I agree, I like the 400 blocks. But I like all of the B and RB engines. Great potential. 👍👍 Thanks for sharing. Have a great day.

I love these and the 383 big bore small stroke balance light weight =power

Bored .060 with an offset ground 440 six-pack crank, Chevy rods and 455 Buick pistons, one of these pushed our heavy-assed Super-Gasser to low 9s for years.

My 73 charger had the 400 Magnum in it, was very powerful car, backed up by a 727 torqueflight tanny. I hauled. Great engine would love to that car and motor combo back!! Great vid.

Love the 400 in any flavor!

There is a video on you tube of I think it was 409 ci 400 block naturally aspirated putting out over 1000 hp at 9300rpm.

You'll have to check out sort of stock Mopar he has good videos on the 400 engine and just Mopar Joe has some good builds on this engine First run 400 block known as the cold weather 230 was a high nickel casting that was produced starting 1971 August to Middle October then they dropped the high nickel formula to standard production till November 15th of 71 these first run 400 blacks were 20 lb heavier, then they dropped the 230 prefix and started the standard 400 production. I have a cold weather block casting date August 21st 1971 in my Cuda with only 52,000 actual miles.

The low deck has always been the superior engine. I just love these. Best engines ever build

I put a set of 67 closed chamber heads and a "Hemi" cam and it would run like mad!

You are correct, the compression rings rotate as the engine runs.

Hi Jim love the videos man. I'm getting ready to build my 1st Mopar Big Block these vids are gold 👌

I built a 400 with hardblock up to the bottom of the freeze plugs then used pro gram 4 bolt mains ran 15:15 to 1 compression with B1 heads alum rods Bill Miller and a 4500 carb 4:38 bore,4:30 stroke took to Koffles and dyno at 800 Hp 667 torque ran 21/8 primarys he took my headers off put his on 23/8 primarys dyno at 928 HP 800 torque had it for 10 + years no problems

I would buy a 400 block if I could. I broke one, back in the early 2000's [makes me sad] but I won't make that mistake again!

I had a 400 Magnum in a '73 Charger SE. I added headers, an intake, D/C coil and a Holley 780. Had a local body shop add a Six Pack scoop they had sitting on a shelf for hood for clearance. 727 trans with Slap Stick and 8 3/4 3:55 pushed it along. That 400 Charger took many 440's to the cleaners. Wish I had it back, 440 Source makes a nice 512 kit for it.

You have a nice collection of Chryslers there. Interesting video ,i wish you would have touch a little on cap walk.And your thoughts on the 230 casting blocks.

back then in south Texas we changed the pistons and cams out ? even on motors with less than 20,000 miles . man would it make a difference . back then TRW had forged flat tops and you couldn't go wrong on 1972 and up motors with hardened seats ! Freddie had put a mod 400 in his 69 Road Runner with a 4 speed and got the pistol grip shifter with it and it would scream .

I wish there were affordable raised port heads available so any RB intake would fit on a low deck - like the completely unaffordable Stage VI. You could then build a low deck stroker Max Wedge clone for example. As well it opens a whole world of easy to find vintage and modern intakes. I know you don't like them but 440 Source should offer them as an option for their Stealth head range. They do have a CNC option but yeah the chambers are old fashioned. Would be a great accompaniment to their stroker kits though. A bit of a missed opportunity if you ask me. Also re the blocks on smog 400s and 440s there's that whopping stiffening rib on the oil filter side below the deck on the outside of the block which you can clearly see at the 2:00 mark in this vid. Instant way of telling a late Mopar B & RB that one. When I was a young man that rib was a way of telling a "useless thinwall weak smog block with crappy smog port heads." How wrong were we? Late blocks are far better and late heads are better than 906s too. In fact the late heads flow about the same stock as a 906/915 ~220CFM but Steve Dulcich investigated the late heads and then ported them and recorded his findings in forensic detail comparing each step with a 915 IIRC. The findings are generally irrelevant today because you'd never spend the time on factory iron heads for street use since cheap aluminum heads with big valves and similar airflow out of the box to ported fully iron heads are abundant and cheaper. Anyhow he found the smog heads needed less port work to get them to flow than the 906/915 which needed tons more work even though they all flowed about the same in the end (~270CFM). The articles are still up but it is a long read. For the nostalgia Mopar BB nut (and who isn't on here) it's a hoot of a read. I can't post off KZfaq hyperlinks because bots auto delete posts with non KZfaq links, but if anyone is interested highlight the first line below and right click/search: MOTORTREND Cylinder Heads, Part I MOTORTREND Cylinder Heads, Part II MOTORTREND Cylinder Heads, Part III

you don't think that when they designed the casting they knew the 383 was light . it save a few pounds of cast iron $ . I swear just to make a few more bucks . my uncle worked at Fisher Bodies and I asked him why they didn't use 400 series S.S. for the floor pans because the would last forever ? he said that they did not want them to last forever !!!!!!

