Quote:
Originally Posted by russcc
The cost and effort of floaters for a moderate flatmotor may not make sense, when 8BA rods and NOS and NORS insert bearings are plentiful, and reasonably priced. Full race, floaters make a lot of sense.
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The main reason that I've ran full-floaters for years is that I tend to have my 4.00" Merc cranks offset ground to the 221 Cubic inch 1.997-1.998 rod journal size - to achieve the 4.125 stroke. At this journal size, the only affordable option (before H-beam rods came to town) was to use the 1939-1942 91A or 21A full-floater rods and bearings. The later 1949-1953 rods only come in the larger bearing size - so they won't work in my traditionally built 4 1/8" stroker setups.
Now, when you get to high horsepower blown or Ardun equipped engines, then the good ole' 21A rod can become a weak link . . . so in these cases I'd now run an H-beam rod with modern insert bearings.
If you're thinking of running 49-53 rods and the larger rod journals, then consider buying a new set of 49-53 rods from SoCal. They cost around $275, but aren't a bad deal if you consider the cost of rebuilding old rods and having a NOS set of rods brings some mental comfort!
