I am having all sort of issues come up and are bothering the heck out of me. My engine builder now has informed me that instead of the 6.385 rod , he went with the 6.135 stock rod. I am left with a sinking feeling . Apparently he balanced the scat 9000 crank with the .100 dome pistons and will need to rebalance the crank with the new .250 dome pistons. Now I have looked for a speed pro part # for a .250 dome hyper piston and haven't had success. I asked him about the balancing the first time with the .100 dome piston and if it was expensive . He said everything was good (no extra expense for balance work). My first problem with this build was :
1.
1. he had told me he was using a dominator single plane, then I ask to see the intake and it's a torquer 2-0 ( I absolutely demanded atleast a power plus single plane, he agreed)
2. the .100 dome speed pro hypers would not give me a 10.5 comp ratio like we had agreed, he sent those back to for some .250 dome hypers
3. We agreed on a 6.385 rod and he now says the first balance was with the 6.135 rod , so basically HE decided to change rods without telling me.
4. He is doing some of the balance work himself, taking the bobweight to the balancer
He's started on this and I would hate to have to go pick up all my stuff and start all over again. I'm just at a point where I think this project is headed in the wrong direction. What to do

If all of this was laid out in the beginning, and you both agreed on 6.385 rods, and 10.5:1 compression, then that is what you should get. If the guy had the crank balanced with pistons and rods that you did not agree on, it is his place to eat the cost and deliver what you want, not what he wants. If he is not agreeable to this, go somewhere else and DO NOT pay him for parts you did not agree on.

I am having all sort of issues come up and are bothering the heck out of me. My engine builder now has informed me that instead of the 6.385 rod , he went with the 6.135 stock rod. I am left with a sinking feeling . Apparently he balanced the scat 9000 crank with the .100 dome pistons and will need to rebalance the crank with the new .250 dome pistons. Now I have looked for a speed pro part # for a .250 dome hyper piston and haven't had success. I asked him about the balancing the first time with the .100 dome piston and if it was expensive . He said everything was good (no extra expense for balance work). My first problem with this build was :
1.
1. he had told me he was using a dominator single plane, then I ask to see the intake and it's a torquer 2-0 ( I absolutely demanded atleast a power plus single plane, he agreed)
2. the .100 dome speed pro hypers would not give me a 10.5 comp ratio like we had agreed, he sent those back to for some .250 dome hypers
3. We agreed on a 6.385 rod and he now says the first balance was with the 6.135 rod , so basically HE decided to change rods without telling me.
4. He is doing some of the balance work himself, taking the bobweight to the balancer
He's started on this and I would hate to have to go pick up all my stuff and start all over again. I'm just at a point where I think this project is headed in the wrong direction. What to do
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Don't know the whole story but bottom line,, what Jay said,,,

This is your money & if you want the engine built a certain way it would be my responsibility to do this for you unless there was a good reason not to & this we would discuss before starting or making what look like major changes.
Also just for info, I am not real fond of a 6.135 rod in a 496 as you cannot intrernal balance it which is my preference plus it has a pretty bad R/S ratio, one of the worst of the popular engine combos.

Take your stuff ta h-ll outta there!!

I've been through this like Mike say's!!

pdq67

Agree with all the rest, you dont really want a stock rod length in that combo. Not a good idea.

This really does su*k , I need to see how we can work it out since I gave him my 383 that had just dropped a valve but was fixable and 2k(gave him 1k already). This 383 (in sig) had some real nice parts. That 383 he sold already . See how it goes. Looks like I am going to be doing the building , I will be asking alot of questions . :D

I like how I mention I am doing the building myself and all of a sudden , >>>silence, no more replies. :D My last build up I had a problem with dropping a valve but my enthusiasm is back! I wanna build this one .

I like how I mention I am doing the building myself and all of a sudden , >>>silence, no more replies. :D My last build up I had a problem with dropping a valve but my enthusiasm is back! I wanna build this one .
No problem doing it yourself. I have built every one of my perf. engines, starting about 20 years ago. I think you will have all the help you need right here on this board. With guys like Mike Lewis, Bill K., Carl Hinkson, and many, many others, ask and ye shall receive!

As some people on this board know, I had numerous issues with my engine builder. If you can possibly extricate yourself from this guy without too much monitary loss, get the hell outa there. I am not talking from second-hand here. Don't walk, run. I didn't, and got royally screwed. That B*gger doesn't see another dime of my money. And I always spend here and there. He coulda had a loyal long-time customer with a moderate and endless wallet. But no, he had to be an a**hole, and now he gets NOTHING. Put your arse in hyperdrive, and get your motor outa there! It would pay you to take a long weekend and drive your mill up to Wolfplace's.

