Low Deck 400 Builds

My combo is pretty street friendly. It uses a comp hydraulic roller cam with 236/242 duration and 541 lift. It originally had pocket ported 452 heads, holley street dominator intake, holley 750 DP carb, 1 3/4 B body headers. It dyno'd at 550 HP and 610 TQ. I since added Edelbrock heads and picked up about 2 tenths and 2-3 mph in the quarter mile, so probably another 20-30 HP. It has run a best of 11.53 at 118 mph through full exhaust with 3.55 gears. I bought my parts individually, Eagle crank, Scat rods, KB pistons, and I went for Chrysler rod journals and 6.76 rod length. That made the pistons very short, and the oil ring was partly in the pin boss. I also had issues balancing the assembly. If I had it to do over I would have used a shorter rod for a slightly taller piston, and I would have bought a complete balanced kit from 440 source.