440 build questions and any suggestions.

Hi Tim. First a couple of things. Any street car can be driven at the track making everything street/strip. This means you don't have to build a race or near race, or even a performance engine to enjoy both worlds.

A 440, even in stock form, in a scamp will keep your hands full, and your tires in a cloud of smoke. You can go fast enough with a stock 440 so that the track will require a roll bar in the car.

The stock forged crank is more than strong enough. The stock rods can handle 500HP if prepped correctly. The KB Hyper pistons are a good choice for your application. The 516 heads are OK but not optimum, but capable. I would run em if ya got em. The teflon seals wouldn't be my first choice but will work. There are better valve seals on the market, but that's neither here nor there.

As for a camshaft, The size of a camshaft is usually determined by duration. As duration increases the filling efficiency of the cylinder is increased, and raised higher in the rpm range. When you move up in cam you must also move up in intake, exhaust, compression, converter, and rear gearing. You can see this even with minor changes from the factory. Simply compare the differences in the above mentioned components when the factory installed a magnum (sixpack) camshaft in the HiPo 383 and 440. Even a minor change in duration and lift resulted in high flow exhaust maniflods, higher compression, better intake, and a higher stall converter.

Camshaft upgrades don't end with the camshaft, everything else will now need to be changed to work with the new camshaft.

What I'm trying to say is don't overthink it. Keep it simple, and near stock if you truly want a steetable daily driver that you will enjoy driving.

Spend your money on traction devices, axles, brakes, wheels and sticky tires, because even with a stock 440 in a scamp you'll need all of it.

Good luck