Paul,
As you may know from my posts over the years, I have been against most large displacement engine projects that have been mentioned as they have been done as a cheap way to get more power, and on those, where the same cam and head are used as on a 2 liter, I totally agree with you. But I'm working on projects - street and race - where we have gotten to the point that displacement is the next/best avenue for more power. ( Of course this is where the customer does not want to supercharge or it is not allowed in racing as a high boost 2 liter will make a lot more power and its a lot cheaper to turn up the boost than to bore and stroke.)

Both the street and race engines have ported heads, long H beam rods, custom forged pistons, custom ground cams, etc., so we can tailor everything around the fact that its a larger displacement engine. And although the street and race engines use essentially the same quality components, the bearing sizes, rod lengths, piston weights, etc., are different on the street and race engines because of radically different types of uses.

As to diff ratios, pretty much all of our cars, get either a diff ratio change to match the engine and use ( one of the cheapest mods you can do ) or a trans swap to a trans with a diffent 5th gear ratio.

Have stayed away from the welded stroker crank in the belief that the reliability is not there when you are doing a lot of them. Too dependent on varying skills.

A fair # of strokers have been done using an offset grind with a smaller journal, often a 1.77 as in the Topi kit with a 5.9 rod, but there was a questionable record of reliability. However it's unclear whether these questions come from the general concept of cutting the journals down that small and getting crank flex, or whether the problems come from the way it was done, quality of machining, assembly etc. Earlier strokers were done with B16 rods.

All these are reasons why I went to custom cranks for engines this year, so we would not have a crank reliability question on some very expensive engines. But now the problem is that we have more customers than I can get cranks made for, until next year, and I have others who would really like a large displacement engine but adding a custom made race quality crank to the cost puts it out of reach.

Recent testing of B20 blocks confirms that even a 92 mm bore will leave most blocks with crucial spots in some walls less than .100 thick, so going to a larger bore is not an option unless someone has come up with a good way to put a thick sleave in these blocks and still support the decks.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Happy to share ideas and no reason to re-invent the wheel.

John
V-performance.com