Eagle's ESP Armored Rotating Assembly Is Applied To 383 - Setting The Groundwork

Eagle's competition kit comes with a complete set of rings and wristpin locks. Although the C-clips are more difficult to install, they are much stronger than traditional spiro-locks. Hanging the rods onto the piston will involve some patience though. Each piston must receive a C-clip lock and assembly lube in each wristpin bore. From there, the rod can be installed with the pin and locked in with the remaining C-clip.

Slug Fest
The pistons are the first to fight in the war against heat, stress, and rpm. Eagle includes a set of eight forged aluminum pistons with a -16cc inverted dome, valve reliefs, and a factory applied phosphate and Grafal skirt coating. Our set of eight also came with prefit wristpins and a 1.5-, 1.5-, 3.0-mm ring package. Better yet, Eagle prebalanced it all.

Beginning with the first bank of cylinders, Michael Consolo installed each piston and rod into the bores. Consolo then placed the rod cap on and hand-tightened the combination with a 7/16-inch socket.

Shimming the rods before each set is torqued down is an older technique. Even though the Eagle rods have bolt sleeves built into them, we decided to carry on the old-school methodology. We shimmed each rod set with a 0.014-inch shim and then torqued each rod to 63 ft-lb.

To finish our short-block build, we installed our Comp Cams double roller timing chain with a billet gear and lower crank gear (PN 7100). From there, we lined up the timing marks and set it in place with the supplied hardware and cam plate (PN 4605). We also installed the cam button (PN 202) followed by the two-piece timing cover.

Aside from the oil pump and pickup, our short-block is finished. We'll continue the build again next month with a complete Edelbrock top-end kit, featuring a pair of 210cc E-TEC cylinder heads with a Victor Jr. manifold and finish it up with a Moroso deep-sump oil pan.