383 to 496
- Thread starter FuryDan66
- Start date
Also, if you you go with an after market rotating assembly, a number of manufacturers can supply a light weight stock configured crank and rods also in stock configuration of modern materials for around $2750-$3000 for the kit.
Dave
moper
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Here's the deal.. For $6500 you can easily get a 400hp 383. For $6500, you will gety more power, but not too much more for that money. If it was me, I'd contemplate what you can really spend. Yes, I've built the B wedge 496. Yes, it makes real power and looked stock (won class in Carlisle). But - the cost even with careful parts shopping will exceed the $6500 mark, and you will still need to address the rear axle. So think things over. A 400hp 383 is a solid stock rebuild with a cam.
Alchemi
Member
Strongly suggest the limited slip diff, you are down roughly 10% of your tractive force at the wheels with out one
440 source ballanced rotating assembly $2250 (+$150 for lighter crank)
Ring set $1-150
Machine shop $1k ? depends on block
Trickflow heads $2k (less if you wait for a discount) 550-600hp
Sidewinder/promaxx $11-1200 (40-50 hp ish less)
Source heads $1k (80-100 hp ish less)
Rockers - prw stainless $420 SH ductile $500
Pushrods -$1-150
Performer PRM intake $150ish s/h? 300 new
800cfm carb $4-800
cam and lifter set $230
Timing set $100
arp head and crank bolts $150
NEW TORQUE CONVERTER $3-500
Gear set ????
Fuel pump, Gasket set and everything else not listed $2-600?
No doubt i missed something major...
Lightest rotating combo i can work out on paper is either a scat or source lightweight crank (aprox $900) turned down to 2.1 chev journals, k1 6.535 rods (712gr $550), Diamond 1.32ch pistons (500g $680) custom diamond pins (130g $160) - this puts the target bobweight at just under 1800gr vs 2400 for a stock 383 and 2600 for a stock 440, the total weight reduction is in multiples of pounds
440 source ballanced rotating assembly $2250 (+$150 for lighter crank)
Ring set $1-150
Machine shop $1k ? depends on block
Trickflow heads $2k (less if you wait for a discount) 550-600hp
Sidewinder/promaxx $11-1200 (40-50 hp ish less)
Source heads $1k (80-100 hp ish less)
Rockers - prw stainless $420 SH ductile $500
Pushrods -$1-150
Performer PRM intake $150ish s/h? 300 new
800cfm carb $4-800
cam and lifter set $230
Timing set $100
arp head and crank bolts $150
NEW TORQUE CONVERTER $3-500
Gear set ????
Fuel pump, Gasket set and everything else not listed $2-600?
No doubt i missed something major...
Lightest rotating combo i can work out on paper is either a scat or source lightweight crank (aprox $900) turned down to 2.1 chev journals, k1 6.535 rods (712gr $550), Diamond 1.32ch pistons (500g $680) custom diamond pins (130g $160) - this puts the target bobweight at just under 1800gr vs 2400 for a stock 383 and 2600 for a stock 440, the total weight reduction is in multiples of pounds
max1196
Member
The one component you could really consider is the converter. A higher stall can really make a turd turn on!
bajajoaquin
Senior Member
440 source heads, stroker kit, 375hp cam (or equivalent) will give you a strong, torquey street engine that will play nice with your 2.76 gears.
Look at it through the lens of marginal cost. What’s a regular good rebuild cost? $750 for new pistons and rebuild kit. $600 for rebuilt heads? $500 for rear end not including sure grip (new, assuming you don’t do the work yourself)? Cam costs the same regardless of which you choose, same with machining or assembly.
So $1500 more for a stroker kit and $400 more for the heads. No extra rear end cost. No revving the engine to get power. Just off-idle torque and effortless cruising. Probably cheaper than a 7000 rpm 383.
Look at it through the lens of marginal cost. What’s a regular good rebuild cost? $750 for new pistons and rebuild kit. $600 for rebuilt heads? $500 for rear end not including sure grip (new, assuming you don’t do the work yourself)? Cam costs the same regardless of which you choose, same with machining or assembly.
