73' B3 340 Duster pro touring build
I know you wouldn't give out misleading information intentionally, Ross. The question was not designed to cause distress in any way. The real reason for my interest is as follows:
Back when Hoover was talking about building a "poor man's stroker motor" as he called it, one of his buddies/lieutenants, (I think it was Ted Spehar, but it's too long ago to really remember) said that they were going for a 371 inch motor based on a 340 block. The block they were planning to use had cleaned up perfectly at .020 over, which rendered a 4.060" bore. They were then planning to cut .200" from the mains on a carefully selected 360 crank which would yield a 2.450" journal size and therefore would drop into the 340 block. They were planning to use .060" over 360 pistons which would, of course, have the correct compression/pin height when used with a stock length 6.123" LA rod. Sure enough, a couple of years later I saw an article with Hoover and his '68 notchback Barracuda running low 12s/high 11s with a "stroker 371" LA motor. Cool. Saw nothing much more of the car or engine until the article in Mopar Action where it was stated that the engine was built on a 360 block! That really got my attention. At first I wondered if it was just a misprint/mistake which was the actual reason for the question to you. I now wonder if perhaps they built the 340 based engine and suffered a cracked or broken crankshaft, and then later found one of the elusive "thick wall" early 360 castings and built a second (and much more reliable) combination for the car, and simply didn't advertise the fact that the first engine failed. Who knows ? I'm not at the track all the time anymore, (and neither are any of those guys-even the ones who are still kicking)so I don't have anyway of finding out. Anyway, there is no question that you possess a very significant piece of history there, in that engine. Tom was one cool and very down to earth guy; and a real hardcore performance nut, that is for sure.