Mopar Muscle Association UK

Yes im inclined to agree with you Les.

Although I am still leaning towards a 440 conversion, way I see it is, any engine I get is going to of done a few miles and be in need of some work one way or another so I might as well go the whole hog and drop a biggun in.

I can see your train of thought, however, a 360 block with a 4.180 crank kit = 426ci, with your heads worked a bit, and all your other parts + decent cam you'll easily be in BB territory, 500+ easy HP, 550ftlbs and it'll all bolt up to your trans....just a thought.

Wish you all the best with whatever you do.

Les

That makes sense Les! Lots of use of existing parts and a 360 block shouldnt run to much. 408 kits are plentiful for the 360. That way you keep the stability of the small block and keep trans etc as is.

yeah I'm just stuck on those 426's ....408 perfectly ok...and similar numbers.

Les

And he would only need a 360 block and pistons

DaveBishop wrote:And he would only need a 360 block and pistons

Yep and Stroke it and you get all the performance of a BB with less hassle/cost..

Les Szabo wrote:I can see your train of thought, however, a 360 block with a 4.180 crank kit = 426ci, with your heads worked a bit, and all your other parts + decent cam you'll easily be in BB territory, 500+ easy HP, 550ftlbs and it'll all bolt up to your trans....just a thought.

Wish you all the best with whatever you do.

Les

Sounds tempting I must admit and I could write 426 c.i on the bonnet but price of the stroker kit not tempting though

DaveBishop wrote:And he would only need a 360 block and pistons

For the 408 you talking about Dave?

My pistons have 408 stamped on the underside, do they use the same ones for the 416?

Carl they might have used the 360 (408) pistons to go +60 on the 340 just a thought be worth checking then you would only need a 360 block

Would that be for a 408 build? Wouldn't my crank be different though?

They both have a 4.00" stroke but the rods on the 408 are 6.125 ctr to ctr and the 416 rods are 6.123"

Thats strange Carl I thought it was the bore size thats different the rods are the same length

its not necessarily an old slapper of an engine.
yes the block will be less robust but jings most of them have lost wall thickness due to corrosion anyway.
It didn't go into pin holes when bored last time
Thats a good sign.

1)If the piston to bore clerance was too tight a hone and a clean up of those pistons might put it just right. (thats time rather than money spent)
2) its way past what chrylser determined was a safe rebore for their worst case scenario casting, but we don't know if this was a worst case scenario casting, could have been a thick walled casting.
3) you don't need to get it sonic tested to get an indication, an idea, a very good guess, of how poor or good the wall thickness is
4) nobody is suggesting ploughing good money after bad into it. it currently needs time and some head gaskets.

Yes rockers are necessary but the rockers are necessary due to previous breakage for any small block you buy so buying rockers was a given

you can get an indication of whether the bore is particularly thin by doing this

this is a decent "looking for a thick walled block in a breakers yard" method

1) find a core plug in each bank of cylinders that when removed will give you access to the gap between them
2) remove the core plug (new core plug set is about 15 quid and you only need 2 so someone probably has a few to spare)
3) using a screw driver/small file or a dowel in a drill sawed halfway up and wrapped in emery, clean up the crud between the cylinders
4) ram a wedge of feelers in there. call that measuremnet G for gap
5) measure as best you can from the near side of the left bore to the near side of the right bore call that D for distance (do it 5 times and average out what you get to cover off using the verniers on a curved surface errors)
6) we want to work out WT, Wall Thickness

(D-G)/2 = wall thinkness


granted it gives no idication of thickness anywhere else and does not cover core shift

but thats why we have sonic testing

so

take off the water pump (new gasket)

this gives access to a decent area of the bottom of at least 1 the front 2 cylinders.

the place they corrode most is usually around the bottom, if the engine stood

check how bad it is. chip off the crap and look how much has gone.

you can mesure from the water pump face hlf way up and at the bottom and subtract one from the other to get an idea of how much tinner it is at the bottom. you might be able to do it further up as well

based on resserach i did a while ago when looking at hemi 6s

i'd suggest 0.165 wall would be the minimum you'd want on a motor when your plans do NOT involve forced induction

1/4 of an inch would be nice:)

some guys running around with 0.125 but i guess not on stroker motors.


Dave

You would need a complete 360 stroker kit with I-beam rods, KB slugs at around $1100 = £680 +ship, + a block, and all the rest you have. Cannot use your crank, wrong main journal size for 360.

example:-
http://www.ebay.com/itm/CHRYSLER-360-40 ... 0809199712

Forged pistons and crank:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/CHRYSLER-360-40 ... 0809199981

Many kits about though.

Les

Yep you are right Les forgot that must be getting old