FOUND my 400sbc

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Jbug.jbone

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Jan 6, 2020
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Does anyone even hot-tank anymore? Everything I see says they bake them and sometimes blast to remove scale
Hahaha baking a motor? Quick grab the mystery van, for a baking session. On a serious note this is the first time I’ve heard of this.
Bell housing bolts are 3/8ths NC x 2" ? long. ARP makes a kit for chasing Coarse threads that only cleans out the crud. A tap is designed and meant to cut new thread in a bore or hole. Used as a thread chaser it will shave the peaks off the existing threads and make them loose. Makes it easier to strip 'em out.

Before you go trying to run a bolt into any hole, be sure to clean it out. Deep Creep works, CFC Brake Cleaner does too. For a brush, try a gun bore brush from an Outdoors Shop. They come in various diameters.

The value of the 400 depends on what use you plan to make of it.

For an out and out g-machine, don't even bother with a 350, go straight to stroker. The 383 has the torque; the 377 the top end.

The 400 was designed as a heavy vehicle motor; trucks, R-V's Chevrolet Impalas, 70-72 Monte Carlos. The proverbial two tons of fun.

As built, their components were selected for the purpose of making torque, not horsepower.

Contrary to some schools of thought, they can be built. A lot of them got raced to death on the dirt short tracks way back when.

The major considerations here are, having the block cleaned and magnafluxed. That will expose any external damage and internal issues. For a decent street motor forget the stock components They will give you the factory values, no more.

Once it is clean and checked for cracks, have a bore gauge taken to it to check the size and shape of the cylinders. That will disclose any previous overbores and tell you if there is room to grow left.

For the reciprocating assembly, Scat, Eagle, ?? This is a homework thing. Their catalogues offer all the info you'd need to pick a combination that will do what you want. They also have 800 numbers for questions.

If you elect to convert the heads into paperweights, then be sure that whatever replacement you acquire is compatible with the steamhole circulation design of the block.

All the rest, cam, valve train, intake, etc, are whatever will work best for what you want.

As anyone here can testify, if you want a good motor, you pay good money and buy good parts and use a good machine shop or builder to assemble it. This is one case where Cheap in equals Cheap Out.



Nick
Hey nick, thanks again for the really detailed comment you sure are an open book of knowledge I totally appreciate it!
It looks a whole lot better than I expected. Might be able to get away with a rings and bearings refresh. I still wouldn't use those heads. As others mentioned, a nice mild cam. I think a decent used pair of Vortecs would be a great addition. They aren't expensive or hard to come by.
Yeah man yesterday I was pretty bummed about it, but upon cleaning it out I feel much better now. Thinking about trynna clean what I can with diesel. I got some trans oil in the cylinders over night. I’m just happy the ****er turned over. 10-4 on the vortex heads. I’ve read online that those minimize your intake manifold choices?
 

Ribbedroof

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Jan 4, 2009
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Hahaha baking a motor? Quick grab the mystery van, for a baking session. On a serious note this is the first time I’ve heard of this.
My guess would be an EPA issue. They're probably not too fond of caustic solvents, especially big tanks of them.
 
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Ribbedroof

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It's an 81. Good from far, far from good:LOL:
 
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Texas82GP

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Apr 3, 2015
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Does anyone even hot-tank anymore? Everything I see says they bake them and sometimes blast to remove scale
The last I heard, they don't hot tank here because of Houston environmental regulations. The use of the caustic soda is highly regulated. They've done away with the radiator shops as well. Now they blast and bake, which leaves cleaning the water jackets to us.
 
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Texas82GP

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Apr 3, 2015
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I’ve read online that those minimize your intake manifold choices?
Vortec heads require a compatible intake manifold. The bolt pattern is different from the earlier SBC intakes.
 

64nailhead

Goat Herder
Dec 1, 2014
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The just bolting this together and running it with a new cam it heads or whatever is a week (40-50 hrs of runtime) if the lifters won’t rotate freely.

You can easily clean this short block up at home with a dingleberry hone and a lifter bore hone. You’ll need to clean out all of the oil galleries and need a new freeze plug set because of that. A couple of long brushes for the oil galleries needed as well. Doing this will identify any major issues that will allow you to do more than guess at what you have.

I can’t tell from you pics how bad, or good, the cylinder bores are. But after a quick hone job, it will be obvious.
 
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bracketchev1221

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Jan 18, 2018
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A lot of places have gone to high pressure water wash cabinets. Then you have to pressure wash though the oil passages.
 
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Texas82GP

Just-a-worm
Apr 3, 2015
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A lot of places have gone to high pressure water wash cabinets. Then you have to pressure wash though the oil passages.
I've seen them on TV. I haven't seen one in person yet, though to be fair, I haven't had any machine work done in years.
 
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