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leve, thanks for the reply...
heres why i dont think its a wrist pin..
well.. it could be...
when I say its hard to start, I dont mean it cranks slow.. it cranks fine..it just doesnt like to start. when i was looking for TDC on the engine, i cranked it over several times by hand and there were no hard spots...
the rods are all new and I had a very reputable shop install the wrist pins. I examined them and they were all free before instillation.
I checked everything with plastiguage and all tolerances were perfect.
I would be pretty confident that theres nothing wrong with the bottom end.
hmmmmmm.
how aboput this.. the cam was broken in the engine(half of the broken connecting rod hit it) might it be a bent valve?
it was #6 that broke, and the sound seems to be comeing from the front...

 

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spark knock??? hmmm.. could be.. i cant set the timing.. its a 97.. its pretty loud to be spark knock.. how can I tell?
should i dump a couple gallons a race fuel in and see what happenes?
BTW... I have only run the fresh engine for about 20 min total.

 

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Richard, the pistons go about 1/2" further down in the cylinder, but are .022 lower than they were at the top.

heres more info i posted on the yahoo stroker board....


I have it running perfect except for the most
hellatious knocking. I have 90+octane and I changed to the cooler
plugs with no difference.
when I first fire the engine up, it taps a bit until it runs for
about 1 min. then the sound changes and becomes a good knock.
I tried playing with the timing, I checked and rechecked the fireing
order, tdc, etc.
I have run the engine for about 1/2 hour total now. it really does
run well except for the knock, though it cranks for awhile before it
starts.
since i got absolutely no results from anything i did, I began to
think maybe it wasnt spark knock, so i pulled the valve cover looking
for something wrong... of course, it all looks perfect.

even more info.....

I dont think it's spark knock anymore.

I'm still curious as to why the sound changes 30 sec after it
starts.. something about the lifters pumping up?
I think that it isnt 1 cylinder making the noise, i think its all of
them because it taps too fast to be just 1.
I dont think there is anything worn out in the engine as it only had
22k on it when i started. everything certianly looks brand new.
I replaced everything inside and got the crank ground.. I used
plastiguage an everything and it was all perfect. I used a good
torque wrench on everything inside and I took a lot of care making
sure all the pistons, rods and caps were all the right way.
I thought that if my cam timing was off a tooth it could be valves
hitting the pistons, but I dont THINK it is.. I did align the marks,
but I'm starting to second guess myself looking for the culprit.

I played with the timing a lot and it made absolutely no difference.
I thought about the CPS hitting the flywheel thing, the bellhousing
is from advanced adapters(to an nv4500), but it has been just like
that for years with no problems.
the engine builder that did all the machine work for the engine wants
to take a look at it monday... I'll keep y'all posted.
again, thanks for the efforts.

theres nothing i hate worse than building engines.. i really enjoy setting up gears and axles, i love fabricating... this thing better run for 60 years...