Rate my shortblock

To give you an idea, here is my Ford 400 that I am building. I have the short block completed now. It had some fairly significant rust in some cylinders, but I saved it and was able to go standard bore. It ended up with .002-.0035 clearance, which is fine for a truck motor. What appears to be a ridge in some of the finished pictures is not. It is assembly lube gathered at the top of the piston travel from assembly. It has no ridge whatsoever, but even if it did, it would not hurt a thing. I WAS going to run the original pistons, until I was cleaning them. I got to the LAST ONE and a ring land was cracked. The 400 went through a lot of piston changes through the years, so to assure I got a matched set I replaced them all. I scored an NOS set of Badger pistons on Ebay for 20 bucks. I did all the cleaning, honing and prep work myself. This short block has not seen the machine shop. I have saved a ton of money because I did it all myself. You would really be surprised at what you can do if you just try.

Here are some before and after shots.