I can see that point, I see some people checking the lifter bores and cam bearing saddles(is that the right word) I am sure that is a good idea, but I have built a few motors, and I have never seen any machine shop get that detailed yet.

I agree Orr. That is a good deal for the quality product that Carl puts out. He will double check the block every which way. You can be assured the block is right on the numbers as he has the proper equipment to do the job. That block will be a good foundation for your twin turbo'd motor.

That's the difference between just building an engine, and blueprinting one.

I believe the line hone should be right straigh from dart, same as the decks being parallell, I would not cut the decks on a new block either, every block will settle after it is seasoned and that is when it should be decked to zero, if you deck it to 9.00 now you will have no material to straighten it with the next rebuild. Most anybody who can build a motor can tap holes, and should be able to check most of these measurements themselves. And I sure hope they are not boring a new block, that would be a bad deal on a block that should last a lifetime if nothing catastrophic happens.
As far as blueprinting goes, for your average street strip motor checking and correcting lifter bores and correcting the cam centerline is unecessecary, the money could be spent elsewhere much more effectively.

Sure, but why not check and be sure?

There's a difference between the mass production metalurgy of stock blocks and the better-controlled limited production of an aftermarket block. The aftermarket block won't be expected to settle as much.

There's nothing wrong with cutting the deck lower than 9.00.

If somebody else wants to do tap holes for me and clean the block afterwards for a couple of dollars, that's fine with me. If they have the tools, most people will be checking all the measurements of the block regardless of whether it came directly from Dart, or from a machine shop.

If you were building a 454 you'd bore it.

True, but for the average street/strip motor an aftermarket block isn't necessary either.

I do not believe the dart shp block has enough meat to be bored to a 454, that is usually done with motown blocks, and I would rather save a few rebuids on the motor than get a few more cubic inches, You may be able to cut a block below 9.00, but you will have to start using different head gaskets to maintain your piston to head clearance, and gasket choices for the big bore are alredy limited, plus if you go far below 9.00, you will have to be careful with your piston ring placement.
Dart blocks may settle less, but I know they will settle and I would rather leave the extra meat on the deck for that, or any other repair that the block may need.
I said that I agreed rhat the crank centerline should be checked. I also said that if it was out of Darts spec, I am sure that they would fix it for you, same with the decks.
In most cases, I would agree that for a street strip motor an aftermarket block is overkill, but not in this case, that is the origanal purpose of this thread, how much power will a 400 block handle, I think that the general concensus is not much, and when you do want to put serious power through one, you have to spend so much money on machine work that you will spend nearly as much as the price of the shp block.
The purpose of the shp block is to be a stronger replacement for a stock block, it was designed to SAVE you the countless dollars of machine work you have to go through to reuse a 20 year old core, when it is used in this way, it is a great deal, it does not cost a whole lot more than to reuse a 400 block, and for 1400 dollars, you should be able to hone it, then run it, that is how dart intended it.

not true, darts can be used as well.

There are many different lines of dart blocks, the SHP is an alternative to re-using a stock block. The little-m is the race block, and is the only one I have heard of being bored to 4.250 to make a 454, the little-m block also needs machined after purchase, the SHP block is advertised to be ready to go out of the box.

yea you beat me to retracting my qoute, max rec for that block is 406 cubes.

id rather go with a world products myself but they tend to cost more then the darts last i checked.

Dart doesnt recommend going over a 3.75 stroke. So i wouldnt use the SHP block to build a big inch stroker. I'm not sure why, i dont think going to a 3.875 stroke for a 415-420 build but then again, do you really need the extra 10-20 inches?

Regarding the stroke I think Dart is just covering themselves warranty wise. If you start to grind on the block for clearance they don't want to be held responsible and have to replace the block because some goofball screwed it up. Same thing with the 600hp rating. It will hold a lot power more than that. In fact early on someone there posted 800hp. Now it is unofficially 700hp but officially 600hp warranty wise.

Dart is probably just playing it safe with the max bore size and stroke, but I still do not see much reason in buying a new block with a good fresh bore, and then paying someone to bore it out and just take life off of a good block, I also do not agree with cutting the decks on a good block, or line honing a block that is freshly machined, I do not make a lot of money myself, and my money is better spent on things that will help the performance of my engine, not cost money and take life off of my new block that I just spent my hard-earned money on.
I do agree all the specs should be checked, but I do not need someone to repair the crank centerline on a block that is supposed to be good, if anything is out of darts reccomended spec, send it back, if darts reccomended spec is not good enough for your tolerances, than the SHP block is not the right one for you anyway, because you are buildin a hardcore race motor, or are just seriously anal, and either way the little-m block is a better fit for you.