Im curious about the cavity #'s....When pouring at the foundry, could they add more nickel to some blocks..?? Some early Ford blocks were known for this.

Cast crank is more than ok in a sub 600hp build, Chrysler built them strong.

Interesting stuff. I'm not a race engine expert. I have no desire to go to the track. If I did, I would just turbo an LS. On the street, I know anything North of 500 just spins tires. Especially if you have matching torque numbers. If you run D.O.T.'s you might be able to run more power. I don't know. I can't afford to buy tires that don't last long. Anyways, I havent had a fast car for since the 80's. I had a 69 Road Runner when I was 18 that had a 383 in. It wasn't stock. I'm guessing it had 500 ponies. Tires were not as good back then. I couldn't hook up till the middle of 3rd gear and that was with a full blown posi and new Mickeys. I didn't know shit about cars then. I later built a 68 Camaro and it had right at 500 hp. The Road Runner was at least as fast as that. I always wondered what the previous owner did to that 383. Or if it was even a 383. It even had the stock exhaust manifolds. It purrred at an Idle. I want to get another 69 some day and I want a 383. It will make plenty of beans for me. Just want to relive my youth. Those cars are so rare and expensive these days! So, how much power can one of your 400's handle with boost or squeeze if all the internals are the best you can get. This is the first video of yours I have watched, so if you mentioned it in other videos I haven't seen it. Will the block live if fed 2000 hp on a regular basis?

There is no way to get 650 cubes out of a 400 block a 400 is a low deck .....With the right parts a 400 low deck is hard to blow up and you can shift them over 8 grand and make HP the biggest cubes we could get out of a 400 was 517ci.....we had to get a indy aluminum low deck to get 604ci's I would never go back to RB block again.

I have a 413 I/C in my 72 Dodge motor home, but I'm not sure its the same short block as the 400, I am suspecting its the RB like the 413/426 wedge/440 type. Admittedly, I have not torn into it to find out, and since it has a burned valve [courtesy of the former owner, but I knew it was burnt when I bought the rig, so I'm not mad], I need to pull it apart and see if I can fix it or not. It likely won't ever get rodded, but if it does, it will go into something with a small light chassis like a Dart.

Who do you think makes the strongest replacement block based on a 400? Currently I have a 470” with aluminum mains and hard block up to the freeze plugs. 88mm turbo efi on e85. Been warned to keep it to around 1000 crank. Would like to turn it up to 1300-1400.

"Cold Weather" block, lol. NO, the first few months of production have more material around the main web for some reason, that's all. I have a couple of those.

I would say that engine has been sitting since the ,70's maybe early 80's, im thinking it was pulled from a wrecked car!

Currently looking for a 400 block to buy. East Tenn

My 400 stroked to 500 at .035 over bore with steel 356 head casing massaged a bit with .625 lift comp roller took my 3500 lb 70 challenger 6.35 et at 109 mph yes I like em better than 440

I would like to know if a 400 block can be sleeved for a 4.50 bore.

I had a 77 I believe Cordova had a 400 in it that thing would scream then the lean burning brain burned out got rid of it

Yes....

I don't know, was it?

Ok, I had to remove my like, when I heard you saying, that you don't recommend a 383 for over 500Hp. Ridiculuos! These are way, way stronger than any 440 and these have been build to 1000+hp. Also, you forgot to mention, that the casting material of 383s was better than that of the 400s, So I'm not so sure that the 400 is stronger than the 383. Anyway, the 383s never had a main saddle problem. If you build them for 1000+, you can still run a girdle.

havnt been able to find one id like to do a 426 for a dart with one

The 400 blocks didn't have good cylinder wall castings ,at standard bore they were thinner than 383 or 440 and could be out of round , even thinner in some places , they needed to be check to be bored over size , i put one in my 66 ply fury back in the 80's .

I've been told by pro modders that its easy to get 650 cubes out of these 400 blocks.

😂 why don't you just put a mortgage down at to see if they're straight and round

Great video!!!👍Please check out my 1968 Barracuda fastback powered by a rowdy 400 based 512 stroker with Trick Flow heads and a big hydraulic roller cam, all backed by an A833 4 speed manual. I think you'll approve. 👌

Not at all, but with the 4.32 bore they are the most underutilized of all the B engines

Had 2 lower compression dogs in heavy cars , . Took one out of a Cordoba, and swapped a 440 from a 69 NEWYORKER . BIG BIG POWER INCREASE

When you have Pistons that you want to reuse and they have stuck rings you know what soak the Pistons in a bucket of water for a day in the water will break that carbon down and loosen them up and they will come pretty much with no problem