Let's take a look at the local bowtie's around Batesville just for kicks.

Let us compare some actual numbers of small town USA and race motor longevity, shall we? ( this is rich! )

Example: Local Bracket racers in my town.
7 Chevys total ( small town, I could have missed one? )

last month 5 motors, One in a dragster, ( 408 Alky injected motor) ....... one in a Mopar,( 408 chevy motor ) another in a malibo 385? ( Ron's toliet on this car ) then the second motor in the Mopar and another in a Mercury, yes it was an alky injected motor too. All with some damage, some minor some scattered. 3 of the 5 had to be rebuilt using new stuff.
and to be truthful one of the motors was a blower motor not running a front support, he was warned ahead of time.

One motor in a dragster had no failures.
the two other of the seven, one had no issues the other was being built. ( see this month for their problems )

Now I don't keep up with these guy's number of runs but I would guess under 80 passes. Lots of metal flying around here to be braggin boys. LOL

Now let's fast forward to this month..... 2 motors damaged that I know of.... both in pre-70 camaros, these were 6.70 motors in the 1/8th all good components, an ACE engine builder built them both.
One engine had less than 10 passes, the other maybe 80, just a guess.

all different cars, all small block chevies with varing degree's of build and weight vehicle. Now we MIGHT write one or two off to a faulty rod or something BUT all seven?
Is this normal? I know it has been Normal for around here for a long time.

Now I'm not making this up but I'm not going to name ANY names,mainly to protect these guys from looking stupid on a national forum. ( besides it'd be rude to name these guys, I actually hang out with them at the track )

Now let's see how many FORD race cars in town have torn up? None that I am aware of. I know of mine and one more, that is street driven but runs high 5's in the 1/8th.
To be truthful I haven't run mine a whole lot, but it has been raced enough lately to scope out any problems lurking inside.

I know of 4-5 more Ford race cars around North MS. only one has had problems recently due to a broken rocker arm stud.
That's one out of seven.

conclusions? I know a buddy of mine saw one of my rods back when I raced 351c's and he compared it to his stock 350 rod and he was amazed at the weak look of his compared to the FoMoCo piece.

Same story here, everytime there is an oildown it's usually a chebbie.

The fewest amount of passes I ever got out of a motor was 7, twice. The most I ever got was 355 in a season, but I did hurt that motor once (it didn't have to come out but the heads did come off at about mid season.)

It has lost 4-5 psi of oil pressure at 800 rpm idle compared to when it was fresh; to be expected I suppose. I'll probably pull it down this winter to freshen it up

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1965 GT coupe, 333ci aluminum headed/solid cammed stroker, four speed, 3.70:1 9"

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Originally posted by Rory McNeil:
I believe my turning fairly low RPM`s helps considerably.....

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