Big Mopar Building tips.....

From "Bullitt" to "Dukes of Hazzard", "Vanishing Point" to "Death Proof"-we've all seen the Mighty Mopars blaze across the big screen and we have all had fantasies of screaming down the road in a big-engined "B" or "E" body. Big block Mopar range in size from 361 to 440 cubic inches. For our purposes we are only concerned with 3. Forget about a 361, their too small and rare. Unless you have big bucks and are restoring an early '60s Max Wedge race car to the nth degree-forget about a 413 or a non-Hemi 426. Their practially moon rocks and are priced accordingly. This leaves the 383 that was produced from 1963-71, the 400 ( a bored-out 383 ) that was produced from 1972-78, and the 440 that was built from 1967-78.  # 1. Bottom end. The big Mopar bottom end is very tough in stock trim. 4-speed applications through 1974 had forged steel cranks. Automatics, and anything built after 1974 had cast cranks. Don't search the galaxy and deplete your wallet trying to find a forged crank. On a street engine if you keep revs under 6,500 you'll have no problem. The oiling system is fine, and I would only recommend forged pistons if you were going to play with nitrous. Eagle and other companies offer stroker crank kits to turn a 400 into a 451, or a 440 into a 505 if you want to be King Kong.  #2. Cylinder heads. LIke I said in the other sections there are books with entire chapters devoted to which heads are better and why, so I'm not going to go into them here. For general advice-use the heads that came on your engine-unless your going to go hog-wild and use Edelbrock or Indy aluminum heads. # 3. Induction. The intake manifolds on 383 / 400 and 440 V8s do NOT interchange. The reason is the 440's have a different deck height. The "RB" designation stands for "raised block." The stock 4bbl intakes are more than adequate for street use. If you want a little more oomph and the cool looks of an aluminum manifold Mopar Perfromance and Edelbrock sell dual and single-plane designs. The bottom line is-it's pretty hard to outperform a dual-plane on the street. The Performer RPM is probably the best all-around choice for mild or wild engines. The legendary "Six-Pack" 3-2bbl setup is still available through Mopar Performance or Summitt Racing. Edelbrock still sells the manifold, Holley still sells the carbs and the linkage and air cleaner parts are available. This system looks and sounds ultra-badass, and on a dyno test of a hot 440 came within like 10-15 hp of the vaunted Performer RPM / 850 Holley 4bbl combo that was the "King." The downside is the complete system costs about $2,300 compared to about $600 for the 4bbl setup. # 4. Cams. The original 440 "Magnum" cam is a great choice for the 383 / 400, and is really sweet in 440's with automatics and high ( low numeric ) gearing. It's still available through Mopar Performance, and Crane, Lunati and Comp Cams offer reproduction versions. Comp Cams offers a short-duration, high lift cam that works excellent with an automatic and "Six-Pack" induction. Otherwise follow the cam manufacturer's guidelines for compression, gearing, converter stall speed etc, and you won't go wrong. # 5. Exhaust. The stock "B" and "RB" manifolds breathe pretty good as far as stock iron manifolds go. Headers will help quite a bit, and I'd use at least 2 1/2 inch pipe and a balance tube or an x-pipe between the pipes. Like I said earlier-these are very generic "Reader's Digest" versions of advice. I'd buy Dick Landy's book on Mopar engines, or the HP books "How to build Max Performance Mopar V8s".  Mastermind