[steve]

Originally Posted by Matt Meaney

i will vote for the 69-70 400 with the 62 or 13 heads. these actually cc out between 75 and 80 not the advertized 72. since it's a rebuild, i would guess you will be boring for new pistons. could get one with a little dish for peace of mind.

no. ideally no boring. just a hone ! now im launching into fantasy !!!

[Matt Meaney]

Originally Posted by steve

no. ideally no boring. just a hone ! now im launching into fantasy !!!

ok, then it's the 70 with 13's all the way. i base this on personal experiance. i've had two 70 Gp's with their original unrebuilt 400 and they ran great. plenty of power for a good fun factor. i did run them on 93 octane gas though. the 71 and 72 Gp's with 400's (also unrbuilt) ran good, but didn't have as much power as the 70, but you could run them on the cheapest junk fuel around.

i like to visit "fantasy land" myself, maybe i'll bump into there someday. ;^)

[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.

[steve]

Yeah. That's what I'm talking about. Is it possible that if you found one with low enough miles not to need a bore and just a hone the oem cast pistons will still be ok for a stocker rebuild ? There has to be plenty of old ponchos still around cruising around with those oem cast pistons in there.

My goal is to find the best 400 I can to rebuild on my own hopefully with no help from a machine shop. Tear it down, clean it up, buy a kit, drop it in, drive it around. Sure maybe not the best money spent but 100 percent done at home shade tree style. Like I said before.....I love the project more than the driving !! I have a nice stout 67 STD bore block to swap all my go fast goodies to from the 557 engine over to when I get ready to go back into that engine. That means no engine projects for a while. No acceptable. I have decided my balls have swelled large enough for me to attempt my first "solo" rebuild. I was considering doing a 350 to hopefully spend a little less but just can't bring myself to build such a tiny motor !