Changing the stroke on a dipper engine would involve some major re-engineering, as the height of the dipper troughs and the angle and position of the spray tubes would have to be altered. Chevy service departments had a whole bunch of measuring tools and nozzle-aiming jigs back when these engines were daily drivers, and the minor stroke change between a 216 and a 235 required a different oil pan, and different setting gauges. The dippers are stamped sheet metal items that bolt on between the rod nut and the cap. One sneaky trick that I've seen used occasionally was to use a tapered punch to widen the dipper so the oil from the squirter tubes had a bigger target to aim for. The troughs are only used for lubrication at idle- - - - -once the RPM increases, the dippers actually intersect a stream of oil that's shot across the pan near the bottom of the stroke. If the squirt tubes aren't aimed properly, the oil stream can miss the dipper and cause a bearing to fail at cruise RPM- - - -bad juju!
Jerry
