Top marks, ticks and accolades for supporting your own industry, and thinking outside the square!
That is such a good option. I know 600 ping is a lot of bacon, but it eliminates lots of problems so long as they are clearanced properly, and you don't run the engine hard without a proper warm up. You've got the toughest rods, the toughest pistons, and the best small Ford six, the 250.
For those of us who have 200's, those same pistons can be used with the commonly avaliable (in the US, and everwhere overseas that they have 2.0 liter Capris and Cortinas and Escorts and Transit vans) ages old 1970-1974 Pinto 2.0 nominal 5" rod which can take eithet the 0.945 or the large Big Six large wrist pin, and have the crank ground down to the Pinto rod bearing sizes. Its a very strong rod, despite being a factory econo crap box conrod.
For others who cannot over bore there 250 block any longer due to cracks or score marks, in the Scatt cataglouge on page 44,
http://www.scatenterprises.com/docs/cra ... s-pdf.html
there is a common small wrist pin 6.059" Aussie EL2, BA-FG turbo conrod, incorrectly listed as 0.992 wrist pin size that is designed for the CP 0.866" wrist pin forged piston.
If you have a bearly salvageble 250 US block, adding some cheap Clevite list sleaves and taking down the bore to 3.652" will allow you to get the cheaper 1.1629" deck non forged ACL's with 0.912" pins, or the increadably strong factory Turbocharged CP 26 cc dish 20 thou over pistons. With the longer bomb proof 6.375" Scat Pontiac or Nissan 240SX rods, you'll improve the rod ratio upwards on even the 6.21" Big Six rod, and you'll then have something that will last a long time under any load you wanna throw at it. You might loose capacity (it will max out at around 246 cubic inches or 4027 cc exactly, a loss of 62 cc's or 3.78 cubic inches over the factory stock bore 250 capacity), but you will save the block, and something equally as strong as a Race Tek pistoned 200 or 250.
Manly and Scatt do US made Aussie conrods for about 300 US, and with a good 20, 30, 40 or 60 thou overbore, you can run the common normal Australian 250 3.70/3.71/3.72/3.74" ACL or Mahle non forged pistons with 23 cc dishes, which you can take down from there stock 1.531" compression height to 1.455, and still get a 12 cc dish. This takes up the nasty 103 thou piston short fall all 250's have, and you a better qaulity piston. The cost equation still works out in favour of the non forged piston, but you then might have problems getting the high silcon pistons from the Australian suppliers.
The CP's forged pistons are a little cheaper than Race Teks, but you get better US backup for the RaceTeks.
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=67134
There is little bit of head scratching with small sixes, but your solution is the very best option.
For 600 dollar US pistons and proper 4.9/300 cube Big Six conrods in the 250, it solves having to hunt around for sleaves and oddball rod and pistons combos.
Down here, we find that our conrods and pistons are able to take very high revs in high boost situations, where 500 hp is possible without going to forged pistons. I use factory non forged pistons and a special kid of Ford marketed forged conrod, and the EF 12 counterweight cranks with sleaves because its cheaper, and more reliable under the moderate 12 psi boost conditions I'm using in my planned engines. I've spent ages looking at how to keep engines in the 375 to 425 hp range together, and years of work by Ford and Holden gurus has shown that you don't have to go to forged pistons fi there is a really good hyperutectic.
In the US, all your cast alloy pistons for Ford small I6's look to result in failure in heavy use, but I'm not sure why. Aussies had the same problem untill 1964 when Ford Australia changed the piston design, and kept the forged conrods forever. It could be the subtle differences with HSC 2300/2500 piston offset, the oil relief holes, or a combination of factory low quality conrods, don't know, but using forged pistons and big six rods for the US 250 six is the only option since the stock rods were so badly downgraded from the ealier forged rods for so many years.
