preparing for stroker build

BB71Challenger

BB71Challenger

comparing distributors and
I have a '68 440 with 65k original miles in my garage and in my Challenger I have a '72 400 that has a fairly recent rebuild. my biggest question is which one should i use as the building block for a 4.15 stroker motor. My gut tells me to build the 440 but with when comparing the pistons i can save a little over 100 grams a piston when building the 400. These are Ross pistons and would require oil ring land reinforcement. The site i have done most of my research on is www.440source.com
I will have less trouble going with the 440 and can actually drive my car while im building the engine. It would have to be very beneficial to me to build the 400 over the 440. Please advise me as to which one you guys would build. One last question has to do with the site 440source.com, the parts are less but i want to make sure they are quality parts. Anyone have any experience with that site? thanks for any and all replies.
 
Personally I prefer the lowdeck stroker for the weight savings, that and and I've got a soft spot for the B-blocks. [smilie=w: With aluminum heads, intake and waterpump housing they weigh aboot the same as a smallblock. [smilie=c:

Either one is an excellent choice though and a stroked RB certainly has that extra wow factor when you pop the hood.

From what I've read elsewhere the 440 source has quality stuff and I would consider using their stuff but I have no first hand experience. [smilie=a:
 
beeper*71 said:
Personally I prefer the lowdeck stroker for the weight savings, that and and I've got a soft spot for the B-blocks. [smilie=w: With aluminum heads, intake and waterpump housing they weigh aboot the same as a smallblock. [smilie=c:

Either one is an excellent choice though and a stroked RB certainly has that extra wow factor when you pop the hood.

From what I've read elsewhere the 440 source has quality stuff and I would consider using their stuff but I have no first hand experience. [smilie=a:[/quote]

thats another thing. it would be a plus for me to have a 500 inch engine that looks on the outside like a 383. the low deck engine would make a killer sleeper engine imo. i have been on moparpages and this site seems so much more alive. it seemed to take days to get any answers and most of the time they were not even opinions, just comments. thanks for the speedy reply. im not for sure what the ring land reinforcement is on the 492 gram low deck piston, will that short piston hold up over time?
Click to expand...
 
BB71Challenger said:
will that short piston hold up over time?
Click to expand...

Well...lets keep in mind that a 500 inch lowdeck is a race engine. [smilie=w:

For a street/strip car the RB might be a better choice in that territory.
 
Yeah, i'm wondering out of curiosity if your building this engine for a crusier, street/strip, or full on track.

As the saying goes, "there's no replacement for cubic displacement."

But it does seem to be quite the dilema on your hands. Its mostly what you want. I'd say build the 440 since you can still enjoy the 400 while the other one is getting built, engines take time, so, believe me, you'll miss a car to cruise around in while the engine is being built.

So, my opinion would be build the 440, cause you can still drive your car while doing the build (either you or some one else), and, once stated before, there's no replacement for cubic displacement since you start off before the stroke increase with 40 extra cubes.

Never checked out that site since i have yet to build a 440. Most of the parts you should buy is the familier stuff, like Holley, Edelbrock, Weiand, Cran, Comp...and so on. Pistons are up to you. Cast are fine for cruising and mild build ups, but they also don't expand in high heat situations (high horsepower)...but they're also not to strong when pushed to a certain limit...to the point of like their a grenade in your engine with the pin pulled, just waiting to go off turning your built motor to scrap. Forged pistons are good for high horsepower and high compression situations (nitros, high octain, turbos, superchargers and so on). But the metal compounds are known to severly expand under the increased heat. If i remember right they add a certain amount of silicon to reduce the expansion during a certain temp. range.

I'd also look into ceramic coatings too. Definetly if your going with forged pistons, also, i'd do the combustion chambers on the heads and valves to direct to heat into the combustion chamber where it belongs. I also heard of coating the underside (?) of the intake runners because of the heat transfer to the air from the aluminum. But i'm not to sure where they were talking about on that (read that in a magazine tech section).

