[fldrummer]

I thought I'd give an update on my situation. After much debate, I've decided to bite the bullet and get a brand new 416 stroker. It will be forged, of course, with Molnar rods and Diamond pistons. The only thing we'll be reusing are my heads. It will be a couple more weeks until the new engine is ready.

I stopped by the shop Friday to check the progress. The engine and driveline have all been removed. While my cam is still in good condition and is a good N/A cam, Jay said I'm leaving about 30 rwhp on the table, due to the overlap (it's for sale if anyone wants it--only 7k miles of street driving), so we're going to go with a more blower-friendly cam. Now for the bad news. Apparently, they saw signs that 2 cylinders were running lean (see head pics, below). 'Not sure if it's a valve issue or bad injectors (they will flow-test them to check). They also showed me my clutch and it's pretty much toast, which really surprised me, because I've never dragged the car or did clutch dumps with this unit! They recommended going with an RPS carbon triple-disk, but I'm already waaaaay overbudget and those go for $3300+. I did get in touch with Monster Clutches and they said they could rebuild it for $200-700, but could not give me a timeline. However, they also said they could get me a deal on their LT1-S triple-disk for about half the price of the RPS. I never liked the LT1-SC from the beginning, but I'm told it's the old design I have and the new ones are much better. 'Not sure what to do here. Suggestions?

Also, while the block is out, they haven't yet taken it apart to be able to see whether the rod bearings were going bad, as suspected. When I find out, I'll let you all know...