through the day old discount meat section for that prime porter house our pair of rib eyes.

Twin_Turbo said:

If you want the cheapest parts that work flawlessly, start shopping with GMPP. It's hard to beat a cheap set of stamped rockers for price and reliability.

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There is some good advice.
The "aftermarket" QC is horrible, and filled with hype.:wink:

There is a 200cc 18 degree head for under 4.06 bore chevies. I am deeply deeply tempted.

I mean who has those.

And their like 400 bucks per head on jegs at the moment.

Part number 10134352

I may have to seriously consider that for my project mark 2.

big2bird said:

Twin_Turbo said:

If you want the cheapest parts that work flawlessly, start shopping with GMPP. It's hard to beat a cheap set of stamped rockers for price and reliability.

Click to expand...

There is some good advice.
The "aftermarket" QC is horrible, and filled with hype.:wink:

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Yep, but they hype goes both ways....some products are presumed better than they really are, some worse.

Which is another reason I stick to the torque school of engineering, never seen a engine blow below 5000 rpm......Axle's are cheep, engines are NOT.....

So I stick with decent stock shit, and forget about allmost all of the aftermarket stuff......except for cams and rockers....but then the rockers have to be 1.5 ratio, not into broken studs over nothing....

bolt on exterior crap ain't the largest fortune if it goes.....

:crutches:

i've only built a handful of engines. and even at that, they were either stock or mild builds so i'm probably not internet "qualified" to comment, but i'll do so anyway. personal opinion is that given decent parts to start with, it's all about preparation. i've seen someone make pretty decent power spending $1200 to freshen up an old motor, and other people grenade $4000 and $5000 motors because of bad/ignorant assembly and break-in.

clutchdust said:

i've only built a handful of engines. and even at that, they were either stock or mild builds so i'm probably not internet "qualified" to comment, but i'll do so anyway. personal opinion is that given decent parts to start with, it's all about preparation. i've seen someone make pretty decent power spending $1200 to freshen up an old motor, and other people grenade $4000 and $5000 motors because of bad/ignorant assembly and break-in.

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You know what....as long as you stick to what you know, and as far as I can see you always have, you're qualified. We're all a bunch of amateurs here and every day I try to figure out what I really know compared to what I think I know. Nothing wrong with that.

Preparation, thinking it through, and getting the right part for the right job I think is the key.