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Thanks Marty!

Where does anyone find any information on these blocks short of calling Kent? I've never had any success with him calling me back. I was told of some cam core and distributor issues with the blocks have they been addressed? Is their a webiste. I know Rick Luizzo (sp?) was involved in these blocks as well but it looks like he's fallen off the radar.

Mike Gray



Just keep calling him... he always returns my calls, but... I suppose there is reason for that. Best to just keep trying rather than relying on calling back.

I know the majority of info, just might not like what I have to say about them LOL.

As for XR2's & camshaft.... basically it just takes an R5 cam with the snout machined down to LA diameter & an LA keyway machined in. I have an LSM here, as far as I know it was first one actually done correctly, because Kent asked me to email him pics of it after I got it, so apparently he had never even seen one that was done. Rick L was doing all the XR2 development & now seems to be out of the loop on them. Kent said he had'nt talked to Rick in long while last time I was up @ Kent's a few months ago.

An R5 distributor will not just drop in... you must make spacers/do some fab work to make it work.

The new foundry seems to be making a nicer casting than the originals. The XR1 pictured above is a 2nd generation casting & is easy to ID the iron quality compared to the early blocks. Completely different look to the iron. Biggest problem he has now been having is machining issues with the shop in Indianapolis.. they can't machine a hole straight if life depended on it. I returned an XR2 to him couple months ago & while I was there I got to look @ a stack of XR1s that had all sorts of machining issues similar to what this one had. I think out of maybe 15 blocks I saw there, 1 was useable as it sat. The machine shop knows of their issues & is trying to fix them. I don't know exactly what they are doing wrong, whether it is in setup or in tool flex, but I would lean toward using cheap tooling if I had to guess. Holes such as the priority main are wandering off of CL.

Here's XR2 we lightened.... I forget what it weighs, I think it's like 187 @ 9.07" deck.

6464868-100_2509.JPG (988 downloads)