[Will]

66geeto,

Accusation vs. helpful info?

I am attempting to outline what could have gone wrong - the things you should keep your eyes open for during the engine teardown.

First issue is -were the rods even rebuilt? If not, they are suspect. Even rods that led an easy life in granny's station wagon often are out of round when inspected after over 100K miles, and the stock rod bolts are notoriously weak. Not an accusation, but a statement of fact.

Second issue is whether the rods were installed in the correct orientation. Not the bearings (as you pointed out, installing the bearings backwards would be stupidly hard to do), but the rods themselves. The reliefs for the bearing tangs go towards the inside of the engine, or towards the cam as Mr. Pbody said, on a Pontiac, but on a Chevy they go towards the outside, towards the pan rail. It's a common mistake for a Chevy builder to install Pontiac rods using the Chevy orientation and that will cause big problems. I don't know this engine builder from Adam. I hope that he is a very standup guy and if he did put the rods in backwards that he'd realize his error and do you right for it. But, if you didn't know what to look for and he wasn't ethical, he might feed you a line of bull and leave you stuck with a blown engine. This is what I'm trying to help you avoid.

I'm sorry if my attempts to educate are not helpful to you.