But thats just my incoherant bable on the matter. Either way, sounds like your going to have one powerful Mopar, and thats what counts.
 
ok i will go intop more depth about my plans. my goal is to have a 550-600hp engine with air con, stereo, etc. in other words a street engine that will see occasional strip fun. i want to run as much compression on pump premium as i can, somewhere between 10.5-11to1. am i correct in the assumption that i can run more compression with aluminum heads? i do not know about heat treatments/coatings but am all for them if they are not too expensive and the payoff is there. i do not know if this is a good way to go about it but i would rather have too much compression and have to drop it with thicker head gasket than to not have enough. forged or hypereutectic are crucial because i want the freedom to add nitrous later if i want and for reliability. gearing will be somewhere along the lines of 430 or 456 but i would like to be able to throw a 323 or 294 pig in there and cruise out of town with no problems. I'veonly built one engine and that was a 340 small block a few years ago so i am by no means a professional but i have worked on mopars my whole life and feel pretty confident that i can build what to me seems a fairly straight forward engine. cam selection and style are still sticky points. regular hydraulic?, hydraulic roller or full on roller? ill admit that i do not have enough experience to make the right selection but feel that comp cams can recommend what i need. i know i can do any block clearancing with a dremel and besides block machining and rotating assembly balance i think it should not be rocket science to put this engine together. am i out of my mind? too optimistic? or am i on the right track? the car will not be lightened besides maybe small things like sanden compressor in place of original v-2 so it will weigh somewhere around 3800. i started from the inside out and my car has the front end rebuilt, etc. i will put 4 wheel disc on this car and nice 17" or 18" wheels. whew [smilie=e:
if you have the patience to read all my ramblings you should be considered for sainthood. so. dont hold back, gimme both barrels if you think im full of poop with my plan. i see the very impressive time slips on some sigs and like the fact that i have some really good mechanics brains to pick here and am all ears to any/all advice. thanks [smilie=a:
 
If you have a 68 440 with good crank and standard bore you dont have to go any further. That mill will pump out 500 horse all day with little or no mods required. No reason to get fancy unless you want to, those had good compression and a forged crank to begin with. Aluminun heads? For street use I wouldnt bother, the money can be better spent elswhere unless you figure on going to a max wedge but its still a little much to spend if its your first one. For street use I would use an RV grind and just have fun for now. The low deck block has possibilities but strokers are not cheap. Im partial to 440s-good cheap horsepower from the factory. [smilie=e:
 
You absolutely, positively do NOT want hypereutectic pistons if you're considering nitrous. They're prone to shattering, particularly with a lot of timing or nitrous. Cast pistons are actually stronger than hypereutectic in regards to breakage.

The long-stroke low deck pistons hold up fine under street use, though I probably wouldn't build one for a commuter car. If you have fear about the skirt length, you can always go with the shorter low-deck rod, too. Another option is to go with a 474" engine (offset-ground 440 steel crank), which has a much-lighter reciprocating assembly than a 499 for the lower cubes. Not only do they weigh similar to a small-block with aluminum heads, they rev like one.

Yes, you can run more compression with aluminum heads... typically a point or so more, up to 1.5. If you run a radical cam, you can get even more since the longer duration bleeds off cylinder pressures (most people think a lot of overlap will do this, and they're wrong--overlap has nothing to do with it).

Your plan sounds reasonable enough to me, though the 550HP with A/C seems a bit strange. ;)
 
thought about forged pistons? exspensive, but hold up better under high compression. [smilie=e:

i have read in my readings that those are the best if you want high compressions and adding nitrous it will be more solid then cast pistons.
 
cool, im getting some great feedback. the heads on the '72 400 have had hardened seats installed on 906 heads but they are not ported. i had heard keith black pistons would take nitrous so that bit of info is good to know. i have not opened up the 440 and with the lower mileage its possible that i might not have to have it turned but i was sort of thinking if i make the 440 stroker then i could build a 456 with the low deck fairly cheap. lastly, i bought my '71 Challenger back in 94 mainly because it was fairly clean and it had a/c. it is a 318/slapstick car that i have changed engines in several times. i bought a 68 polara parts car and put the 383 in there and had fun with it for a couple of years before i built the 340. in the last couple of years i have craved the big block torque. since i had already installed the torsion bars that are one step up from 440-6 i knew i could add a bb without much trouble. how crucial is frame stiffness in a 500+hp car? are subframe connectors enough or do i need more? its been over 100 now for a while in NM so a/c is not a take it or leave it option. its a requirement!! [smilie=2:
 
Frame ties are something that the factory should have done but didnt. If it sees occasional strip use and not thrashed on daily you might get buy without them but if you are into hard launches like I am, you better do it. The big block challenger I had would change steering wheel position after a hard pass but had been hit in the left front and had a weak frame to start with.
 
The 474 jass mentioned is a good choice for the street and 500 HP is also easily attained with a 451. Either combo will rev like a smallblock on crack..... [smilie=e: My 451 has the eddy heads with 10.5-1 compression and runs just fine on pump gas and will turn low 12's all day.