So $1500 more for a stroker kit and $400 more for the heads. No extra rear end cost. No revving the engine to get power. Just off-idle torque and effortless cruising. Probably cheaper than a 7000 rpm 383.
PontiacJim
Member
Just work with what you have and do it a step at a time if you want. No need to spend $$$ to have a fun solid car. Do you want a cruiser or drag car - which is what I see being thrown your way.
Cubic inches will always increase TORQUE and torque is what moves the car, not horsepower. You can have big cubes that spin 5500-5800 RPM's to keep the wear on the engine down or build a high RPM 6500-7000 RPM engine that is going to wear quicker. Do you want longevity or look to rebuild/refresh parts every once in a while?
Both bigger cubes and/or higher RPM's will need more air flow, ie bigger CFM's. The trade off with bigger CFM's is the loss of bottom end RPM's for an increase in upper RPM's. Thus the NEED for higher stall converters and better rear axle ratio's to compensate - also sucking up more gas to cruise around.
Now with bigger cubes/higher RPM engines, you will need to match a good cam having long duration and high lift. The longer the duration and often with more lift, you move your effective RPM range higher - once again killing low speed RPM's which most cars used for crusing run in. Best would of course be a roller cam, but these are expensive.
Now if you have deep pockets, a budget is not important, and your idea of cruising is a street/strip or race car, then by all means build the crap out of your car. But don't forget, with all the extra torque and HP, your trans will most likely NOT hold up to the extra wide and soft compound tires needed to get any kind of traction rather than smoke tires when you nail it. Of course the rear end really needs to be swapped with an 8 3/4 unit if you have the 8 1/4 rear. But if you do have the 8 3/4, you will need to upgrade it with HD axles, posi, bearings, etc. The stock suspension probably won't do you justice so anticipate mods in this area as well so you can plant all that torque and HP to the ground rather than experience spring wind-up, wheel hop, or broken universals.
It is often easy for others to build your engine for you on paper and tell you what is best because they are not paying for it. So yes, buy the stroker kit and get the best lightweight crank, light weight forged pistons & tool steel wrist pins, and forged rods. Buy the best 440 head flowing 340 CFM's so you can spin 7,000 RPM's and load up the 3.90 gears against a 3500 RPM stall converter. Stick the best single plane intake on there with an 1100CFM Holley and of course some 2 1/4" headers so all of it can breathe. Better yet, just buy a crate engine for 10K and be done with it.
Or...........you can enhance what you already have, increase torque and HP and have a car you can slap the pedal to the floor and pull ahead like never before and keep your costs down. This stuff is not rocket science and Mopars were among some of the best street racers in the 60's and 70's. MANY articles were written of them in many of the magazines of the day. They told you what to do to increase performance - tried and true. Get on Ebay in the magazine back issues section and grab some of these on the 383/400 engine build. The Direct Connection parts catalog from 1978 has all the parts needed to make the 383/400 into a 14 second bracket car, 13 second bracket car, and a 12 second bracket car. Very simple builds - dual exhaust/cast iron type like Road Runner, viscous fan, windage tray, electronic ignition kit or recurve your distributor, purple camshaft P3690214, HD valve springs, 1970-'71 383 Holley or 400CI Thermoquad, 1/2"-3/4" spacer when using the TQ, shift improver kit, 4.10 gears, sure grip, 9" x 28" slicks. It is not until you get into the 13 second bracket that I see the mention of 1968-'77 heads with 2.08" intakes & 1.74" exhaust valves and a good 3-angle valve job - no mention of aluminum heads or specially prepped/flowed heads, just plain old stock iron heads. Of course more aftermarket parts go into the 13 second car.
Here you can see that it does not take much to wake up a 383 at a level that will give great performance and yet still be streetable. A 14 second car is respectable. 13 seconds is better, but is a bigger trade off in streetability and gas mileage and will require more $$$. I would NOT install 4.10 gearing, but I would first install a "tight" 2500 RPM stall with the 2.73 gearing to see how you like it. If still not enough off the line, THEN I would swap up to a 3.23, keeping in mind that you will be raising your cruising RPM's on the highway at 70 MPH and may not like running your engine that high - and of course mileage will suffer. You may or may not get traction when you nail the pedal to the floor from a stop.
