I was flipping through the forum index and this thread was shown as the last in the forum and it caught my eye.

I remember an article in "Engines" magazine from the early 90's that featured the Decker 416. Is that the engine you are thinking of? It was a welded and offset ground 400 crank with a 4.125" stroke, narrowed 360 rods and some kind of off the shelf piston stuffed in a Windsor block. The pistons did require a ton of machining on the skirt to allow clearance from the crank counterweights at BDC. It made very good power at the time, but would be considered average today.

The 300 rod might open up more piston choices than you think. The early 300 rods used the smaller pin diameter of the 302 and 351 Windsor. If you used those you could have almost any piston you wanted. The large pin 300 shares pin diameters with the FE engines as well, so you might find something there. The 352 was a 4" bore and you might be able to stuff a 390 or 410 piston in there if the cylinders will take the overbore. I don't know what compression height you are looking for, but some of the industrial 300's used a roughly 1/4" shorter deckheight true flat top piston that would help compression and give you more room for the rods. Silvolite offers this piston as a replacement and might even offer it in hypereutectic. IIRC the CH is about 1.53".

 

MB hope this is it. i get them earlier than the store its a three way anniversary issue Feb.07 sorry hotrod called it the Mutt. they took the 400 and made 565torque at 4300 rpm,and 505 hp. at5500rpm

 

trinogt,

Actually Enzo Ferrari, at the last minute in the negotiations, refused to sell his company to Ford.

Silver Streak,

In my 78 Factory Ford Truck manuals it shows the 300 rod pin size the same as the 400 at .974 or so.

Everyone,

Thanks VERY much for the information regarding the articles on the stroked 400 Ford engines. I am still months away from starting this portion of the project. It will come when the paint job is finished.

Without further detailed research my plan is; offset ground crank to about 4.095 or 4.1 stroke, 300 rod narrowed at the cheeks and 351M pistons. I will reuse my current heads on which I have done a successful port job. I MAY recam it from an RV cam to something else at the same time.

These plans are subject to change, of course, but that's my rough plan.

 

That isn't an early 300. An early 300 uses the .912 pin. I think they went to the larger pin in 68 or 69.

 

Ummm... That's exactly what I just said, they 'refused' to sell...
???

 

sorry trinogt, I did not read your words closely enough.

Silver Streak, I guess I didn't read your post closely enough either. Now that what you have said has sunken in, the non Cleveland type pistons don't have the correct valve reliefs. The piston could be left deep in the bore so it doesn't matter or they could be cut in. The Boss 302 used the Cleveland heads, that piston will be worth looking into.

It will cost me $200 to have the crankshaft offset ground. They actually can add even more stroke by welding before grinding and he would charge $375 for that.

So this means that if someone were overhauling a 400 anyway, they could add about 20 extra STROKED cubic inches for the cost of the offset grind, the rods and the machining of the rods. All other costs would be basically rebuild costs.

 

You're right about the valve reliefs, but there are so many pistons out there for the Windsors I'm sure you could get one that works. Canted valve heads are reasonably popular with that crowd. Even if they don't come with the 335 vavle reliefs any decent piston company could cut them that way for you if you asked them to. They wouldn't do it for free, but it could be done. One thing I tell the 300 fans frequently is that in a lot of cases it is well worth it to spend $500 on a set of custom pistons. You might be in the same boat.

 

The Boss 302 piston is going to be all wrong for this app without using an even longer rod. The compression height is too short because the pin was moved up on the Boss piston so Ford could use the longer 289 HiPo rods. There may be a good Weezer piston for the Twisted Wedge heads but it will have the smaller Weezer pin. If you can use an off the shelf piston, do it! Once you start asking for changes to a piston, you get into a custom order and that costs money. A decent set of custom pistons can easily set you back $800.

 

Yes, using custom pistons defeats the purpose of the offset grind project. The offset grind project is to do it with off the shelf parts on the cheap. If you start going to custom pistons and such, then you move closer to the price range of the H Beam Rod/Forged crankshaft kit from TMI.

The offset grind is a good idea for a street engine that is in the process of rebuild anyway. It will only add something like $600 to the cost of the project assuming that the particular engine being rebuilt was going to require boring and crankshaft turning anyway.

The information indicating that there are indeed other piston choices with canted valves is GOOD information. Between now and the time I approach the engine portion of this project I will be researching other piston/rod combination choices.

Many thanks to all.



In summary for those who might be following this thread with their own rebuild/stroker project in mind, the recipe is:

o Offset grind 400 crank + .095 to late 300 rod pin size about $200
o Set of reconditioned 300 rods about $250
o Mill cheeks to width on a set of late 300 rods about $150
o Use 351M pistons in your rebuild instead of 400's no additional cost

With a .040 overbore, this nets 429.6 cubic inches.
With stock heads this will give about an 8.9:1 compression ratio(scientific guess)
With stock heads milled .040, this gives about 9.2:1 compression ratio.

With stock bore this is right at 421 cubic inches.

If flat top pistons could be had off the shelf for this combination(remember this is a 351M piston, not a 400) then the compression ratio would be something between 9.5 and 10.

The dished 351M pistons with a set of the various small chamber heads could lead to a really good compression ratio, but there again, you are getting away from the idea of an economy engine. If you go that route, the TMI kit with the heads should be considered.

To me, it seems that the offset grind is the low buck route and if you start going beyond that in dollars, then you go all the way with the TMI kit. It's an all or a little bit decision. Again, maybe a wind fall will occur before this phase of my project and I can go with the all instead of the little bit.

 

Sounds like an interesting build... Let us know how you progress, and what your total cost will be in the end, and definitely post what kind of power you make, if in fact you do a dyno pull. (you really should!) This could be one for the books!