Dart Machinery

Welcome to Dart Machinery. I'm here today with Joe McCall of Barowski Racing Engines and we're going to take a look at how we manufacture our engine blocks. Right in front of me I have one of our LS-next SHP Pro blocks, one of the finest LS-based engine blocks that you can buy. Ours are notable for the quality of the material, its overall strength, its architecture, the amount of flexibility you have and different custom options that can be applied to this block. This can be a mundane low horsepower build to go in your everyday driver. You could make 3,000 horsepower in between. Let's go out and see how they're made. So a Dart Machinery, the process to get your new block starts right here. These are raw LS-next cast iron engine blocks with zero machining done. The machine on my right, they get fixed up and that process. As we move down our machining process through operation one, two and three, deck surfaces are cut, head bolts are added, main bolts are added and every machine surface gets finished up right here. Here are our raw castings with the main lines cut. Obviously not much else has been done but you have to start somewhere and this is always the first step. The mains get touched first and as they move on through the process they get fixed through the main line, typically through the main caps as well. To our right, here's a pile of blocks going through, mostly finished, some waiting for additional machining operations. Here are more of our LS-next SHP blocks. The mains are cut, oil passages are drilled, main fastener holes are added, the oil pan rails are cut, front surface of the block is cut now. Here we have pallets of LS-next SHP Pro blocks that are almost done, almost because we're missing a few pieces. Not un We're open for business, we're machining blocks and cylinder heads every single day and doing our best to get them out to as many chambers and engine builders as possible. These blocks will be out the door as soon as we get main fasteners in this example and we're doing the best that we can, we appreciate all your support, we appreciate all of your understanding as we work through this tough time together. This is an LS-next SHP-scurred cast iron block with our famous LS-next 2 upgrade. What does that mean? That's half inch diameter main studs, larger main caps, wider and thicker main webbing and in this particular block a 351 Cleveland diameter main journal. That means a much stronger crankshaft, a much stronger main line and when you want to make 3,000 horsepower this is the block to do it with. Engine builders, the dart machinery engine blocks require the least amount of finishing work once they get that block in their shop to build your engine, meaning quicker turnaround times and less labor that they have to put into that block to make it usable for your build. Here we have a vertical hone. This is going to finish the cam tunnel and the main line of this SHP small block Chevy block. In a single pass as you see this mandrel go from the top to the bottom of the block and then retract again, that cam tunnel will be finished right before your eyes. Being that it's a vertical hone it's not affected by gravity so it doesn't deflect and cause the loss of concertricity of the journals of the cam or the main. It holds an extremely tight tolerance. We shoot for two tenths of an inch or less. Two tenths of a thousand or less. The main line is up next. Due to the reliability of this machine and the consistency of the finish, engine builders have a lot less work to do to finish our blocks. They can trust that the finish specs are what we say they are and they know that they can use them as is. Here at Borosky Race Engine we chose to become LS Engine specialists specifically due to Dart Machinery's introduction of the LS Next Gen 1 block. We really We from the beginning The people at Dart are another big reason that we have remained such a loyal fans of theirs. We are really appreciative of Kyle's tour today and we also really have to give a shout out to Dart's late founder Richard Masken for coming up with this incredible design. Thank you Richard, Godspeed.