Thanks Dave,
I will keep you guys in touch on where this may be going.

 

Will do. They have already started work on the M and could reuse some of those parts on a mild 434.


Good luck. I hope you can get some exposure in a few of those bathroom bibles. Since PRIMEDIA cornered the market, I've seen too many rehashed articles between the different titles. Mustang and Fords and Mustang Monthly seem to swap articles a few times per year. Guess they believe there isn't enough original Ford material out there......well there may not be when you have limited your target audience to Mustang owners.

 

here are the two parts to the Hemmings Muscle Machines cleveland build up

http://www.hemmings.com/mus/stories/...feature10.html
http://www.hemmings.com/mus/stories/..._feature8.html

 

AAHHH,, Hey Tim, I got a virgin 400 small pattern tranny that would be great in your story!

Of course I would like it back someday!

 

Tim,
I have a low-budget 400 build that I am starting that could be used for a comparison article between stock and stroked 400's.

parts I have:
Block with 4.000 bores
stock rods with new bearings
cast iron heads
reground 400 crank and bearings
edelbrock intake
doug thorley headers
gasket kit with valley pan
new robertshaw thermostat
Double roller Timing Set
Platimum plugs and K&N filter with X-treme top ( from old engine)

Chosen Parts I Need to purchase
TMI pistons and rings for stock heads at 4.040" (to make a 410cid)
comp cams 265deh cam
valve springs, retainers, locks to match cam
new lifters and valves
pedestal mount roller rockers
new stock oil pump and hardened shaft
ARP rod bolts and head bolts
600-650cfm carb and 2" 4-hole spacer
Performance Ignitions Distriburator recurved for the 400 for use with Dura-Spark II
new coil and new plug wires

Machine work needed on block and heads:
cylinders bored to 4.040
deck and heads surfaced if necessary (minimal amount)
Mild porting/clean-up of head ports
valves installed and ground

i am trying to build a strong truck engine for my 79, f250 reg. cab. I want lots of power for towing without spending a fortune on parts. I would like to keep the cost of the remaining parts and work to $1200-1500. This would be a good baseline engine for a low(er) budget rebuild with stock heads and then you could compare it with a 434 stroker with aftermarket heads for a difference.

I also have an extra 400 block and crank that I would donate at no cost to the project. The thrust bearing was shot nad the crank moved a lot fore to aft and the throws and bearing caps rubbed against each other. It could be salvaged, but would require some machine work. and possibly even offset grind the crank.

We need to do something to show the rest of the world (outside of FTE and TMI) that the 400 is a great engine.

 

I also sent an email to Jon at Ford Muscle Magazine. Maybe if we band together somewhat, we can get some mainstream coverage to what really works with these engines. I would like to see TMI go big time with this,because his engines seem to be the ticket for quality, along with daily driver reliability. That is what probably 95% of us are interested in, along with smokin' your buddies Chevys!

 

only downfall to a rise in popularity of the 400 would be lack of blocks in the parts yard. but then again the 351m and 400 were the mainstay of these trucks.

 

I too, would like to show others how good these 400's actually are. I am tired of hearing everyone else keep putting down the 400. Even some die-hard Ford fans I know, still comment that the 400 was the worst engine ford ever made. In its production version with lowered compression and retarted timing it was not very impressive, but in its TMI version, it can outperform almost every other engine of its size. (not counting the bigger blocked 429's and 460)

 

Interestingly enough, the new Ford Muscle Mag. just hit the internet and the have picked up a project truck in the form of a '79 F250 w/400. They quickly developed an oil leak at the rear main and are talking of rebuilding sooner then they had planned. They say timing is everything.

 

I'm tired of hearing the so called "Ford" fans not only bad mouth a motor with great potential but then to hear them say, "It's as big as a 460 so why not build one of those?" Right away I know these guys better stick to their Chevy simple 5.0s because anyone that can't tell the size difference between a 351M/400 and a 370/429/460 has NEVER seen both these motors side by side.....nor have they tried to drop either into a small engine bay.

Oh, definition of "Chevy simple", anything you can build with a wallet and very little understanding outside of bolt-ons. You guys know that crowd of 5.0/4.6 owners.

 

I'm excited about that possibility. awesome

anything i can do to help...let me know!

 

danlee thanks for the recommendation, that is exactly the road i need to go down, unless i e85 it, then i really wouldnt change other than the compression. The desired results would be the same. Thanks, I'll call Tim again after my vacation in march.

 

Sounds the build i'm doing (if i ever get the proper year block) is going to be hitting somewhere in between of the low buck (as per that 4x4 article posted up) big tq, and big dollar big power builds, now just on this site alone we have all the build types covered from numerous low buck builds that include your typical rv cam (ie comp's 255) 4bbl intake some flat tops pistons and headers, some medium performance builds that include more radical cams (or even roller cams such as roger's build), upgraded valve train (better springs and roller rockers for example), head work or even a swap to the cleveland 4v heads (such as myself using the 4v quench heads or the aussie heads), then the more radical builds such as tim's firs stroker build or shaazam's 800hp monster.

Now there's enough info and proof (real world and theory) in this forum alone to where we could provide an article to cover a proper 400 build article that would include your 3 different types of builds (such as low buck, med performance with factory iron block/heads/crank, high performance no limits). Now if this is something people on here would like to persure i believe that it would be worthwhile and of submittable quality to some of the big name mag's to get it out there wwith proper info, and of course reference to all of those that contributed.

 

mustange70,

I agree, we have a good range of builds already done or in the works from members of this foreum. I would be willing to help write something up. It would be cool to get a motor that is as close to factory original as possible to Dyno for a baseline and then compare dollars to dyno results for the other three types of builds you mentioned. I will be building my motor up in the next couple of months and plan to take plenty of pictures.

I decided to stay with factory iron heads for durability since I plan to use my truck as a hauler/trailer puller for work. (construction) I just love it when I can pull neck and neck with the new diesels due to the awesome low end torque of the 400.

 

I second the motion, presented by madrock, and mustange, it sounds like a great idea. Lets show the world that they need to recover all the "boatanchors" they gave away years ago. We also need to show all those die hard old ford guys that they are misinformed. When you take a motor developed for the smog era, and choked more every year, highlight and improve on the good and dump those old restrictions . You can have a rebirth and discover a monster. I'd take my m and convert to a 400, with all my new found knowledge from you guys, over a stroked windsor any day. I would also be hard pressed to pass on it for a bigger motor.