[screamingchief]

If your gonna be using cast pistons,you'll likely be screwed anyways,the only ones you can get anymore are those 8 valve relief POS pistons.

Unless your planning on re-using the OE cast pistons,but that's probably not the best idea either.

-OR- you find a set of NOS cast pistons somewhere...

IMO,on 400 builds,forged pistons are mandatory.

Just no other acceptable piston options.

Anyhow,enough of that for now.

As for blocks,I like the '70 to '74 blocks,as they have all the motor mount bosses drilled & tapped,so they fit any/all chassis easily.

Heads,lots of choices there.

Dont care for the '72 "letter" heads myself though,too many odd-balls in there,was a transition period,and they were doing some pretty odd $#!t around that time.

But to answer the question,if I had to pick one specific year/engine over all the rest,it would be the '71 300 hp 400 as my choice.

Big valve heads (#96),screw in studs,lower compression for use w/any pump fuels,has all the bolt bosses on the heads for any year brackets,has all the engine mount bosses to fit any chassis,has the 067 cam in that one,no EGR intake & old style choke for the Qjet,has the windage tray,has minimal emissions hardware,yadda,yadda,yadda.

Real easy to "beef it up" too if one wants to do so.

FWIW

Bret P.