While I've got the engine torn down, I was going to replace the pistons and rods when I noticed that Dart makes a 4.5" stroke forged crankshaft that's for sale on ebay for $500. I can pick up a set of standard 6.7" h-beam rods from Eagle, but I'm not sure if I will have clearance issues. Has anyone used this crankshaft and seen what the clearances look like? I will be looking around for pistons as well but I would interested to hear what rod/piston combos have been used with this stroke before. I'm going to be stuffing this in an olds cutlass and keeping the hp around 500ish.

We run the eagle stroker kits ,,u will have to clearance the block with any stroker kit ..and make sure u get an oil pan for the correct stroker length

Thanks jdf4068, are special rods required for clearance or will regular rods like eagles CRS67003D fit?

Have to use a rod that is for stroke of crank ,,on ours it was the rod nuts that was sticking out and would hit the oilpan rail and real close on the bore hole skirt ..I recommend having a machine shop do the bottom end Since they have all the correct tooling ,,then double check their work ..

Diamond piston/Eagle Rods has a normal combo for the Gen 7 496/8.1 to a 540.

You can get an idea of all the combos at https://www.raylarengineering.com/ they are 496/8.1 Guru's

Nate,
If this is really all of the HP that you want I think you would be better off spending your money on other upgrades rather than the stroker kit. I have done two pump gas 496's ( MK4 not Gen 7) and they have easily made 600 hp with just a decent set of heads and hydraulic roller cams. 500 should be real easy.

jdf, that is what I was wondering about the rods and the bolt/nut clearance, was that with the 4.5" stroke or the 4.75"? I'm not so much looking for a stroked engine, rather that $500 seems like a good deal for a forged crank. The mild stroke is just a bonus. Keith, according to my conversation with Eagle "we dont make anything for that motor". Go figure, I couldn't get any answers out of them. Bill, you are on to something on the allocation of funds. I'm looking into the aluminum heads right now. It's a big jump, but the weight savings is appealing to me and will leave a lot of potential for future upgrades.