Well I think I finally did it

Went out this weekend for a little 1/8 mile action and had zero oil pressure at idle after the first run. The car is not making any noise and the pressure does come up if you rev it a bit, but I think I just caught it early. I will check the easy stuff first, but the motor will be coming out. As for the other posts about the strength of a stock block, well here is another statistic.

500 rwhp,
100hp nitrous shot
5 speed
6800 rpm shift points
3 years of street/strip service
200 passes (150 nitrous)
forged internals & main girdle
best time 6.75 @ 102 1/8 mile and 10.56 @ 129 1/4 mile

It will be interesting to check out the main caps for walk, the pistons for detonation and the block for craaaaaaaacks!

I'LL BE BACK......

Damn... that sucks!
It will be interesting to see if you find anything with the stock block... no doubt a warrior, but maybe its tmie has come.
Maybe time for a DART!!!

Good luck and let us know how it goes...

If it has an orange can of death on it I would start there

I have been looking at this topic for a while and it seems to me that some people are cunfusing the 500hp limit on stock blocks. It seems to me that the limit may be in the 500rwhp not 500flywheelhp. If you lose 20 to 25% hp through your drive train, 500rwhp is in the 650-675 flywheel hp range which is very serious hp. Somthing else I have been thinking about is the link between splitting blocks and solid motor mount,I understand that you have to keep the motor from moving(rotating) but the solid mounts are prob contributing to the problem. Are you running solid mounts or do you have a motor plate of some kind?

Detonation is the #1 enemy. Most early blocks will handle 500hp, but as soon as it runs into detonation (which might not even be noticed) they can start to split.

The 351W is a far stronger foundation.

Sorry to hear about the engine. You were probably following most of these rules, but for those who want to run stock blocks near the edge, it is IMPERATIVE to keep it out of detonation.

Never run the nitrous unless the engine is at a cool temperature. Hot engines are far more likely to detonate.

Retard the timing 2-3 degrees for every 50hp of nitrous boost.

Use cold spark plugs when on the bottle. Racing plugs are recommended.

Use straight race gas! Street pump fuel, or even a mixture with race gas can lead to detonation.

Do NOT allow the engine to run lean. Check the plugs, and if the the timing is pulled back plenty, there should be no specs on the plugs. If there are, it's aluminum from the pistons. When starting out with a nitrous tune.... Start with plenty of timing pulled out and the nitrous fuel enrichment on the rich side. Tune it down to where the nitrous response is crisp, but no specs. (do an advanced search under my username for 'nitrous tuning', and you'll find the whole article on nitrous tuning)

Well, what now Cahorne? Are you stepping up to a Dart block, or going the 351W route?

Good Luck!

For those of you interested in the results; stay tuned. I am a little disheartened right now so I have not done anything put pull a valve cover. I will get to it, but I hate the idea of the car sitting for an extended period of time without its guts. Money is always an issue with every build and I need to decide how I want to put it back together. The 351 route is appealing but definetely more expensive considering the extra parts needed (pan, rotating assembly, dissy, carb, intake and probably headers are all extra's). Even with the 393 route( use 302 pistons) I still need a lot of parts. The Dart block is expensive but still probably cheaper than the 351 route if you consider I already have all the parts (provided nothing is damaged). The only problem with the dart route is to take advantage of the block it makes since to go big bore and un shroud the valves as much as possible especially with Victor Jr's.

With regard to motor mounts I used stock mounts with a bolt through the rubber and a motor strap with heim fittings.

The tune was definetely right on: race gas (110) in the N2O fuel tank, 100 octane in the gas tank, 28deg total timing on 100 shot which correlates to 5 deg out. race plugs on stage colder that look great, LM1 shows 11.3 on the juice and 12.5 without. Fuel pressure was set at 6.25 on the N20 with a return fuel system so no significant drop in pressures at activation if anything the hit was very light. No detonation now, although I did go through a period with a little specs on plugs, it turned out to be oil from the PVC system and was eliminated with the removal of PVC.

I believe the stock blocks can handle 500 to the wheels for quite a while, but if the tune is off it can crack at 400 HP. The addition of a power adder makes hitting the tune much harder and even more difficult to keep from splitting a block when you are trying to sneak up on the max HP tune. I really think the main contributor to splitting the block, at least in my case was the RPM and the cap walk. If you think about it there is no way any block can live indefinetely with cap walk and all of these 2 bolt blocks are suspect. With the cap walk the crank has to be able to flex a little and that will definetely put additional stress in the weak main web area.

Anyway thanks for the feedback and I will eventually get to the tear down and report back.

Well, a 3.4" (347) stroke with a 4.125" bore (available from Dart) comes out to 363.5 ci... and you've still got the 8.2" deck height, so your existing oil pan, intake, etc will still work.

Using a 3.25" (331) stroke with the big bore comes out to 347ci.

With the Dart block, you would also be able to ramp up the bottle if you felt the 'need'. LOL!

Good Luck!