So get on Ebay and collect a few magazine articles or the Direct Connection parts catalog, and a few Mopar engine build books and educate yourself on building your engine your way with your dollars.
Cubic inches will always increase TORQUE and torque is what moves the car, not horsepower. You can have big cubes that spin 5500-5800 RPM's to keep the wear on the engine down or build a high RPM 6500-7000 RPM engine that is going to wear quicker. Do you want longevity or look to rebuild/refresh parts every once in a while?
Both bigger cubes and/or higher RPM's will need more air flow, ie bigger CFM's. The trade off with bigger CFM's is the loss of bottom end RPM's for an increase in upper RPM's. Thus the NEED for higher stall converters and better rear axle ratio's to compensate - also sucking up more gas to cruise around.
Now with bigger cubes/higher RPM engines, you will need to match a good cam having long duration and high lift. The longer the duration and often with more lift, you move your effective RPM range higher - once again killing low speed RPM's which most cars used for crusing run in. Best would of course be a roller cam, but these are expensive.
Now if you have deep pockets, a budget is not important, and your idea of cruising is a street/strip or race car, then by all means build the crap out of your car. But don't forget, with all the extra torque and HP, your trans will most likely NOT hold up to the extra wide and soft compound tires needed to get any kind of traction rather than smoke tires when you nail it. Of course the rear end really needs to be swapped with an 8 3/4 unit if you have the 8 1/4 rear. But if you do have the 8 3/4, you will need to upgrade it with HD axles, posi, bearings, etc. The stock suspension probably won't do you justice so anticipate mods in this area as well so you can plant all that torque and HP to the ground rather than experience spring wind-up, wheel hop, or broken universals.
It is often easy for others to build your engine for you on paper and tell you what is best because they are not paying for it. So yes, buy the stroker kit and get the best lightweight crank, light weight forged pistons & tool steel wrist pins, and forged rods. Buy the best 440 head flowing 340 CFM's so you can spin 7,000 RPM's and load up the 3.90 gears against a 3500 RPM stall converter. Stick the best single plane intake on there with an 1100CFM Holley and of course some 2 1/4" headers so all of it can breathe. Better yet, just buy a crate engine for 10K and be done with it.
Or...........you can enhance what you already have, increase torque and HP and have a car you can slap the pedal to the floor and pull ahead like never before and keep your costs down. This stuff is not rocket science and Mopars were among some of the best street racers in the 60's and 70's. MANY articles were written of them in many of the magazines of the day. They told you what to do to increase performance - tried and true. Get on Ebay in the magazine back issues section and grab some of these on the 383/400 engine build. The Direct Connection parts catalog from 1978 has all the parts needed to make the 383/400 into a 14 second bracket car, 13 second bracket car, and a 12 second bracket car. Very simple builds - dual exhaust/cast iron type like Road Runner, viscous fan, windage tray, electronic ignition kit or recurve your distributor, purple camshaft P3690214, HD valve springs, 1970-'71 383 Holley or 400CI Thermoquad, 1/2"-3/4" spacer when using the TQ, shift improver kit, 4.10 gears, sure grip, 9" x 28" slicks. It is not until you get into the 13 second bracket that I see the mention of 1968-'77 heads with 2.08" intakes & 1.74" exhaust valves and a good 3-angle valve job - no mention of aluminum heads or specially prepped/flowed heads, just plain old stock iron heads. Of course more aftermarket parts go into the 13 second car.
Here you can see that it does not take much to wake up a 383 at a level that will give great performance and yet still be streetable. A 14 second car is respectable. 13 seconds is better, but is a bigger trade off in streetability and gas mileage and will require more $$$. I would NOT install 4.10 gearing, but I would first install a "tight" 2500 RPM stall with the 2.73 gearing to see how you like it. If still not enough off the line, THEN I would swap up to a 3.23, keeping in mind that you will be raising your cruising RPM's on the highway at 70 MPH and may not like running your engine that high - and of course mileage will suffer. You may or may not get traction when you nail the pedal to the floor from a stop.
So get on Ebay and collect a few magazine articles or the Direct Connection parts catalog, and a few Mopar engine build books and educate yourself on building your engine your way with your dollars.
Well, I'm having Carolina Machine Engine build a complete 400 for me. I can't build one for that money and if I did there is no warranty even though I have confidence the engine would not fail if i built it. It will have 9.5 compression, aluminum heads, a streetable cam, and about 430 hp for about $6500. And a 12 month 12,000 mile warranty. I'll have a dyno report once the build is complete. Plenty of power for what I want to do...
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Pontiac Jim I love what you had to say. Now I did stop at deep pocket build tho lol. I want a steerable cruiser that will pull off the line and sound good. No way shape or form do I want a track car. So maybe start with stall converter and gears. I'm put with my boy , but will read this all again later
moper
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Don't change the convertor. Just change the gears. Make one change at a time. See if you like it, and what you like about it, then do something else.
bajajoaquin
Senior Member
I love everything Pontiac Jim says and usually agree with the substance but disagree on the detail. Here, I think I'm a little farther apart.
Maybe.
What do you want to do with this car? From my perspective, and what I want to do with my Imperial, I'm thinking my car will never get over 5000 rpm. Ever. If, and this is a big if, based on what you're talking about, you stick with the 2.76 gears, you're looking at revs in top gear like this: 65 mph at 1550 rpm and 100 mph at 3500. For Passing, if you're at 55 mph, you're looking at kicking down to second and getting 2800. So unless you're drag racing, I don't see how you get over 5,000 RPM.
The 440/375 cam in a larger engine will behave even more mild than it does in a 440, so I think you're looking at pretty good torque and not needing to rev it very high.
What are you going to do with it?
Maybe.
What do you want to do with this car? From my perspective, and what I want to do with my Imperial, I'm thinking my car will never get over 5000 rpm. Ever. If, and this is a big if, based on what you're talking about, you stick with the 2.76 gears, you're looking at revs in top gear like this: 65 mph at 1550 rpm and 100 mph at 3500. For Passing, if you're at 55 mph, you're looking at kicking down to second and getting 2800. So unless you're drag racing, I don't see how you get over 5,000 RPM.
The 440/375 cam in a larger engine will behave even more mild than it does in a 440, so I think you're looking at pretty good torque and not needing to rev it very high.
What are you going to do with it?
PontiacJim
Member
The many kits out there seem to be around $2 grand and a few hundred more for balancing - some ship free others do not. Extra costs will include a shop to clearance the block. So let's say we are now up to $2500 just so we can have a stroker kit, ie bigger cubes.
Before I did that, I'd simply go with a 440 and build it to 375HP standards with a few basic upgrades and achieve the desired increase in Tq/HP and save the extra $2500 spent on a stroker kit.
Not quite sure how you came up with your RPM numbers. Using an online calculator, 2.76 gear, 28" tall tire, 65MPH shows to be about 2150RPM's. 45MPH shows to be 1550 RPM's - I could be wrong of course but that is what I came up with. Would also vary a bit lower due to torque converter slip. Keep in mind that the bigger cubes WILL suck up more gas and may actually be on par with a HP engine having more zip to its name - so I don't see any advantage if economy is being compared.
Agree, a larger cam in a bigger cube engine acts smaller, but why go bigger cubes only to tone it down and not utilize some of its potential? Kinda like putting a 2 Bbl carb on a Six Pack engine to throttle it back. Why invest the money to build 496 cubes or a Six Pack engine if you are not going to utilize the performance potential of either engine? Seeing performance is what is being looked at and not the big cubes just to cruise on (like a Caddy 500CI), I believe putting a little fine tuning into the existing 383 would improve performance at lower cost.
A 496 stroker kit has its merits, but I feel when you weight it all out, for what is being asked, I think the 383 would work better. Now if the goal was aimed at more street/strip with emphasis on strip, then the 496 kit would be the way to get there, but I would also be going with bigger cam, heads, intake/carb, etc. to take full advantage of the bigger cubes and all of which means higher costs and bigger budgets.
So again, my thinking is that the 383 can be readily modified to improve Tq & HP with some careful attention to those items that would give the biggest bang for the buck and still be reasonable on the budget.
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