408 Build Thread

Its great read threads on little tricks people find on power and reliability for the Mag 360. I’ve also gone with a SCAT internally balanced rotating assembly, forged 4” crank, H-beams & Diamond dished pistons. Looking forward in hearing builds and advice, since the prep & painting of my Dart is taking most of my time and money… well mostly the money! For that, I’m going to use the original cast heads for now, and with a little P&P work they should be ok. Just something worries me about changing over to performance aluminum ones. I have heard about fitting problems between the intake and headers (when bought, I want to keep) when swaping the Magnum heads. So wasting $$$ on parts I can’t transfer is a concern.

Anyway, happy to hear others making Big 408 Power, hopefully I’ll have the same success in the spring.

OH, funny thing how I came by the engine... A friend of mine works as a supervisory inspector for a development company. That job he was the site supervisor, and was looking thru an out building for hazmat stuff left behind from a soon to be company-X dealership being torn down (which the development company NOW owned). He found about 50 blue engine crates stacked up, so he looked...on the bottom… in the corner…. guess what! He asked, and was told by a supervising company –X manager, he can have anything he wanted left…. So on the following Monday morning, guess what! Being a ferrrd man he sold me the crate. No kidding aside, "Sold Me!" It was an un-fired crate engine missing the timing chain cover, oil pump, intake, valve covers, balancer & oil pan.

Not too bad, a new 1994 360 Magnum engine looking for a home.