While at work I had an interesting conversation with a customer about the 351m and 400 engines. As he put it, the modified shared many block parts with chevy engines of that time. He said that some block parts like the crank and rods from a chevy 400 will fit into a ford 400. Now, this sounds absolutely crazy to me. I have read of people resizing chevy rods to put in a modified, but those rods had to be sized and are therefore different. If a 400 crank/rods/pistons from a chevy could be used, parts would be much cheaper and easier to find. Does anyone know if this is as ludacris as it sounds, or is there some truth?

 

There is some truth to parts swapping..... Hot Rod built a 400 a few years ago and used Chevy rods with Dodge pistons. The article called the engine and project "The Mutt".

Here it is: How We Got Over 500hp from Ford's 400M Engine - Hot Rod Magazine

500 HP and 565 TG ain't nothin' to sneeze at!

The article provides the part numbers and costs (2008).

 

With the 351m/400 you can pull some parts off the 351 cleveland like the cam and heads and you can use the distributor from a 460. I know there are other parts that you can use from the 351c and 460 but I'm not exactly sure which ones. Maybe if you google the right word combo you might get a list of cross referenced parts, I know there has to be a list somewhere but can't find it myself.

 

Anything can be done with the right amount of $$$. But as far as simple straight out changing a chevy crank into a ford. It dont happen. Same for pistons and rods. I am sure if you had a machine shop and the knowledge you could put a detroit diesel cam into a ford 300, but what would be the point.

 

After market chevy design rods are used in a lot of applications, i remember a build where they used manley alum rods in a 460 block for a racing engine and some in a mopar build. But factory chevy crank into a 351m/400 block. This should have been your response to that

 

I think the only direct swap parts would be the piston rings, every thing else takes lots of $ and machining time.