Yeah im excited. While I wait for the machine shop, I am cleaning and painting.
Right on! I too get excited at the prospect of a major improvement to my Mopar rides. There's a reputable machine shop on the north side of this slum-ville, which I plan to use first to prepare some 915 heads for the 383 I'm running. THEN, if they do as I like with that job, I have a 400 of my own to build. They mentioned around $3k for a basic, stock rebuild, with their warranty. The WARRANTY is the BIG attraction to us with using a machine shop. I don't think they can warrant work with just cylinder heads, unless I also hire them to install them. We MIGHT do that, depending on a number of variables TBD next spring.
The 400 job is the Big One for us. I want closed quench heads on that engine, with the 915s we got leading the list of probable successors, BUT, I might be persuaded to use the 452s, IFF other design considerations can be made. But the FACT remains, 452 heads follow the open quench paradigm which the 906 first was designed to fulfill, and if running closed quench heads, for that extra bit of high compression THUMP on the power stroke, then the 452 won't do. If machining the 915s gets prohibitively costly, then and only then will after market heads be considered.
I also don't plan to stroke the engine, BUT, might be persuaded otherwise IFF the cost/benefit curve for such a mose favors it. Since we prefer low rev/high torque sorts of performance, it occurs to us that longer stroke delivers more torque, but at its own price. The short stroke B block engines certainly were WELL designed for their mission, and maybe on the rebuild, I might opt to get the torque at higher revs to keep that beautiful over-square design the 400 4.32" (or greater if over-bored) piston on a 3.375" stroke was meant to run with, before the damned EPA and other neurotic interests destroyed the B/RB line. (CURSE THEM TO EVERLASTING PERDITION!!)
