[Sirrotica]

As far as the Pontiac rocker arms, I've never built any engines that I didn't use the stock rocker arms. If they last on a circle track engine, they'll be fine for street use.

Same goes for stock rods, every circle track engine I've built had stock rods in it, they've run for many seasons going to 5-6000 RPM twice every lap. They're more durable than people give them credit for. I've run them in 400s, 428s and 455s, so all stock stroke lengths they've survived. Many of the engines had stock cast pistons in them also, as long as it didn't detonate the cast pistons lasted.

Back in the 70s and 80s, cast rods were all low buck guys had to work with, I was a low buck guy, I still am. If you use cast rods, you want the later rods since 67, they have a stiffening rib near the big end that the earlier rods don't have. These rod were the same rods Pontiac deemed safe for the RA IV engines. Pre 67 rods aren't nearly as robust as later rods are.

I usually did lightly polish the beams to get rid of the sharp edges, and have them reconditioned. My 428 built originally in 1977 ran 3 seasons on the dirt tracks with cast rods, and stock rocker arms, it's still together just as i pulled it out of the race car. BTW, it had the heavy TRW forged pistons too.

When the mildly upgraded rods first came out they were about the same as reconditioning old cast rods, that is no longer the case though. many times the new rods needed reconditioning before installation, so you really didn't gain as far as price goes. reliability was better with forged rods over cast, but for a diary queen cruiser do you really need it?

The way Pontiac built their engines was with really tight clearances on the crank, if left stock these tight clearances were fine for grocery getters, but when you got them hotter than normal the cranks grew with the heat, and took all the bearing clearances out, grabbed a bearing, and spun it. When assembling my engines for racing I always was going for more bearing clearances, that extra oil wedge makes a huge difference. Putting forged rods in won't make a huge difference if you end up with only a thousandth and a half clearance, call it good and send it. It will spin a bearing too.

In my experience it was the bearings seizing and spinning first, then the rod broke due to too little clearances that gave the cast rods the bad reputation.