Big Blocks

needsaresto said
As usual,spot on advise and builds Bobby. I will have my greedy hands on a steel 440 crank as of Saturday. It's too bad we are so far apart or I would be sending my stuff to you! Shipping costs are sure to mess up that dream...

So if I were to go with the eagle rods,or the 440 source rods what piston would I use (think light)? I will very likely use eddie rpm big block heads and am leaning towards solid roller.Not sure here and would appreciate your input. I would like to visit low 11's or high 10's so I guess compression should be at least 10.5:1. THat will put me on the edge for pump gas even with aluminum heads. And yes,727,8 3/4 with 3:91 or 4:11 depending on tire. An overdrive will be in the future as well as I want to drive it and not rattle my brains out

The 400 will likely come out tommorow! AS long as I dont get caught in another lightning storm...

What I would do is use the 440 crank in the 400 block as the 400 has a larger bore than the 440. I'm doing this build for myself also, but going about it differently. You can use the 440 rods as they are 4340 material from the factory, just as the 340/360/383/400 rods are 1053 steel. This is the same material (1053) as the NASCAR cranks are made from. The RB rods are the only ones from the factory that are made from this material that I know of. So the need for higher strength rods isn't necessary. Just use new rod bolts and shot peen them and resize them and you should be good to go. As for the pistons the KB280's are the lightest and cheapest ones that I've found.

As for the camshaft being a roller do you think that you really need to go this route with a OD unit on the street? If so you'll need to keep the duration down so the engine will have enough TQ and low RPM HP to make the OD unit work properly. Secondly I really don't think that the Eddy heads would be the best choice for the street either, as the runners are large and low rpm performance may suffer some. As air flow isn't anything to write home about with these heads. IMO I would use a good set of iron heads with small ports that would keep the velocity up and create more TQ and low rpm HP that would make it alot more useable with the OD unit. Alot of people shun these heads for new ones but don't realise what they've done till it's too late and they can't go back and change them. So they stay with a a set of heads that they really aren't pleased with. Now this isn't to say that the heads are bad but the combo is just off for the intentions they really wanted them to be used in.

Oh and shipping isn't that bad as all shippers have to be more competitive. A set of heads usually run's in the $100.00 range for shipping here in the US. I think the last set that I shipped was $98.00 or so.