I tore down the 429 in my '66 SWB 4x4 this week due to low compression in one cylinder. Long story short, I'm rebuilding from the ground up, as I found more carnage than I had hoped. The d0ve-c heads have recently been done (10K-ish miles) to stock specs - no porting.

SO, I'm looking for stroker suggestions. I'd like to use the same heads, as they are desireable and in good shape. My goal is for stump-pulling power - I doubt it will ever see the high side of 5K, nor will it ever see a dragstrip. The rest of the driveline is NP435, NP 205, Dana 44/60 with 4.10's. I plan on a very mild Performer cam/intake combo, simply because I don't need 600 horsepower (I never thought I'd say that).

After a lot of research, I'm leaning toward the 514/521 kit (based on whether or not it needs .030 over). I've looked at speedway motors ($1295 for cast crank and hyper-whatever pistons), and speed-o-motive is a few hundred more for forged slugs for the 532 kit (I think). All research says to use stock main cap bolts versus the ARP stuff, but what about rod/head bolts? Keep in mind my intentions with this truck - I want a reliable daily driver with ample torque. I'd rather go cheap with the kit and wouldn't mind using pistons that back off the compressin from the stock 11.0-ish due to the stock heads.

With the cubes, I bet that 500/500 is easily attainable with even a mild cam. That's all I'm looking for. Anybody have any suggestions?

 

I would say to find a machine shop that you can talk to, deal with and that has experience with the bbf. then talk to them about it. i went and gathered parts before taking my 545 in to the machinist, and wound up spending more money than i had to. a competent engine machinist can help you to best meet you needs and wants. and it will be easier to get answers and customer service from the local machine shop than it will from some large faceless parts mail order place. or if that don't work than visit www.460ford.com several exelent engine builders visit regularly including winners and runners up of the popular hotrodding engine masters challenge.

 

Im in the same boat but a little bit ahead of ya. I was considering a stroker but I got a sweet deal on 429 block bored .030, matching pistons, turned crank, bearings and gaskets and good untouched D0VE-C's. Instead of going stroker I kept these parts and put my money twords porting the heads, bigger valves, roller cam/lifters and roller rockers and L&L headers. According to my el cheapo desktop dyno I should be over my 500hp/500tq goal. I should have pretty good power with less displacement and hopefully a little better economy. With a stroker the torque numbers go up a lot but not so much the hp. Its for a tow/haul 78 F-250 SuperCab 4x4. Right now Im at the assembly process. When I get it fired up I will post my butt-dyno results.

 

Problem is, the carnage I found was in the name of 1) piston rings were shot, 2) cam/bearings wiped out, and 3) one mismatched piston with a huge dish. My heads are in great shape. I figure instead of spending money on the existing rotating assembly, why not go stroker for a few hundred more?

 

Strokers can and do work well. I personally would go with a 4.3" stroke 6.8" rod combination in the overbore of your choice.
The problem you have is you do have D0VE heads and when you bump the CID up your going to have trouble getting them within a range that can work on pump gas (which is why I discourage guys from going looking for them since the late model heads have the same power potential and not as much trouble keeping comp ratios in check) The other problem you are going to run across is that since you have an early block its' already at 10.300 so not much room to square it up before the pistons in a stroker setup will be sticking out of the block. These are two things that need to be paid attention too and since you say it already has one odd ball piston it may have already been decked once which needs to be checked.
To give you an idea what i am talking about, with your heads on a 521 combo, assuming you don't need to mill them and assuming you can clean up the block and keep the pistons at zero deck and using a 22cc dish piston your compression ratio is 11:1 and with iron heads that is out of pump gas range. to keep it under 10:1 you need to find a kit with 34cc dished pistons, and keep the pistons .005 into the bore and that would put you at 9.91
hope that helps. personally if you want to keep your heads stay with a 429 or 460, if you want to go stroker and keep it streetable and running on pump gas sell the D0VE heads and find a set of D3VE heads and work them over.

 

Ah, that seems to make sense. I found that Coast High offers dished pistons, as well as this kit:

Scat Street/Strip 4.3 521/532 Rotating Assembly [1-95005-1] : AD Performance, Your Source for Longblock Performance Parts

With dished pistons, I can back off the compression while maintaining the fairly good flow characteristics of the stock heads. Besides, this is more of a budget build for a daily driver - unless I can find Edelbrock heads at well under a grand, I'm probably not interested, provided I can get custom pistons with one of these kits.

 

Does that kit come balanced ?

