Bare Bones Budget 400 Build

I agree, but I also think the 400 stock stroke engine can be made to be a very torquey street engine. Even low compression. I'm certainly headed in the direction to find out.
Some YouTube guy has a stock stroke 400 with 1.928 ch 440 smog pistons he made 530 hp & it's a revver with a tunnel ram. I had a fairly simple built 400 in a daily driver73 charger se back in highschool, it put a 474 purple shaft, headers, windage tray, mopar version of the edelbrock dual plane & a 625 carter.
Then used 3.92 gears from a dakota (8.25 rear end) went from 17.50 seconds to 14.20 in a week's worth of work, shift kit & tuned the thing & that fat beeitch went 13.80s, yeah I know....but you don't need my autograph or to give me an award.