383 = no love

318willrun said
Seems that way. They either turn them into a 451 or they don't use them.
I only know what I experienced. I think the 400 is just a load of potential waiting to be released. I took a 400 2bbl and threw it in a D150. I didn't rebuild it, nor did I even check it out to see what the compression or anything was. I just threw a 4bbl and headers on it when I installed it.
I ran 14.50 with it. Yes, that's right! See how many factory muscle cars ran faster, including the beloved 340 Dusters. And I put it in a truck, not a Duster....

:eek:Wait, not a D150 with 3.21's and a LC 400 2bbl motor that the long block had never been taken apart? Your talking the lowest compression (factory), a broom stick for a cam, untouched 452 heads, 3.21 gears. :eek:

If I would have cleaned up the heads, put a little healthier cam in it, and raised the compression, this truck would have been a rock'n and a roll'n. Not to mention if I'd of added gears.... or a decent converter.

There's 2 ways looking at engines potential. 1st is what the average guy is gonna get from it. 2nd is its ultimate potential.

Us average guys that turn under 6500 rpms
the bigger the better especially if we use the average gearing 3.55:1. Cause the bigger the engine the more torque per rpm (hp) it will make and at 6500 it's unlikely the bore size is overly effecting your engines breathing.
Eg. If you got 273 and a 540 both making peak power at 6500 the 540 will basically make double the power.

But the other way of looking at it especially if your willing to gear it cause gear will make up any torque advantage of a larger displacement. That's why I say if you "willing to gear it build it". Now you can't turn a 273 high enough to over power a 540 but it's not cause of its displacement but it's bore size. Which is the ultimate limit to power cause it ultimately limits valve size which limits breathing. In other words anything under a 383's 4.25" can't spin high enough to out do a 383 you can always turn up the rpms of a 383 to out do anything with a smaller bore. So that just leaves 400/440 but since there only slightly bigger they only have so much advantage probably 50 hp or so for an all out build. But since not everything is taking to the max they all have pretty much the same potential.

To put it another way look at 400/406 and 400/500 both same block and bore the difference being the stroke. So if you use similar quality rotating assembly in both there's a certain amount rpm (pistons speed) before they will grenade. Which will also about equal the rpm difference to make the same power. Yes there's other variables that come in to play but for the most part they would be equal power. So eg. If you turned the 500 to 7000 rpms the 406 would needed to be turned to 8600 rpm and if geared and setup right both should be close to equal.

So basically no matter what you stroke your small block to a 383 can always turn more rpm to make up and exceed the power level of larger cid small block.