What is a 408???

bores need to be notched for stock rods by about 1/4 thumbnail. The after market rods use 12pt. capscrews that dont have a nut so they are smaller in profile. IF you wanted a stump puller thats not going to see north of 400HP, an Eagle cast will do as well as cast pistons.
If you wanna believe it, I got <$500 into my stroker 403 (std bore 4.00 stroke) out the door. Eagle cast 4.00s were $250 shipped on ebay a few years ago, (holy crap, I just looked at part number and I got sent a $900 4340 forged!!! 436040006123) and I found a random set of NOS Magnum cast stroker press fit (yuck!) pistons for $100 on a chevy site IIRC. The magnum pistons have a narrower little end so I had to massage my 360 LA rods to fit. And these pistons were all over the place in weight so I had to get them all down to the lightest one and that included taking some piston pin material out a few as there was no meat left on the piston. $75 balance job handing the guy the crank and 1 complete rod/piston package that were all equalized by myself and a $7 HF .1g digital scale, very repeatable until it came to angular (rod end) weights. He ended up taking very little off the crank as the bobweight was only 24g lighter than the counterweight. No expensive tungsten needed. Have yet to assemble it. The $75 was the only machine cost I paid, everything else was garage time on hand tools. Building a stroker and not going for HP levels over 400 is a waste of time, 360 is very capable of making 400+ with a stock stroke. Some of us just like working on motors I guess.