396ci Chevrolet Chevelle Engine Rebuild - Freshening Up A 396ci Chevelle

Since we intended to keep this engine within the confines of its stock mild-hydraulic-cam configuration, we elected to use a Crane PowerMax cam with 0.050-inch tappet lift--it's very close to the original cam with a little more lift. To help out, we also added a set of stock-ratio 1.7:1 Crane roller rockers.

The '65 and '66 big-blocks required a grooved rear-cam bearing along with a grooved rear journal. Crane can perform this optional process for a small fee so that the cam is ready to bolt in when it arrives.

This engine had very little time on the forged Federal-Mogul pistons, so we just added new Federal-Mogul rings and bearings along with a set of ARP 3/8-inch rod bolts for the stock rods.

We measured all the bearing clearances, which required using portions of +1 rod and main-bearing sets (the crank had not been turned) in order to bring the clearances to around 0.0025 inch for the rods and mains.

We didn't have the right sized tapered-ring compressor, so we had to resort to old-style clamp pliers to set the piston and ring packages in the bores. Jim Grubbs Motorsports improved our ring seal by torque-plate honing the cylinders.

We don't build an engine now unless we can torque the rod bolts using an ARP rod-bolt stretch gauge.