Bare Bones Budget 400 Build

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Thank you all for the kind words. Well I had a bad night last night and couldn't sleep. I went out and put Vixen's manifolds back on. I went ahead and used the 2.25" opening, since it has a perfectly good operating hot air valve. That and plus Freddie isn't through with the 2.5 one yet. lol So Vixen's back on the road! I'll update my runnin and drivin thread with some pictures and maybe a video.
 
I gotta find a steel 383 crank. I don't think Mopar ever made an external balanced flywheel for a 383/400, plus that would also solve my pilot bushing issue.

Question - if you use a forged 383 crank with your rods/pistons, does that require everything to be re-balanced? I'd thought the cast 400 crank was lighter than the 383.
 
Question - if you use a forged 383 crank with your rods/pistons, does that require everything to be re-balanced? I'd thought the cast 400 crank was lighter than the 383.

As many times as I've swapped from cast straight to forged in other engines and not had trouble, no, I won't re-balance it.
 
Question - if you use a forged 383 crank with your rods/pistons, does that require everything to be re-balanced? I'd thought the cast 400 crank was lighter than the 383.
I myself would send it out just to get it really supper nice. This would be my only big expenditure on a build like this. If I had money, time, tools and skills to do a ton of at home work like (possible resizing), rebalancing and polishing the rods etc..... I’d do that. But it is out of the scope of this build I think and certainly my wallet at this point in time.
 
Let's keep this an old school budget build. Many things work that the wallet boys say won't.
Some may have the wallet, but they don't have the know how.
Some of us just know how and what works.
Give her hell Rusty !
 
I did back track on one thing. I am going to put good rod bolts in it and get the rods resized. I slap caint sleep at night unless I do that. lol
 
Ur getting soft rusty. Kim

Maybe not as soft as you think. I plan on replacing the rod bolts myself immediately before assembly. Then I'm gonna plastigage um one at a time. If they look good, they're goin. lol
 
My 1 buddy does that all the time. Doesn’t resize the rod. Just puts new bolts in and haves at her. Kim

It's not like I am gonna pound the crap outta the rods. lol
 
As many times as I've swapped from cast straight to forged in other engines and not had trouble, no, I won't re-balance it.


Good to know. Thanks.

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I have another video I am going to post later today. They take so dang long to upload. This one will show my method for honing cylinders with a dingleberry hone and also the same for lifter bores.
 
Sub'ed....

As to the rebalancing question...I picked up a '68 383 short block the other day, and come to find it has a 400 crank in it. Rods are the same, cast or forged, through entire "B" engine model run. It was rebuilt by an engine rebuilding company, and did run at one point, so I'm gonna use it as is (new bearings, of course), using cast damper and weighted converter. Also, gonna use '516 heads to bump comp a bit.
 
My apologies yall. I kinda got ahead of myself. lol I just jumped on it and kept going today. Got the cylinders and lifter bores honed, ran the brushes back through ALL holes, pressure washed through all the oil galleys. Got the thing spotless. Coated the cylinders GOOD with Sea Foam. Dried the block off really good and primed it with VHT black engine primer and then shot it with VHT Chrysler Turquoise. It came out ok for a spray bomb job. The video is STILL uploading but it doesn't have much longer.

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Sweet ! You even got it painted and looking pretty.:thumbsup:
 
Finally, here's the new video. More to come.

 
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