Evan, I have watched Dad move the centerline of the cylinders away from a thin spot that exists in the flathead Ford block where the exhaust passages go between the two center cylinders. He was boring blocks to 3 7/16"(.250" oversize) and using a feeler gauge blade under one of the cats' paws on a Van Norman boring bar to offset the bore centerline as he bored the four center cylinders. Then he had to grind the wrist pin end of the connecting rods on those cylinders to let the pistons center up in the new bores. He ran a 4" stroke Mercury crankshaft offset-ground 1/16" for 85 HP connecting rods, resulting in a 4 1/8" stroke. The guys with 4 1/4" welded strokers or 4 1/2" billet cranks couldn't wind up as tight as those short stroke engines. A sign in the shop read "Build 'em little, wind 'em tight, and get the chemicals just right!" We ran a mix of methanol and very strong (20% concentration) Hydrogen Peroxide. The fuel would eat holes in the float bowl of the carburetor unless the carb was run dry every time they stopped the engine!
I built truck pull engines in the mid-1990's for some local pullers here in middle Tennessee, 440 Mopars for the Super Stock class, and 426 Hemi's for the Douthit brothers who competed around the southeast. One engine was a dry block setup with the cooling passages filled with epoxy that ended up at 547 cubic inches. I bored the cylinders for flanged sleeves, so big I took out all of the cylinder wall in places. They ran a truck they called "Little Red Wagon" until some dam-yankee who had the name copyrighted sued them out of business. My friends went bankrupt and lost a big dairy farm while fighting those suits.
Jerry
