The 302 I have here has old heavy TRW forged pistons, 1965 289 block bored .030, ARP fasteners, stock rods, old style 5/64 moly ring pack, flat tappet hydro cam, ported GT-40 iron heads. It runs either the tunnel ram with dual 600 Edelbrocks or the air gap with a 650DP. It's been to work daily, street/strip, thousands of rounds full strip in front of a 4500 stall C4 and 4.56 gears, been in the Winner's Circle at many drag strips. I built it in 1996. It's had one set of rings and bearings, done at the time because it was a checkout/preventative maintenance type tear down, not a required rebuild. The heads have had one set of valve seals for the same reason. Other that that, change the oil once a year and it just runs.
The 351C is about the same - old TRWs, 5/64 rings, stock rods, stock crank, has easy over 4000 drags trip passes plus some street miles. Built in 2006. Last time I was in it was 2010. Changed rings and bearings as part of racing maintenance, but the bearings came out looking new. Flex-Honed the cylinders for fresh rings and its in the car now.
Just buy quality parts, check everything twice and pay attention to all the little details. Put it together clean - and I mean clean like you can lick the bores or deck surfaces type clean. Thing happen even with the best work, but usually taking care of the little details makes for a sound assembly. Modern materials make for great motors these days. Even the old pistons in the 351C were within .0002 of nominal published diameter. The Molnar rods, Scat crank and I-Forget pistons in the dragster were things you could use to calibrate your micrometers.
The 393C in the dragster runs a 3.85 stroker with short skirt pistons. Don't have any issues with that motor either but it's strictly race and will come apart for tear down/checkout this winter. After 2 years running hard.
