Made some progress on the motor this weekend. Ive never had a terrible amount of engine build hands on experience and really wanted to change that. I know everything in theory but honestly the last time I built a motor I was 11 with my father and the machinist did 3/4 of the assembly work. I made it a point to do everything in my power to build this motor myself at my own shop. That being said I took the block over to the machinist to have it bored over, new cam bearings, and hot tanked.
Since I got my pistons in I wanted to make some sort of progress. Pressed the old dished pistons off the rods. Moved onto installing the rods onto the new flattop pistons. I have to say this is probably the first and last engine I will use interference wrist pins on. The $100 in machine work to have the rods honed out for full floating pins, and $50 more for later full floating pistons would have been worth it for assembly in my eyes. Again this is the first time I've done this but I busted out the mapp gas torch, lubed up the pistons, and heated up the small end of the rods to 400*ish. My first mistake was not making a jig for the pin depth so I had them installed evenly. At the end of the night I had 7 pistons with wrist pins that weren't properly centered in the piston and 1 with a pin only 2/3 of the way in from not being quick enough. Hasty on my part.
I really didnt want to swallow my pride and take them to the machine shop. Ive learned the error of my method (DONT ****ING RUSH) for the future but now I had to solve the dilemma I had gotten in. Since simply jigging the piston and pressing the pins back out ruins a cast piston. I knew I couldn't just remove and try again. I started doing a little research and found some links and photos of proper tooling to remove and install pins w/o destroying the piston in the press. At $500 that wasnt happening. Neither was ruining the pistons at $200 for a set. And to be quite frank I wasnt willing to concede. So out came the skills set that I am familiar with and started making a jig that would carry the rod in the press while I seated the wrist pins completely.
After about an hour, and a very smelly shop from quenching them in oil to try to deter bending here's what I had.
Although it bent on the second to last piston it served its purpose. Was my own damn fault too as I had forgot to lube up the pin with oil before putting it in the press on that second to last one... I plan on straightening it out and beefing up the "forks" to hold the pressure better. Basically what it did was go between the rod and the piston in the gap that the piston floats on. Since I was now supporting the rod where the strength and press fit actually is I was no longer exerting 10tons of force on the piston skirt ruining them. I saved my pistons and saved face lol
So at the end of the morning that left me with 8 flat tops mounted on 8 cleaned up rods all assembly lubed and ready for the motor.
Wrapped them up and shoved them under the bench. Unfortunately I dont really have anything left to prep until the block is back. I need to do the wiring harness strip down and build a cam handle tool but other than that Im waiting. And that might be a good thing because I need to drop about $4000 to assemble this motor...
Ive been speaking with Comp Cams prior to my decision to go to trick flow heads. I told the guy I was looking at the trick flow cam and he suggested a grind they have very similar. I plugged it into cam quest and came up with 535hp and 460ish ftlbs. Thats crazy 5.3 numbers and still a daily driver quality motor. I dont want to say anything crazy here but the NA 5.3 record in a truck is 11.90. If my numbers are good thats roughly 420ish HP at the wheels and should be good for nearly a 11.50...
don't be a web wheeler . 