How many rebuilds are you honestly going to do in the cars lifetime? if your gonna spend all that money on a new block and good quality parts, why worry about rebuilds down the road. Just build it right the first time

Using a brand new fresh standard size fresh bore is not the right way to do things? i guess I need to rethink my motor, it only needed a .030 bore, but I should have bored it .060 anyway I guess.That would be the right way.
Dart says these blocks are ready to be run with just a hone, but what do they know, they just made the block, next time I order heads I also better remove and replace the guides to I guess.

You dont have to bring the attitude
I'm just saying dont worry about life of the block. Bore it to whatever you want. You can start out with a standard bore but if you wanted to make it a 406 or 408 then go for it. Its likely not going to be a big difference but the point is, how many times will you need to rebuild this motor? If you build it right the first time, it will last you a very long time. Even if you build it for 50,000 miles life before you want to rebuild it, that could be 10 years down the road. For me i'm not building no 400 small block for a daily driver that will see 10K miles a year.. Hell no, its only gonna see 4K miles a year if that. Thats 12 years of even life if i plan to rebuild at 50K miles. Thats all i'm saying.

I already posted information about these blocks not exactly being ready to go from Dart but you dont want to believe me, ok thats fine. You can use those blocks as is, but you'd be foolish to not double check the dimensions. IF your building a motor that needs a aftermarket block like this then i would sure hope you take the time to double check the factory machining tolerances, and also correct any mistakes that may be made. The better the machining tolerances the more power you will make. Less blowby from out of round bores and with proper main line maching you will have abit better bearing life since the crank is perfectly centered and straight. All those little details go into building a solid motor.

The tolerancs set by Dart will be plenty adequate for a reliable motor,They SHOULD be checked, I just do not agree that you should pay a machine shop to repair them, which is what you are doing if you buy a machined block for 350 dollars more.If something is not up to par for a reliable block, have Dart fix it, they surely have better equipment then most machine shops anyway,
You could bore it for 6 or 8 cubic inches, but why, the small difference in power will not be worth the price of machine work, boring a block is for repairing cylinder walls, not to increase displacement.
And if I seemed rude, it would have to be becuase your post seemed like you considered using the blocks good bore is the WRONG way to do things, and that I want someone to half-as* their motor, which is not the case, I just do not want someone to waste their money having a third party machine a block that is already ready to go

Understandable. My appologies if my post came out that way. I wasnt intending it to sound as if it was wrong to do it that way.

My concern is, if you ordered that block from summit and had it checked out, and there was some problems, would DART pay to have it shipped back to factory? If you had to pay to ship it back and forth you might as well have a local machine shop correct it

I do agree that if you ordered it from summit, and there was some problems and you had to ship it back and forth, having a local machine shop correct it would probably be more cost effective. However, I believe the keyword is IF, I do not believe that you are likely to run into issues. Dart has always made good products in the past, and I would expect them to continue that tradition.
The other place charges an additional 350 dollars for this block, and then uses that money to redo machine work on this block, and I just do not believe every block they recieve needs anything corrected, and I can not justify spending my hard earned money on unneccesary work.
Now on the off chance you do get a block from summit, and there is some tolerance not within spec that needs to be corrected, I really believe that summit racing would work to make it right. i have dealt with the summit racing customer service upon a few occasions, and I would have to say that they do an excellent job, and have always went the extra mile to make sure I was satisfied, and I would not hesitate to order this part through them, knowing that if I do have problems, they will take care of it.
I am sure that other machine shop selling this block for 1800$ is a great place, but I have not heard of them,nor are they anywhere near me, so I would be a little more nervous of getting a bad product from them, and then not being able to get it sorted out with great customer service, if I were to not trust the quality control of the block coming out of Dart, then not trust that summit will warranty any issues, I do not know why I would trust this shop either.

The 509 blocks are what we use in our modified. We are over 600 hp. The 509 block will have a blank on it were a freeze plug was supposed to be. Put a forged crank, good rods, and pistons and you will be happy with it. We also biult a 377 (400 block, 350 crank) and it was a high winding sob! Hope this helps.