What do you guys reccomend for this buildup. Try to break it down. Im going for about 480 - 550 HP and GOBS of low end torque. I have a Stock 400 sbc to build off of. Its a 2 bolt block 509 Casting. What kinds of things should I go for?

The tranny is going to need work as well to keep this sort of power under wraps. Whats your Ideas? Plan it out for me. I need some help

 

Heads. Power lives in the heads. Spend your money on heads. Without good flow there, all else is a waste; no amount of intake or exhaust or carb or $$$$ ignition boxes will make up for a flow limit in the heads.

A 350 will handle that no problem, no huge amounts of money are necessary. Get a $75 core from the junkyard and a good master kit and a quality shift kit such as TransGo, you'll be set.

Oh, and did I mention... get the best heads you can afford, they're the heart of a big-inch small block.

 

Use some really good heads and a roller cam, this will put you much closer to your goal.

 

well for something of that HP you'll probly spend 2200 in just the heads and bottom end.

 

You should be fine with a stock bottom end. Use good heads. Small ccs if the pistons are dished. And a roller cam.

 

even with cost effective parts.

Rods will run you ~200 (reconditioned stock with new bolts)
Crank turned (if you go stock is 50 + 125 for balancing)
Bore with torque plate is 125
Cambearings and freeze plugs is 50
Plus a hottank - 30

Ur already at 575 and you have not got pistons or rings. (thats going to be close to 550 easy).

Then 1000 for a set of heads. Get at least one port flowed and cced, then take those flownumbers to cammotion. They will find a grind that makes the HP you want. Expect to pay 200 for it minimum (300 if hyd-roller).

Then all you need is ignition, carb, intake and exhaust. (which I spent about 500, 900, 300 and 1200 on respectively).

 

$1200 for exhaust? is the stuff gold plated titanium?

 

560 for hooker supercomps. like 500 for the 4" tail pipe segment and 250some od for the headpipes and Y .. and still no ground clearance...

 

so you are reccommending that this guy run 480-550 hp on a stock bottom end?!?!

Ok, let me give some advice.... dont ever skimp on parts.. esp the bottom end, you'll end up spending more time and more money WHEN that bottom end goes and you have to replace it. If you do it right the first time you wont go through that. And for G o Ds sake please do NOT run a stock bottom end. Keep the stock crank, get the best rods for your application, and at least hypereutectic pistons.

and one more issue... To get that kind of HP you are going to have to get some insane heads which will most likely than not, cost a lot of money.

 

makes sense.. my dumb @$$ was thinkin cat back...

450-480 should be ok. 550 n/a is gonna be a little more than 2200 to put together. after market heads... roller cam... longer rods.... long tube headers.. fat carb... that all is $$$. ~480 horses with ported ptoduction heads and a roller cam shouldn't strain a 400 sb too much. BTW Boring the block 20 over and using F/T pistons would be a goood idear.

 

I'm no expert by any means, but I've build a few 383's and 400's and here's my take.

480-550 HP is pushing it. And IF you build a 400 to acheive this, you're going to push the MAIN benefit of the 400 ( LOW and MID range torque ) up out of the useable RPM range.

How about 375-400 HP and 500 ft/lbs of torque? Cause if you seriously want that kind of HP, you're talking a BIG cam, and that means moving the HP WAY up in the RPM range.

MY recommendation for a budget 400.

Get the blocke vatted, magged, honed, bored and new cam bearings @ $400

Get your stock rods checked. If they need resizing , it makes more $$$ sense to go ahead and spend $200-250 on a good set of ready to run 5.7" rods.....this is just a common $$$ sense decision, I like running the short rods.

For a budget on a non roller block like the 400, stick with a hydraulic cam, something along the lines of a Comp Cams XE268.

Add a single plane intake. This gives up a tad of low end, but adds a good chunk of upper range power, and on a 400 you can afford to give up some low end.

Good headers and exhaust.

Vortec heads, even stock should take the listed cam. I've used it before no problem.

From 2 motor really close to this that I've built, with good tuning expect 350-360 HP and OVER 400 ft/lbs of torque all the way up the RPM range.

HTH

 

i think that running 350 hp on a stock bottom end is just stupid. let alone 480. My motor has about 400 hp and my bottom end is heavy duty.... we built 2 of these motors... the first one blew up... detonation/6500 rpms threw a rod right out. this was after 4k on the motor. those were good rods too. 480-500 on a stock bottom end is rediculous and you are asking for trouble if you do it.

 

Welcome to the wonderful world of engine building......

Yeah...stock bottom end are junk, that's why most small blocks from the factory hit valve float LOOOONNNG before they turn enough revs to throw a rod. I hate to be an ***, but in the 25 or so small blocks I've built, the ONLY time I had failures, it was because of a mistake I MADE BUILDING IT.

