Hudson question for Dany Spring

Dany,
I am going to rebuild my Hudson 308 rods and plan on using ARP
351 Cleavland rod bolts.
My question is what size do I need to ream the rod bolt holes to
for the Cleavland rod bolts?
I have access to a rod boring, honing & grinding machine so resizing them is no problem. I plan on having them magnufluxed and polishing
them like your.
Do you have any other suggestions about preping these rods for
bracket racing use?
Thank you in advance,
BigTorque

Big Torque,
It sounds like you're doing all the right stuff... II had my local machine shop prep my rods, and install the new rod bolts. I will try and get with them tomorrow, and get an answer for you.
What other mods are you doing, and what are you putting the engine in?

Dany,
Sorry for the length but here it goes:
The engine is going to be .030" over, 1956 Hornet 308.
So far I have:
1) Clifford high-compression head & copper head gasket.
2) three intakes to try, four bbl alum. with 625cfm Carter, tri-power tunnel ram with three Stromberg WW 2bbls, and home made dual quad intake with twin 585cfm Carter AFB's.
3) Clifford 1-3/4" dual outlet headers. Planing on flowmaster 2-1/2" exhaust.
4) Custom ground cam from Randy Mass thats .406" lift 242 degree duration at .050" lift with 113.5 lobe seperation angle, new solid lifters & double roller timing chain & gear set modified from a Pontiac V-8.
5) Modifying a Pontiac Fluidampner harmonic balancer to fit the Hudson crankshaft & timing cover seal. (I havn't got this far yet so I am not sure what is needed.)
6) I am going to use ARP studs for mains, head and 351C rod bolts. Will use 1/2" ARP LugNuts for the head bolts, turned over with large diameter flat washers to increase head nut clamping area.
7) Planning on installing 2.00" intake and 1.625"(?) exhaust valves,
relieving & proting the block per directions & pictures Randy supplied me.
8) Will be modifying a Chrysler slant 6 electronic distributor to work in the Hudson block. Also planning on staying with the MSD 6AL ignition.
9) Other items I am also going to look at is O-Ringing the complete cylinder, valve relieve area & all water passages. Once again Randy showed me a lot of problems he ran into with head gasket sealing. The oval water ports above the center two main webs would blow between cylinders in some engines. This was something he was looking at doing and I believe it will be a good idea to do on mine as well.
10) Last engine related item was possible modification of big block Mopar oil pump to fit Hudson block to provide full-flow oil filtertration as well as increased pump output with same low power draw gear-rotor pump.

I plan on installing a GM (YUCK!, but dependable) 350 turbohydramatic
transmission with manual valve body and 2400 rpm converter. A 9-inch Ford rearend out of a 1966 Fairlane with 31 spline axels, loc-rite differential and 3.55 gears mounted to the stock Hudson leaf springs.

Car is a 1950 Hudson Pacemaker 2-door coupe. Presently taking up 1/2 of my garage and most of my basement. Hope to have it ready for next spring for some good, clean bracket racing. Looking to upgrade to more power with a "Boosted" power added it the head sealing problems don't show up with this set-up.
Its real hungry, must feed it Chevys or it will starve!
Any technical advice you can provide will be put to good use.
Thank you,
Ralph

Ralph,
I finally got my numbers verified by the machine shop. Reem the rods to .002 to .003 under the rod bolt shank size for a press fit. The caps should be .0005 to .001 oversize for a slip fit.
The last time I had the crank out of my race car, I had the snout turned down (I think 1/16" undersize) to match smallblock Chevy. Then I bought a Chevy fluiddamper for it. My local bearing house supplied me with a timing cover seal with the right ID and OD to match.
It sounds like a great setup you're putting together, and Randy is definately the right guy to listen to... Keep us posted on your progress.

Dany

Thanks for the information on the rod bolts. So far every machine shop I called said "Your putting these into a WHAT? Man, that won't work! You need to upgrade that old pos to something that makes enough power to need them."
You know how it is, normal Chevy mentallity. Can't wait to get the chance to Load'em-up at the track!

Anyway thanks for the information on the balancer. Randy suggested to look at the Chevy 292 unit and modify it. He also said that Fluiddampner use to make these balancers without the crank snouts on them. He did his years ago by using the stock Hudson crank flange and bolting one of this styles of Fluiddampner to it.
I think the Chevy 283-350 internally balances unit would be the least expensive to use and easiest to modify. Since I havn't bought the Pontiac unit yet ( I have a borrowed stock one) I will look at both to see which one takes the least amount of modifications to fit.

The best thing is being able to adapt the Chevy parts to my project cars and beat those Same guys at the track with their own parts. Kinda makes
ya feel like your poking GM right in the eye with a dip stick!

If you need anything from me let me know.
Thanks,
Ralph
BigTorque