Hey guys,
I am looking for a 400 Crank. I bought one with cleggs today, but they called me up and said that they didn't have it in stock and refunded me. I continued to search the web for Crank Kits, but most places are out of stock or want a small fortune. Seems they are getting harder to come by. Living in Germany, I cant just go to the local scrapyard to grab one. My next alternative is to order the 4.350 Stroker Kit from T Meyer. While that would make up quite the impressive displacement, The price is pretty hefty too. If the other Crank Costs me more than 600 though, I am just going to go with the stroker.
Does anyone know a source for a 400 Crank, or maybe have one flying around their garage they are willing to let go for a reasonable price?

Thank You in Advance

 

You do not have any machine shops in Germany that can rework your original crank?

P.S. I just remembered, you have a 351m?

 

Yeah, we do have machine shops. Problem is that I am looking to upstroke my 351.

 

You could get on www.car-part.com and if you find one, see if they will ship it. I know most of them will ship in the US. Not sure about Germany. If you have any gearhead friends over here, they could go get it and ship it to you.

 

Count me in looking for one too.

I bought a locked up “400” based on VIN out of Houston. Imagine my dismay after hours of disassembly I find its stroke to be 3.5”! I wish there was a way to tell the difference externally.

 

See some options below.

1971-1982 Ford 400cid, 6.6L | Northern Auto Parts
https://www.autozone.com/internal-en...56595_570475_0
https://www.cleggengine.com/cranksha...-fo-15600.html

 

Autozone and Clegg are out of stock. Clegg doesn't know if they are going to stock again. Northern Auto Parts want a pretty hefty sum, in my opinion. I messaged a junkyard I found yesterday. I'll see what they say.

 

If that does not pan out give these guys a call.

https://crankshaftrebuilders.com/

 

You wouldn't have to go through all this if someone made some decent pistons for the 351m. I guess you know the ones for the 400 are not cheap. Whatever happened to the small chamber Australian heads? They were all the rage a few years ago.

 

You got that right. I would stay with the 351M if I could get some power out of it. Heck, my license plate says 351M. But it just doesn't seem possible. No one carries them.

 

I tacked on a statement at the end of my post. Can you still get the Australian heads and would that achieve what you want with the engine? Have you done any research on that?

 

The Aussie heads are not much if any cheaper than 335 series aftermarket Aluminium heads and don't flow as well or have the updated combustion chamber. So the aftermarket heads have really taken over from the Aussie heads.
And no one has ever made decent pistons for the 351M for good reason the 351M is a useless pig, The 351M has really tall and heavy pistons and as soon as you start spinning the 351M you need to rebalance the reciprocating assembly which usually means drilling the crank and installing Mallory or Tungsten slugs or risk blowing stuff up. And you still end up with an engine that won't outperform or outlive the 351C or the 351W.

 

Yeah that's what I heard too. From what I could gather the 400 is a pretty good engine and can actually get some performance going. But the 351 is just a good engine that got it's legs cut. So it's unbalanced. I ain't no engine expert, but that's what it seems like. So my thought is that if I can not get a 400 crank I am gonna go with the T Meyer rotating assembly. With them fancy rods and stuff. I am going to get his pistons anyway.

 

The 351M was never a good engine, it is a highly comprised design that was thrown together to fill a demand gap the 351W could not meet on it's own after the 351C was cut.
The 351M is basically a 400 with a Windsor crank and tall pistons to make up for the 1/2" shorter stroke in the hole.
It did not have it legs cut from under it as it never had any, to begin with.

The 351M could have been really something if Ford had decided to increase the rod length and retain the 400's compression hight pistons but this presented tuning problems that would have required extensive testing to figure out ignition calibrations with the longer dwell times at and near TDC not to mention the cost of having to manufacture new rod stamping dies (Piston casting dies are easier and cheaper to produce) and likely an all-new crankshaft to accommodate the heavier counterweights for the heavier and longer rods. From Ford's perspective, it was easier cheaper and faster to just toss in the 351W crank and install taller pistons. There are no and never was any positives for the 351M much like the 255. Both were thrown together rather quickly to fill niche without any extensive testing behind them. If the 351M had been able to have a full regiment of testing behind it it would have never made it to production in the configuration it did.

 

Years ago I rebuilt the 351M in my 79 F150. Stock everything except for a Crane RV cam. It really woke up the engine. Not sure about the specs but did have to shim the rocker arms...