The Money Pit

I would go for the 406 myself. More cubes makes it easier to get the seat of the pants power your looking for. Mine has a flat tappet solid cam, and will turn 7000 rpms, but that's what I wanted.

If you're going for more of a cruiser, a Comp 280H or 294H and set of decent heads should make 450 horsepower and around 500 lbs torque without much trouble. No need to spin it to the moon either.

I actually ran a Comp XE-274 for a short while and if you're looking for a truck replacement engine,..that would be it. Idled like a Caddy, and would smoke the tires in any gear,....but ran out of rpms quick. (Like 5500 or so)

myko

Yeah, I know that I could make a lot of improvements on the 383 (and the car in general) to bring up the performance. I could probably even do it cheaper but for now I am more interested in complete builds to get some hands-on education. I am years away from popping the hood and having a crowd ooooo and aaawww. But for now I would rather spend $10K building a few budget engines than getting a dressed crate engine (http://www.jegs.com/i/Blueprint-Engi...ductId=1321861) and dropping it in the car.

I also like the fact that I can build this engine while I have a fun car to drive! When I get this engine done I hope to do a complete engine/tranny swap to get a 700r4 behind the engine. Lots of work but will no doubt be educational!

MrJlr

Maybe a silly question, but through boring and stroking a first generation SBC 350 - how many inches can a person get ???

cv67

Some try for a 409, 3.875 stroke (396) is a good package.

billla

Things get more interesting once you move past a 383 in a stock block. Cam clearance becomes something that needs to be checked more carefully as does clearancing the bottom of the bores. I've done a couple of GEN I stock-block 396s, and my personal opinion is that it's not worth the $ or effort for another 13 CID. Different story with an aftermarket block, of course. There is no replacement for displacement, but the $/CID goes up pretty quickly past 383 CID. And once that kind of money is going in, basing the project on a stock block doesn't make a lot of sense.

One of the reasons a 383 is such a common choice is that it's become dead simple - cheap rotating ***'ys with stroker-clearanced rods mean that pretty much anyone can assemble one with no fitting issues.

Looks like the guy with the 400 just picked the wrong shop. Plenty of successful 400-based builds out there. I do see another thread locked because of someone that just wants to dogpile on a poor guy having a rough time of it.

Good luck with the 400, sounds like a fun build!

htown81vette

Wow, if you want to spend 10k on a budget build we need to be friends. Sounds like you have some money to burn.

You can build a nice 383 for alot less than 10k (I believe).

myko

This is exactly the reason that I have been looking around for the SBC 400 block. I realize that it has inherent weaknesses due to the thinner cylinder walls and cooling issues discussed earlier in the thread.

My question is how big do you dare go on a SBC 400? As Billla stated, there is no substitute for CID but there has to be a pretty well established limit. I feel like once I get to the max CID in the SBC format then I will be able to appreciate how much benefit is gained by high quality components.

myko

Yeah, I built the 383 in my car now for a little under $1500. As far as the $10K I was just throwing out a number. I have no doubt I will go way past that if I stick with this classic car hobby! I hope to rebuild many engines on that budget - I have a 305 and the 400 on stands right now. I'm sure it will be cheaper in the long run.

captl27

John Lingenfelter the original was a huge fan of the 400 and debunked all the myths about 400 small blocks in his book John Lingenfelter on modifying small-block chevy engines. It is a older book but almost all of the information still very very good. I am pretty sure it is still available. I personally have a worked 400 in my 79 and love it.

7t9l82

i agree the main issue with the 400 is the rod angle is terrible. it just has too short a rod. the steam holes are no big deal if you can't figure that out you should give up.

Ben Lurkin

With a factory 400 block, you can't go more than 3.875" stroke. You will definately need to run profiled rods, something like Scat pro comp rods, to give you the most clearance possible between the camshaft, cylinder walls and pan rails. You will need to do some gringing and the factory blocks don't have enough meat in them for any more stroke than this.

The most I've ever been able to bore a 400 is 0.040" over. Make sure and have the walls sonic checked first. This, combined with a 3-7/8" stroke will give you 421". I've built several 400's in the 500 to 550 hp range with the factory block, but if you're going to go to all out on a max effort sbc, you should seriously think about the shp block mentioned earlier. The factory blocks are decent and I wouldn't hesitate to use one for a stout street engine, but like all things; they have their limitations.

With regards to rod angles, just make sure and use a 5.7 rod. I've actually used the shorter 5.565" rod back when to 6500 rpm and never had a problem.

boltnut

I'm not schooled enough to know all the reasons why....but the Pontiac crowd has been building 400" motors forever with gobs of torque. They can pretty easily be punched out to 462ci with a stroker kit. Mine was a 462 roller cam motor with an estimated 500+ HP. What makes the Chevy 400 such a different beast ?

captl27

I think that the important adventage of 400 sb is not only the torque that comes close to a big block but the lightness of the engine which increases drivability for anything from road racing to every day driving.

gcusmano74

Too much of everything is just enough..............!

billla

OTOH, "Better" is the enemy of "good enough"

Seriously - most folks have never felt an honest, well-tuned 350-400 crank HP...and in a C3, you better have the chassis, suspension, brakes, wheels and tires to back up too much more than that.

bruced267

[QUOTE=The Money Pit;1580410660]I would go for the 406 myself. More cubes makes it easier to get the seat of the pants power your looking for.

X2....My buddy did a similar build with nothing special parts and a block, all that were just sitting in his garage, cheap build! After driving the 406, I see one in my future builds! Tons of torque!

myko

I was looking ahead to some balanced rotating assembly combinations at Summit and Jegs but didn't find anything that looked just right. Again, I am looking to build a street engine with reliable parts for as little as possible (while not compromising by throwing together a cheap POS). The main goal is to learn about the limitations of the geometry in this block. I am planning on profiled rods but are there clues that a certain set of rods or even crank will cause problems before I buy them?
Again, I may be getting ahead of myself as I haven't even had the block checked yet but it's hard not to look ahead!

My point exactly. If I can't build a 383 or 400 that can exceed the capabilities of the rest of the stock drivetrain then I still have a long way to go (yeah, I still have A LOT to learn).

billla

Scat has a bunch of ***'ys for your application; unless you're planning a power-adder one of the cast crank/hypereutectic piston choices is fine.

http://www.scatcrankshafts.com/

myko

I like the Scat combo's, especially for the price. I couldn't help noticing a few other cranks with crazy strokes of 4" and 4.125". I also found a few for use with 6.0 rods. I assume that these require an aftermarket block and pistons that aid in clearance? There isn't a 434 rotating ***'y recommended for the stock block, right? From all the searching I have done I have found people consistently saying that 4.165" bore, 3.875" stroke, and 5.7" rods are the limit of the stock block. I ask because I don't want to get sold a fairy tale when I take the block to the machine shop and OK them destroying the block.

63mako

The 6" rod setup works fine in a stock 400 block and is a better way to go. The only issue is the lower oil control ring is right at the wrist pin. No different than doing a 383 with 6" rods in a 350 block which is what I have.