With that kind of HP frame connectors are a must have in my book, especially if you can get it to hook up. [smilie=w:
 
The "if it were mine" answer is build the 440 stroker. Lowdeck strokers with 3.91 arms are for racing. The manifold selection for lowdecks isn't as good as for RB motors.

Sounds like you want a cruiser/strip car. A 493 with e-heads and 10.5:1 compression with the right cam will get the job done and be very streetable. The key is the camshaft, you want to spread the lobes out to keep it tame.

It's allready been done. This particular motor idles like a 440 with a street hemi cam and made 550hp/600tq and pulls enough vacuum to run power brakes and a/c. The stroker made 15 more hp and 60ftlbs more torque than my own e-headed 446 did on the same dyno. The motors were pretty much the same other than the cubic inches and the cam. Mine is a fair bit more radical and won't run a PB booster having 8in vac at idle. It also needs more stall and gear to get up into it's powerband.

The stroker would be fine with 3.55 gears and a 3k stall. Mid 11's on pump gas would be no problemo with this combo in a challenger. Cruise all day long with the a/c on ! Your biggest problem will be keeping rubber on the back end of it.

Ron
 
firefighter3931 said:
The "if it were mine" answer is build the 440 stroker. Lowdeck strokers with 3.91 arms are for racing. The manifold selection for lowdecks isn't as good as for RB motors.

Sounds like you want a cruiser/strip car. A 493 with e-heads and 10.5:1 compression with the right cam will get the job done and be very streetable. The key is the camshaft, you want to spread the lobes out to keep it tame.

It's allready been done. This particular motor idles like a 440 with a street hemi cam and made 550hp/600tq and pulls enough vacuum to run power brakes and a/c. The stroker made 15 more hp and 60ftlbs more torque than my own e-headed 446 did on the same dyno. The motors were pretty much the same other than the cubic inches and the cam. Mine is a fair bit more radical and won't run a PB booster having 8in vac at idle. It also needs more stall and gear to get up into it's powerband.

The stroker would be fine with 3.55 gears and a 3k stall. Mid 11's on pump gas would be no problemo with this combo in a challenger. Cruise all day long with the a/c on ! Your biggest problem will be keeping rubber on the back end of it.

Ron
Click to expand...

that sounds like the perfect cam for me. do you have manufacturer and specs? i was really impressed with comp cams steel roller rockers when i put them on my 340 so i will get the BB version. for the relative small amount that they cost i like the aluminum heads in that i can run more compression. does anyone know the difference in the 84cc and 88 cc chambers? are they different or just the heads are not milled as much? i was almost late for work this morning reading about Rusty's 'Cuda progress and i still have several pages to go, man this site is inspiring the hell out of me [smilie=g:
wish i had found this site a long time ago.
 
You definately want the 84cc closed chamber heads to build a tight quench motor. Zero deck pistons with a .040 head gasket will give you perfect quench which you absolutely want for pump gas. The 88cc heads have an open quench pad similar to the oem heads and they're designed for a quench dome piston. You do not want the 88cc heads !

Diamond makes a nice dished piston that is perfect for this application...it has a 12cc inverted dome and yields 10.5:1 compression with an 84cc chamber and the aformentioned head gasket.

Here's the parts selection for the 550/600 build:

Street dominator intake/850dp holley carb
4.15 stroker crank, h-beam rods, Diamond inverted dome slugs
Block machined for zero deck and squared up
Rotating assembly balanced
2in headers/3in exhaust...tti headers work the best with angled plug heads.
Hemi oilpan, windage tray, hv oil pump
Comp 254@.050 custom solid, .580 lift, 112 lsa. This is not an off the shelf grind....needs to be custom ground.
Adjustable rocker arms and matching pushrods
Edelbrock 84cc heads with competition valvejob (stock e-head valvesprings are fine)

*this motor is in a Wagon with a/c, ps, pb. Idles all day long in traffic and sounds very mellow....similar to a 440 with the street hemi cam. Peak hp comes in at 5500 rpm.

In the future if you want another 50hp, just swap out the cam for something more agressive, upgrade the valvesprings, mild port on the heads and a 950hp carb. This one will pull harder and peak@ 6200 rpm. You'd also want a slightly looser converter for this build than the other motor.

Ron
 
thank you bunches for sharing the info on the cam and engine parts. i am pretty firm now what i want to do and that is build the 440 for my '71 and then build a 451 stroker with the leftover foged 440 crank. i even have a line on a lemon twist '70 Challenger SE that would be perfect for a low deck screamer and would take a 383 pie tin on the air cleaner lid with a big ole smile. [smilie=a:
 
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