I am beginning to get everything together to build a stout 383 for a street driven 68 camaro. The car is 4-speed muncie m20 with 2.52 first gear and 12-bolt 4.10 rearend. I will be building a long stroke 6" rod motor with srp pistons. My question is do I run with the scat setup or eagle setup. Which brand of rods will clear a standard size roller cam with 242/252 @.50 .560/.576 lift without mods or running a small base circle cam. I am thinking of running the I-beam rods if they can be run without interference. I can get the eagle setup already internally balanced before shipping, but the scat must be balanced locally. Like I said this is for a street driven car that I want to just have a bunch of fun with. Both rotating assemblies cost are basically the same. Thanks for your help

As a proud owner of an Eagle crank, I would recommend the Scat.

as a proud owner of an eagle rotating assembly, i say go with either.
i have had great luck with my eagle stuff, and my machinist buddy i got it from has also had good luck with eagle and scat, but he reccomended eagle to me.
i've heard good and bad about both, but untill i see a large trend of problems, i'm not concerned. as anytime you buy new stuff, have it checked before assembling, and you'll be happy. the only way you'll likely avoid problems or chances of problems, is spend some coin on a callies or the like. but if budget minded, buy eagle or scat, have it checked out, and you'll still be money ahead, imo.
as for rods, imo go I beam, but you still really need to check for interference w/ the cam or block pan rails, i don't believe there is such a thing as "X" combo will work, "Y" combo will not, there are too many other variables in an other than factory engine combo. but, your chances are better with I beams for sure.
also if you assemble, and it turns over without contact somewhere, you still need to check. i have 5.7 I beams with a small B/C cam, when i mocked it up, no contact, but when i checked, 3 or 4 rods came about .015-.020 from the cam, too close. so i clearanced the offending rods, and was good to go. dont let clearancing scare you either, its really basic, esp. with no more than a 3.75 stroke and I beams.
hope that helps :thumbsup:

This is an interesting question. I have read many comments to both sides of this issue. I have built many small and big block Chevy's with Eagle cranks and rods with success. Eagle makes very nice H-beam rods and SIR cap screw rods. I am currently building a wicked Ford 408 stroker with a 4340 SCAT crank and I am not impressed with the quality of the crank. The finish was terrible. I had the machine shop deburr the oil chamfers (before balance and polish) in the journals due them being very rough and unfinsihed with several burrs. SCAT makes a great series 9000 383 SBC stroker crank. I have heard bad things about Eagle stuff but have yet to see it myself.

I have heard some say that Eagle rods are the best and SCAT cranks are the best and to use the two together in that combo.

So for what it is worth: Both companys offer a great value compared to the American made counter parts. American parts are GREAT but they are very exspensive and the average Joe can't afford them. American companies have QC issues too.

If quality machine work, close inspection, balance work and meticulous assembly is conducted I believe a great engine will be the result. Far to many guys just assemble things without close inspection and attention to detail. This results in problens and then the manufacturer gets the blame.

I use a mixture of overseas and US made parts. I have found flaws in some of the parts from every company I can think of. Quality is an issue that plagues every company out there. The final responsibility is always on the engine builder to check all the parts prior to assembly. When a flaw is found that can not be corrected most companies will make it right.

As always, buy the best parts you can afford and take your time during assembly.

Good luck!

You have been offered some very good advice already and I agree with both. If you do your blue printing (measuring) you will not have any issues, if there is an issue you will catch it and it can be corrected. This should be done whenever a new combo is going together. The problems you typically hear are from guys that bolt parts together that "should be fine" only to find out the journals were slightly larger than "stock" and there goes a bearing. In my experience it is not out of the norm to find a journal or two that are slightly larger (my crank was that way) I just orderd the correct sized beaering and haven't had any issues.

As far as clearance, I like H-beam rods better. I know thw Eagle H-beam rods are "profiled" to help clear the cam. I have never had an issue running H-beam rods with a standard base circle cam. As Sean said every combo is different so you will still need to measure. Either way you go on the rods make sure you get cap screw type rods, this greatly reduces the clearancing needed. I will never build another stroker with stock type rod (nut and bolt caps).

Good luck and if you want to get a good crank for cheap, I highly recommend www.dirttrackthunder.com I have done business with them several times and they are good people to deal with. They have cranks that are good quality (I would guess they are made the same place Eagle, SCAT, etc.. are made) I have had several machinist tell me the crank is good quality and very tough.

I recently built a 383 using a factory style roller car. I used a non small base circle cam.

I'm running a Scat series 9000 cast crank, and Scat 6" I-beam rods with 7/16" cap screws.

The rods cleared the cam just fine. No complaints. Those rods look great for the money.

i am building a 383 right now, and will say that i went with a 9000 series crank, and h-beam rods from scat. my machine shop said that the rods needed to be clearanced on the cam side for a roller cam, and i had them clearance the block with a boaring bar on the pan side. the pin fit was a little tight on the rods in my opinion. I had it opened up since I plan on running my motor up a little bit. I just got done building a motor with a complete eagle setup, side by side to my motor, and cannot see that much of a difference in the quality. Casting is a little rougher on the scat, but a micropolish is not too much work. Never heard of scat being too far out of tolerances like i have eagle rods (out of round) and cranks (poor finishes) though.

The point to all this...everyone has success with different things, otherwise companies would go out of business. Both are comparable in quality, so the way i made my decision was by price.

I like them both.

Chuck Fry

Though the kit is in a 406, I purchased a complete lower-end assembly from SCAT. Crank, rods, bearings, pistons, and rings. The pistons are SRP, the rings C&A. It's been through many road-coarse track days and lots of street driving with no SCAT related problems.

I too chose to use a 6" rod, which allowed for SCAT to also internal balance the assembly before shipment.

Directly from the president of SCAT, the 9000 series SBC crankshaft is good for 550 hp - 6500 RPM.

I am running a 406 with eagle steel crank and 6" H beam rod bought off e-bay, re ballanced the whole assembly, had to clerance the block panrails and used a small base circle cam. works great, no problems, used wisco pro tru pistons from dirt track thunder, I spent about $1,000 on the whole ball of wax.

Hey Guys,

Lots of good info here. Yes Dirt Track Thunder is a good Ebay store. Check this guy out for your Eagle needs, he always treats me right! His name is Frank.

http://gofaststuff.com/

I run a 6" H-beam rod, 406 assembly from Eagle with a standard base circle roller cam and didn't have to clearance anything.

I got my 383 rotating assembly from Ohio Crankshaft and it measured out perfectly. They wont balance until you talk to them about exactly what you wanted. I got the 5140 crank and the rest was 4340 and balanced shipped to my door for $1300. My engine builder was really surprised at the quality of it. He has had to turn new Eagle cranks that were brand new. Heres a link.

http://www.ohiocrank.com/

Thanks, Erik

Just dont go with anything from dyno-flo store on ebay. Their buildups are junk, I know first hand. I believe scat is american made and Eagle is imported. My machinist of 40 years says eagle has a soft metal crank and scat is much harder.

I have not used either, but I used a Ohio Crankshaft rotating assembly for my 555. I was very impressed with both machine work and the balance job, ( I had a machine shop check the balance for piece of mind)