 

I found four specific sites that sell stoker kits that charge b/w $100 and $200 for balancing. That site didn't state if they do, but I will assume they will. Coast High also sells the kit with a substitute for 26cc dished pistons, which (I think) will drop compression to the low 10-ish with thick gaskets.

Another thing I forgot to mention - I'd rather make the same power from a stroker with a mild-lope cam than a stock displacement 429 with a lumpier cam. I'm in the bay area....sitting in traffic is not only unheard of, but common around these parts.

 

IF you can keep the pistons down in the bore .005 and if you can find a .060 thick gasket you will be in the 10.2:1 compression ratio range but will kill your quench which helps with detonation problems, but as long as you don't mind buying 100LL or buying premium 93 octane and adding octane boosters you will be able to run that with your iron heads.
I am serious, if you really want to run a stroker then sell those D0VE heads and pickup a set of D3VE heads. Sitting in traffic is going to make the detonation issues worse.
For reference the D0VE heads don't flow any better (and in fact across the board ported or unported flow within 5CFM which is within the margin of error of the flow bench)
To further give you an idea, those 26cc pistons are PERFECT if your using D3VE heads, at zero deck and using easy to find and cheaper felpro gaskets with those pistons you will be at 9.13:1 compression which with Iron heads and pump gas is about as perfect as you can get.
But with D0VE heads on a stroker assuming you can find 32cc dish, and finding a later model block that will allow you to leave the pistons down in the hole .010 and still using the felpro gaskets to maintain quench you just barely will get it below 10:1 (9.99:1 to be exact) which is still actually to much or at best marginal to run reasonably with iron heads and pump premium, with alum heads maybe but not with iron. Can you run it? yeah but you better not be off on your tune at all and never push it hard or you will cause engine problems and you will actually be hurting your power due to the detonation issues that you may not even be able to hear.

 

With the D3's wouldn't you would have to put at least 2.19 intake & the 1.71 exaust valves in ? What would be the odds of hitting water trying to put bigger seats in & blending the bowls back in ?

 

I got 2.24 and 1.75 valves in my D0VE's with hardened seats in the intakes. I touched it all up with a burr and never hit any water. I got the valves and seats from RHP and my machine shop was worried that they might hit water so we test cut a junk C8VE head and it did fine. Then I gave them the go ahead to do the D0VE's. I havent run the motor yet but so far so good.

 

Mark why would you have to do that? unless you have to with the DOVE heads of coarse. Thats the point the flow numbers are IDENTICAL between the two types of heads, it's a myth that D0VE heads flow better (and in fact in mid lift actually flow less then the D3VE heads) the ONLY advantage of D0VE heads and the ONLY reason people THINK they make more power is if you put them on a engine that has D3VE heads with no other changes you bump the compression ratio which does increase the power. But when your rebuilding the engine, you have piston choices to get comp ratio's where you want them instead. you take 2 engines with differnt pistons to get them both at 9:1 compression and all else being the same the power potential is identical. There is Zero advantage to D0VE heads when your actually building the engine, and in some instances (this scenerio being one of the major ones) they are a detriment not an advantage at all (unless you want to run race gas all the time)

As to your question no you won't hit water if you install bigger valves anymore then with D0VE heads and you can put in CJ or evne bigger sizes if you really want to. Personally on a 528 that is going to be a low rpm unit I would probably put in good valves and up the exhuast to 1.71, intake maybe go ahead with 2.19 as it wouldn't really hurt.

 

It would seem to me that the whimpy stock size D3 valves wouldn't flow enough for a big stroker. So I would want the bigger valves in the D3 heads with the stroker crank ? Or would the small stockers do just fine ?

 

monster baby is right about being concerned about the detonation. you dont want to find out the hard way on your new stroker about it. i have dove's on an alcohol motor, but for the street i'd use d3ve. another way to help if you want to run borderline too much compression is piston coatings. they are not really that much money.. 140 +/- for the top coat and the same for the anti friction on the side... with a long rod you create less side load......so.. up to you. The iron heads...which ever ones you go with they are going to be the bottle neck of your engine so you'll have to pick your cam properly to help it breathe. the exhaust is the problem on the heads D0VE or D3VE so they seem to run the exhaust duration longer and lift smaller than the intake to overcome that. Porting and larger Valves are a good idea. porting you'll see most of your gains from the exhaust.

 

Appearently you don't realize that D0VE heads are basic passenger car castings and a little confused as to what they actually are. They are NOT cj or performance heads thus they use the exact same valve size as D2VE and D3VE heads. So if you would NEED to increase the valve size on one you would need to on both. And yes you can use the CJ valve sizes on either head just fine.