And why you revving a street engine to 6500 RPM's? A well put together STOCK BOTTOM END with cast crank, CAST pistons, stock bearings and everything else will have NO PROBLEMS handling the power and revving to 6000RPM all day long. IF IT'S put together correctly. I'm not flaming anybody, but by your logic, about half of the engine I've built in the last 15 years should have grenaded.......so I guess that 480 HP 383 I built should have blown up huh? Stock rods too......and a 2-bolt......EGADS.......


Welcome to the world of OVERSELL......SURE, if you plan on spraying it, and you have the budget, a forged bottom end is great......but pistons will fail BEFORE a crank if the parts are not defective and it's built right to specs.


Don't waste your money thinking a stock type rebuild can't make good power on a budget.......



Just like stock iron L98 heads can't take over .480 lift.....guess my buddy's car w/ a ZZ4 cam should have blown by now....all we did was replaced springs, locks and retainers.....I better call him and tell him to stop driving it......


Chris

 

So I am gussing that since you blew up a $4k motor stock bottom ends don't stand a chance?

 

nah there was no mistake building it. Go take a look at the stock rod bolt sizes.... theres your problem. Stock rods cant take it they suck, so do cast pistons. You guys can claim all you want but if you want to build 480-550 hp on a stock bottom go be my guest.....im only trying to warn you.

 

A buddy of mine ran a 350 with a 305 crank, stock rods with half of the metal shaved off, and cast pistons for years. He was runnin 12.0x consistantly in a 3000 pound nova. Is a stock cast bottom end not as strong as a forged one? not at all but if you treat it like a stock bottom end it can last for years and make a lot of power too.

BTW I wasn't implying that it was put together wrong only that detonation killed it - an avoidable problem.

 

305 crank is the same as the 350 crank. i dunno how that would hold up tho i dunno....... the reason you get hypereutectic or forged pistons (well one of them) is that they can take a little tiny bit of detonation so that you can run more timing and such when at the track. and they will outlast cast pistons anyday on any situation. Rods are very important. Better safe than sorry i say... but its your call.

 

we went around about this in another post. 305 cranks (even with the same pn as a 350 crank) have smaller balance weights and are not as strong as 350 cranks.

forged can but from what i have heard is that hypers are as bad with detonation as cast ones mabey worse.

I hafte agree with that . IMO stock rods would be OK in most applications. 400 rods aren't great but as long as you aren't pushing the motor to the limit all the time (ie race motor) they will be fine.

Just for the record I am not recommending my buddy's setup just stating that he did it.

 

Rod bolt sizes? Racers have been using stock GM rods ( including the 5.565" 400 short rods ) with good aftermarket bolts for YEARS with no problems.

Hmmm.....I guess nobody raced small blocks back when forged parts didn't exist huh?

Sorry, I just think this is funny. You tell me in one post your engine threw a rod at 6800 RPM w/ 4k miles on it, and in the next post you say it was built right? WTF?

Sorry......if it threw a rod at 6800 RPM, either your tach is way off, a part in the engine was flawed and this was missed during assembly, or a clearance somewhere wasn't right.

Mind if I ask how long have you been building these engines? I've only been doing this 15 years, I KNOW I still have alot to learn.

And what about all the circle track racers who must adhere to STRICT engine building rules where STOCK parts are called for? Think they go searching for hard to find factory forged cranks?

The biggest mistake as far as rods, when building a small block, is usually one or more of the following:

- Not getting the rods checked / magnafluxed to check for cracks
- Not replacing the rod bolts
- Replacing the rod bolts and not checking BOTH the big end and small end rod sizes after the new bolts are installed.


As for pistons......cast pistons are more easily damaged by detonation, but think of the MILLIONS of stock small blocks with cast pistons that ran for tons of miles ( or still running )........

Forged pistons are more durable, but they have to be clearance and fitted alot differently than stock type pistons.

 

unless you wheel and deal like no one's business, i'd say you won't get near 400hp for 2200
i'd go 286 and up if he wants to make hp...i was SEVERELY disappointed in my 268, but i'm fairly content with the 292

 

well as i mentioned that motor was raced ALOT and had a stock bottom end ... i mean c'mon you cant expect to build a High Performance motor with a stock bottom end. You guys can argue theory all you want but when u build a motor with 500 hp on a stock bottom end you'll see what i mean.

 

So my 11 second Malibu w/ a cast crank, hyper pistons, stock rods ( good bolts ) didn't count? It's got over 30k miles on the short block right now, and the new owner flogs it all the time......of course he did replace the heads with some better aluminum's......but that's not the bottom end.


I'm sorry man......we went from 400 Hp, now we're at 500 HP.....

First off, the ONLY naturally aspirated small blocks that are going to acheive 500 HP are going to be high winding, ill-tempered beasts.....unless you're talking expensive custom offset, long stroke, aftermarket blocks etc......


Chris
You can have 500 HP at 7000 RPM, I'll take 450 ft/lbs of torque at 3500 RPM.......BYE.......hope you got enough track to catch me...

 

If you look at the beggining of the topic it was always 480-550.