One more current articlette about rod lengths in the October 1997 issue o=
f
Car Craft Mag. The article is entitled "OOps! 15 Common Engine Building
Mistakes... and how to fix them."
Item 8 (in its entirety):
8. Worring about rod length.
Don't worry about connecting rod length if this your first or second engi=
ne
build-up. This is so unimportant that once the engine is together you
can't tell the long rod engine from the regular rod engine. It's just no=
t
a factor in 95 to 98 percent of all buildups. Once again, it's a matter =
of
bucks. In most cases, longer than stock rods are quite a bit more
expensive. Any slight performance increase on a street engine isn't wort=
h
the extra dollars spent. For an all-out $10,000-plus race engine where r=
od
length is carefully coordinated with cylinder-head flow characteristics a=
nd
camshaft selection, a long rod won't fall off the power peak as quickly. =
=
---Joe Sherman, Joe Sherman Racing Engines, Santa Ana California. =
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