GET MOVING!

Ok, this is important enough to me that I am missing work tomorrow to get this figured out. I've got one very important question to ask. So it is a given that a scat 9000 crank with hyper pistons using a 6.135 rod will need weight added after clearanced so the pistons will not hit the counterweights? He said this thing balanced (externally ) as it was. No clearance issues. I also wanted to thank you guys for the support. It's helped me out quite a bit.

Ok, this is important enough to me that I am missing work tomorrow to get this figured out. I've got one very important question to ask. So it is a given that a scat 9000 crank with hyper pistons using a 6.135 rod will need weight added after clearanced so the pistons will not hit the counterweights? He said this thing balanced (externally ) as it was. No clearance issues. I also wanted to thank you guys for the support. It's helped me out quite a bit.
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This I cannot answer without knowing the weight of the pistons but,,, if it was already balanced with the smaller domes & the larger domes are heavier you answered your own question.
And why were the counterweights clearanced unless this was originally a crank for the longer rod??
Scat makes both.

Sorry , this is where my confusion came in. This crank that he purchased was a crank for 6.135 rod( checked the part number and I just realized myself that it states it's for the shorter rod), so he got that correct there. Maybe he realized his mistake about trying to use a 6.385 rod for this crank and changed over to the 6.135 rod. I may be jumping the gun here? As far as clearance , no he said no clearancing needed hence no weight added( so that statement by him is possible).

Sorry , this is where my confusion came in. This crank that he purchased was a crank for 6.135 rod( checked the part number and I just realized myself that it states it's for the shorter rod), so he got that correct there. Maybe he realized his mistake about trying to use a 6.385 rod for this crank and changed over to the 6.135 rod. I may be jumping the gun here? As far as clearance , no he said no clearancing needed hence no weight added( so that statement by him is possible).
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Here's the deal,
You can use either rod with the 6.135 crank but will have to external balance it
With the crank designed for the 6.385 rod you will have more counterweight as they do not have to be machined down as far to clear the bottom of the piston at BDC so they will USUALLY internal balance with a decent weight piston without having to add Tungsten (heavy metal)
I know of no hyper piston that is light enough to internal balance with the 6.385 rod without Tungsten ( with the crank designed for the longer rods) which now makes a crank that cost less than $300 a $6-700 crank,, not a good deal as you could have bought forged pistons cheaper,,,

Assuming you wanted to internal balance your 6.135 crank even with forged pistons & the long rod would probably cost you a minimum of $500, probably more,, again, not a good deal.

With what you appear to have you are going to have to external balance.
The problem is how much more do the new pistons weigh being as the crank was balanced for the lower dome pistons.
If the new pistons are lighter or the same, you are home free.
If heavier, weight will need to be added to the crank in some fashion to do it correctly.
There are ways around this but I do not recommend them.

Thanks for the explanation Wolfplace , also you stated
quote: If heavier, weight will need to be added to the crank in some fashion to do it correctly.
There are ways around this but I do not recommend them.
How would he try to do this? taking weight off the pistons or rods? :eek:

Yes, Or removing weight from the journal side of the crank, like the one from that 632 that world did in a previous post. Looked like crap.

We all research our buildups by reading magazines, asking questions on websites, and getting opinions from friends. Everyone shouild be just as diligent in researching their machinist. Just because a guy has a race car that goes fast and he has a machine shop, does not make him a machinist. In the St. Louis, MO area where I live, there are two shops that I know of that have fast cars sponsered by their own shops. This would lead one to assume that they do the machine work on their own cars. But neither of them do. Both send the work on THEIR race engines to a different shop, because they want THEIR stuff done better than what they or their employees can do. Just because someone can drive, tune, or fabricate does not necessarily mean they are also a good machinist. There are a lot of good machinist, but before you go to one, you will probably have experiences like those in this post.

Before I would select a new shop, I would ask people on this forum for their opinions about the shop you are thinking about using.

I agree about researching the machine shop doing the work. This place is the only one locally and has a good rep with the local racers( we have the option of going about 60 miles to another machinist that does balance work), so I am surprised that this issues have come up. Today I talked to my engine builder and he agreed to absorb any additonal cost with the balancing. He also admitted that the agreed apon 6.385 rod was his intention of using but realized later that the crank is for a 6.135 rod. Guess I will proceed with caution, armed with more knowledge(thanks to you all) than I did when the project was initiated.

The Scat 9000 crank has smaller counterweights for a 6.135 rod but can be used with 6.385. They generally take a good bit of heavy metal, from what I've seen.