danlee, At one point I did consider using 300 pistons, but the weight issue made me seek a different route. I've seen Eagle rods at a few Pontiac specialty places (Kaufmann Engineering, Jim Butler Perf.) for around $399 a set. Kat also makes economy poncho rods.
For my 400, I used 400 pistons, Pontiac rods, and ended up offset grinding my crank .016.Milled my heads to net 74cc and milled my block .010. This netted about .002 out of the hole.
I do work for two shops however, so all my labor is my own. The 300 idea will definitely be more economical. Just make sure no one cuts corners. Clearances need to be checked and rechecked and a balance on this kind of frankenstein is a MUST! Insist on a FULL balance-to 0 grams!

 

Oh! One more thing I forgot. 400m's use a canted valve. At 0 deck you will have to have the pistons notched for the valves after being cut down. Only a shop with a bridgeport type machine can do this accurately. Most shops I know of charge by the hour, so you could be in for a few hundred or so just for notching.
Hope it helps.

 

Here is a link for 300 I6 pistons.

http://www.beckracing.com/slvpg47.htm

 

Description from the Ebay auction.
"If you are a Ford man here is you chance to get a set of HYPEREUTECTIC pistons and a set of rings for a 300 or 4.9 truck block 40 over. The pistons are made by Zolliner with a part number of Z3251+40 and the Sealed Power number is H519P40. The Sealed Power book says they fit a Ford truck from 1969-1996 that had a 4.000 standard bore; they have a ratio of 8.5:1 and they are a flat top with a small recessed head of .300. The rings are made by Sealed Power and there number is E229K40. The pistons and rings are BRAND NEW and comes risk pins, no keepers are required. "

Pre '69 would use a .912" pin. I haven't looked for anyone who sells them other than ACL. I don't have a price but the were cast anyway. Do some shopping. Dish volume may not be the same for every year. How much the volume is reduced depends on how much you take off. It depend if the CH 1.74 or 1.76, and the final deck height of your finished block. If you can find 1 or 2 used 300 pistons, do some trial and error. The dish volume may not be what you're looking for but maybe someone else with some 56-58CC Aussie 302C would need a big dish on their 0 decked 400.

I'm sure they will weigh more than a 400 piston but should be much lighter than a 351M. I would prefer a lighter piston, that's why I'm going with the KBs and the 240 rods in my 427/400. If you get some rediculous price to machine the chamber, add valve notches or cut them down, send them to me and I'll do it for you.

 

Brian,

If 20 or 30 mils has to be machined off the top to get 0 deck, what does that do to the top ring?


Check out PN 1170 on this link. This would work out to 10.8:1 with a 58 cc head after cutting it down to 1.717 CH. It may be a little less with a few cc's for valve relief.

http://www.beckracing.com/slvpg47.htm

 

brian: i am registered on your forum under a different name, as i already had a yahoo account from a while back. i see the photos that you refer to, but can't blow them up big enuf to actually read the articles. i guess you are aware iof this issue...

i'm intrigued by the D-shaped deep-dish on the p/n 3136 pistons (top of that page) for use with closed-cahmbered aussie 302C heads on a 400. seems one could build a real streetable quench motor with static CR ~9.5 using such a setup.

obviously, shaving the pistons and fly-cutting valve reliefs would lighten them somewhat...

hmmm...

 

Well, obviously the ring will be closer to the top of the cylinder and closer to the heat of the combustion chamber. Is it going to cause problems? I don't think so, but talk to someone else about it. It's under .050" removed and I think the image on the beckracing page doesn't represent the top ring location very well.

If you take .046" off the top of the 1170 the dish volume should be reduced 3.5cc. These are rough figures because it's hard to estimate a tapered hole, but running a 15.5cc dish through the KB calculator shows 11.18:1 with a 58cc chamber.
I thought we were talking about the 64cc CHI head before?
___________________________

Yeah, I'm aware of the full size image problem on my site. I just wish I had known the solution earlier. There is another company, AFD in Australia that is making small port, high velocity aluminum heads that I think would work great in a high torque 400+" street motor. They are working on a 400 application right now. Not an M block, most likely a stroked 351W type block. They have modern 60cc quench chambers.
See,
http://www.yourmail.org/ausheads/2Valloy.html

 

Sorry, it is 11.18:1, not 10.8:1. I did the math right, but copied it wrong.

Yes, I am considering the 3V CHI head. It flows better than any 2V head and it's cheaper at $1500.00.

I used the 58cc example because it puts me closer to where I want to go. With 64cc heads, 15.5cc dish the DCR is 7.87:1 with 72 degree intake valve closing angle. With 58cc heads, 15.5 dish the DCR is 8.376. With 60cc heads and 15.5cc dish, the DCR is almost perfect at 8.2:1.

I really should simulate them (64cc vs 60cc) in Dyno 2000 to see whether the higher CR or higher flow wins. Of course Dyno 2000 doesn't simulate detonation, so the (cast iron) 58cc heads are risky under these conditions, but would be fine with a larger dish piston.

 

OK, The results are in:

Aussie 2V Alloy heads with 60cc combustion chambers HP=457@5500 RPM, TQ=472 ft-lbs@4500 RPM.

Aussie 3V Alloy heads with 64cc combustion chambers
HP=489@6000 RPM, TQ=488@4500 RPM.

So, it seems that Air Flow wins over CR at least when talking about peak power. There may be a crossover at lower RPM. I'll investigate that also.


OK, even at 2000 RPM the 3V heads were better in both HP and torque, but the difference was marginal.

 

A representative from Cylinder Head Innovations, CHI 3V. It would be a good time to have any questions answered.
http://www.chiheads.com

 

-Eric, Torque1st

Do you have the std oversizes for the 1282P Ohio Pistons in your files?

 

I have a piston catalog from Ertel but it says the oversizes are listed in price sheets that I don't have.

I have seen 20 and 30 oversize pistons available. Others here may know of other sizes.

AFAIK these pistons are only available on ebay and from other private sellers since the factory is not in production anymore.

Have you checked the classifieds here for any pistons?

 

I bought a set .040 over from engine parts center of atlanta. That was about 2 years ago. The cost was $110.00.

 

Here are some pics of a data sheet for a Badger part number piston that came with some Ohio 1282P pistons courtesy of 321poof. The pistons are also available in 20 over and standard (rare):

 

This is a picture of the aforementioned pistons. The picture of the valve reliefs does not match the picture on the data sheet. The data sheet may be generic. My 30 over Ertel pistons look like this also: