ok so i was an idiot and bought a cheapo 383 shortblock from one of them magazine ad places in california. they sometimes answer emailed questions and sometimes dont. i would like to know what i should pick for the oil as in what weight of oil to use. this is because i have no idea of the clearancing specs and whatnot other than that they used speed pro hypereuctetic pistons (i have the box somewhere). it is a flat tappet hydraulic cam also in the shortblock and so i plan on using some form of diesel motor oil, i just need to know about what weight to use. would 10w-30 or 10w-40 do ok in there most likely? the dudes at the shop that assembled the shortblock probably know just as much about the motor as i do. if it makes a difference the crank is just a run of the mill cast iron piece from a company called "CAT" and there is a picture of a little leapord or something etched in the first counterweight of the crank.

by the way, will this longer stroke motor most likely hold up for short periods at 6000 rpm? im talking less than 5-10 seconds at a time here, just to get the shift points up a little if ya know what i mean. like i said the crank is just iron, probably the shorter rods and the pistons are hypereuctectic. the cam is a comp xtreme energy 274 hydraulic flat tappet if that makes any difference. i also plan on running those new AFR eliminator heads with 1.6 ratio rocker arms to punch them valves even farther open...

If this is something that you drive daily, back & forth to work or whatever, go with a good quality 10w-40 oil, or 10w-30 if you drive where it dips below 20 F.

If this is just something for special occasions, run a good straight 40 in it, but the engine should be fully warmed up if you plan on beating on it. I used to use straight Kendall 50 racing oil in my race motors.

I hear ya on those "assembly line" type motors. I bought some brand-x parts from places like PAW and was not happy with them. I ordered a set of rod and main bearings, they came loose in a box! Normally they come one shell set to a box and have protective paper around them. Since then I found a couple of local shops that are very easy to work with and won't use anything substandard in their work.

Bob

yeah when i ordered the heffer, i gave them an extra 75 bucks to put the exact cam i wanted in there and then they turned around and gave me some kind of offshore-made lifters that have a part number even google doesn't recognize!!! (thats probably the longest run-on sentence i have ever typed in one sitting) It couldn't have killed them to just get the cam AND lifters from comp cams. they also wanted an extra 150 bucks just to use flex plates when they honed the bores... i mean c'mon it can't be hard enough to bolt them on there that they would need 150 bucks for the labor... but being the idiot i was back then (ok, maybe just a few months ago), i was like "that sounds necessary to me so id better buy it like that." oh well, i needed to vent a little i guess. hopefully it will at least last me 50,000 miles whereupon i will be in the local I.B.E.W. (hopefully) and can afford a better bottom end.

It takes a bit of shopping around to find a good shop that works WITH you. I had a great local one, just a general parts house that did motor work on the premises. But the guy was ultra fussy and it wasn't all about money. If I was making a bad choice, he'd say something and steer me right. They closed down after a partner dispute.

I had this other shop that was very good at the high performance stuff, they could do some very trick things and didn't wring out my wallet doing so, The owner died in the middle of my last big block venture and the place closed up soon after that.

Bob