Building a 408/416 stroker

what are you looking at doing with the thing ? it's a pretty straight forward build. what kind of hp are you looking to get, street strip just street just strip ? the biggest thing i'll tell you right now is cylinder head selection regardless of aplication you intend to use it , do not skimp on a good set of heads. even a fully ported x-j-o head will be marginal on a street strip motor. i make an honest 550 hp out of a 416 with w2 heads(2.08 valves) 10.5 comp,comp cams have alot of cams for this application. mine is a custom ultradyne solid lifter .585 lift 259@50. i have the cam card if if you want all the specs. also get the proper windage tray and pan. at the time nobody was making all this bolt on stuff for stroker small blocks but i think milodon makes all this stuff now. also i didn't do anything fancy to the mains. no studs and haven't had a lick of trouble in 6 years of racing and limited street driving.i don't think i'll ever build another one though, the reason is you can build basically a stock 440 with a set of cleaned up 452 heads six pack replacement flat tops a racer brown custom solid lifter cam and make like 560 hp with a stock steel crank and stock rods .i can get you the combo that would do this and it would be cheaper to build than a small block.now i know that everyone will say that you will be able to reuse a whole bunch of stuff from you existing small block but in reality what are you going to use ? most guys run an 1-5/8's header on there smallblock but that is way to small for a stroker, you'll need a 750 plus carb , single plane manifold, heads and like i said earlier you'll need something that will flow. in the end you will be buying all this stuff anyways so why not just build a big block 440, cores are relatively cheap and you won't be disapointed with the performance street and track. the stroker is an awesome engine and a blast to drive but way easier just to do a 440 in my opinion