My balancer doesnt have any scalloped out areas...I talked to the guy it was purchased from he said its a 400 with a cam, doesnt know the size, stock heads, used to have edelbrock performer intake and 700 carb, with a 350 transmission.

 

I still would look into what it is.. I bought a engine used one time, was told it was FRESH with low miles on it. Pulled it apart, the ***** was wore the hell out.. Does the crank have a dow in it?? Is there bulges in the block???

 

Just take a head off and look for the steam holes to be 100% sure. Gaskets aren't too much.

 

I say ditch it anyhow, just build a nice 383

 

if it is a 400, de-stroke it to a 377 and rev it to the moon

 

Im not sure if it has a dow in it or not. In the morning im goin to take off the oil pan and check and also prob replace it. Im thinkin about takin the head off to check but kinda lazy.
What you mean bulges in the block?
Kinda new to buildin a motor and what not.

 

Today as I was cleaning all the grease build up and what not I noticed that one of the holes in the head where the intake bolts to is bigger than the others so im guessing im going to have to replace the heads. Should I get stock heads and have them rebuilt or buy some that are ready now?

 

You would be better off purchasing a set ready to go. If you took a set of 30 to 40 year old heads, but the time you had them refurbished, you could be well on the way to purchasing a new set of aluminum heads. You don’t need to spend a ton of money to get a head that will thoroughly stomp an old set of factory heads. You don’t necessarily need an aluminum head either, something like a set of Dart Iron Eagles would work well.

One thing to keep in mind, is anytime you use a head that was not originally used on a 400 engine block, you must drill six 9/64” steam holes in the cylinder heads. With the head upside down, use the 400 head gasket as a template to mark the locations of the holes to be drilled. The three holes on the intake side should be drilled at a 30 degree angle towards the center of the head and may need to be over one inch deep. The remaining three holes are drilled straight down towards the top of the head.

 

If your trying to identify a 400 there are only 2 sure fire ways of doing that. 1. measure the cylinder bore diameter. 2. If unable to use #1, look at the side of the block where the freeze plugs go. On a 400 block the casting bows out around each cyclinder. On any other small block chevy made, this area is flat.

Looking for steam holes in the deck works too, however I've filled alot of those in my day of doing maching work. If filled properly an innocent bystander would never know they were there.

Back to the steam hole descussion, some are sugguesting that you drill holes in the heads to allow the use of them. Depending on the application, that might not be a good idea. Of all the 400's I seen and worked on, I would say only 5% of them did not have cracks in the deck coming from the steem holes and going to near by bolt hole or water jacket hole. In these situations, leaving the steem holes in and the cracks unattended to can be asking for headgasket sealing issues.

Anythime I got a 400 in to build, the first think I would do is fill the holes and repair the cracks depending on severity, then deck the block back flat. You now have a slightly stronger deck and much less of a chance with any cracks causing gasket issues.

The use of the steamholes was to help coolant flow around and out from the cylinders because cylinders in a 400 are siamese. This means coolant can't pass through and around each cylinder. Aside from this new engineering it did allow the motor to run cool but not so much that it made up for all the cracks in the decks wreaking havoc on gaskets and cooling systems.

I alway tell everyong who wants to build one of these, Let's close the holes in the decks, repair any cracks and use a normal head/gasket combo without all the extra holes. Then due to the inherant cooling problems that the 400 possesses, make sure your radiator, water pump and fan are over kill. Once thats done, I believe you have a candidate to build a very nice 400 based engine.

My .02

 

Your right, depending on application. If it’s an engine that primarily is run at speed, enough to force the steam through the engine, then great you don’t need them. If the engines primary use is to perform daily use street duty, where there is apt to be a lot of idling taken place, I would add the holes. Race or semi race cars don’t need a lot of things the average street car needs to survive the tortures of being a daily driver. And yes a lot of the factory engines did suffer cracking with their thin wall castings, but the issue shouldn’t be as much a concern with better thicker components. However, they are very valid points and all the components on an engine of this vintage really need to be inspected before sinking a good deal of money into it.