I had the pan off at the beginning of this year to replace 1 piston that had a damaged ring land from a tuning error, so I went ahead and put rod bearings in it as well. As far as I could tell it all looked good in the main area?

If I ever hurt my megablock beyond use, I would consider building another 400 based stroker using my center weighted crank, aluminum main caps, aluminum rods, 4.30 stroke, minimum bore needed , maybe 4.360? My guess it would live well up to 900 up and maybe more with a good 230 block. Getting tougher to find though.
With the cams I have and alky injection I would guess 850 hp would be in reach, at about 7200 rpm? The issue of breakage may end up being split cylinders though. Just not enough thickness for very serious power.

lol

Ain't that the truth.
Had one get stuck in the carb. the other day, would have been bad if it got into the cylinders.
I need a better airfilter.

😂😂😂

Specifically speaking? Drag racing. I’m sure you could turbo or roots or spray a car that sees the track once or twice a year and it will live a long time. Beating on a car at race after race and WFO and 7,500+ rpm will kill all components over time. The higher the power, the shorter the time. Sonny’s big hemi? 40-50 passes. Bonneville in the 60’s was to hot rodding like wars were to medicine. They poured nitro into 3 cap main, Ford V8’s and Chrysler hemi’s. They would crack the blocks and the cranks looking to go a few miles an hour faster than the other dude. They lived about 15 miles! The higher the hp. , the more maintenance and R&R V8’s require. Regardless of make, billet this or that. Hauling a$$ has always took priority over longevity. The top guys in the sport only need it to live for about a minute. For us NHRA sportsman and bracket guys, longevity is key. Doing big burnouts and big wheelies and launching against the converter every time the thing runs will definitely take its toll. On ANYTHING! Work on the car and turn it down a few notches. It’ll last a lot longer.

What kills a BB....Easy answer the guy operating it. Many reason have already been pointed out. In some cases the block themselves are just inherently weak. We broke a street motor that had.090" thick cylinder walls. Had it been filled likely would have continued to work just fine until something else gave way. I am sure this will lite some butts a fire but MOST of the guys in here don't make bigpower and taking the usual precautions will likely have long lived BB engines provided they have enough cylinder wall and keep them out of detonating. Yes main webs do give way, this is nothing new and been an issue for a long time. The issue there is likely cap bounce, which will eventually destroy something. Again there are ways to address this as well. BTW even those fancy cross bolted main Mega blocks see cap bounce. Nothing lasts forever, all you can do is use due diligence when building an engine. Parts fail, the more they are stressed the more likely the lesser pieces are to fail

I was never worried about my welded stroked stock crank, LY rods, stock caps and unfilled stock RB block..... MoparBilly took most of that junk to the 8’s on spray... wish he was still around. His $.02 would fit in here

It still comes down to it will go X fast for X amount of time when using stock stuff. There aren’t a lot of hard core racers on this website anymore that race weekly. That’s why I always laugh when guys use time (years) that an engine lasted instead of dragstrip
Passes.

dave hall,when you say going against the convertor are you talking about foot brake or transbrake

Pretty sure Dave is talking transnbrake as that's where he races

My combo probably sees 50-60 passes a year with the majority of those being 1/8 mile. I wouldn't consider myself a hardcore racer by any means, but at the same time I feel like i'm hard enough on this particular engine to give reliable feedback that a stock block is viable at 800-900 crank horsepower.

Most racing damages occur on the starting line or in the last 300 Ft. in the 1/4 mile
I love drag racing mainly 1/8 mile now after doing that for the last 13 yrs.
Way easier on parts also
My old pump gas Duster ran 6.40 at around 95 MPH in the 1/8 mile and it would run very low tens, 10.00 at 134.7 MPH in the 1/4 mile. Not much for me to do in the last 1/8 mile but keep the right foot on the floor, it was always in high gear around 550 ft.
My current S/P car runs mid 5.70 at 120. MPH in the 1.8 mile and it runs 8.86 in the 1/4 mile at 150 MPH, little over 3.15 seconds gain in the last 1/8 mile to pick up a little 30 MPH

Depends on what breaks first
Dropping a valve killed my 451 stroker.

I would think Detonation would be obvious, but that is more of a combination/tuning/fuel octane issue.
Something that can be done in the build is using lightweight parts. The mass of the piston and rod increases really fast with RPM. Also, a longer rod / higher rod ratio lowers acceleration and sideloading, but may be more prone to detonation?

I don't know how much hardblock helps in strength?

I have been told that aluminum rods and caps may help absorb some harmonics, but I don't have any info on that.

I think something like the BCR main (aluminum) caps and girdle help stabilize the bottom end, but don't know how much strength it adds?

Good balancing and machine work with proper clearances should be obvious.

Maybe some oiling modifications windage tray, or scraper, or drysump will reduce windage and oil whipping.

I think that is about all you can do with the stock blocks?