Slowly been putting together a 460 engine. Awhile back, when installing the last piston/connecting rod, one of them would'nt tighten down- discovered that the bolt was BROKEN!! At the time I merely just grabbed another bolt from a junked engine and finished the job. I have come to the decision that I am going to go back and put ARP bolts in all the rods sometime in the near future. Right now the rods are the square headed bolt type, but I do have a set of the football headed bolt type rods needing a home. I understand the footbal headed bolt type rods are stronger- Heres my questions

Is it worth the effort to go ahead and swap out the rods too??

I have always just had the machine shop install the pistons on my rods, but I have my own press, and am not seeing any reason why I couldnt do it myself. Are there any hidden pitfalls I should know about?? Should I make some type of support cradle for the piston while pressing out the wristpins?? or am I just overthinking this??

The pin end of the rod needs to be heated during assembly and you need to make sure the pin gets centered correctly at the same time.

I would not want to try and do this at home without the right jig. You can easily ruin your pistons trying to press out the old rods.

x2, the "football" rods are stronger and worth the cange if you are gunna pass 6500 rpm and 550hp. look at the two rods and where the shoulder of the square head has had to have more machined out of the rod cutting in twards the crank.i have square ones in mine and spin it to 6000 now and then. i am only running about 475 hp.

How does John Kaase get factory rods to live at 700 HP?
He was nice enough to share this with me and I have MUCHO respect for him for it. Getting most top engine builders to give you advice is non existent!

Here
http://www.460ford.com/forum/showthread.php?t=116396&highlight=parting+line+wear

Yeah, I knew that machine shops typically heat the end of the rod before pressing in the wristpin, but I scrapped out several engines last summer and even went through the trouble of pressing the wrispins out to salvage the aluminum pistons, and they seemed to press out fairly easily- thats what gave me the impression that I could maybe do it myself. This engine was originally going to be going into a low RPM tow vehicle. Now it looks like it will be slated for my next trail buggy, so the high RPM factor will come into play now. Guess I will take that Kasse info into the machine shop with me when I take in the rods and pistons- Thanks for all the input.

I have read that its the small end of the 460 rods that fail typically, not the big ends, square or oval rod bolts....