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well i sold my 80 Luv well anyway seem like i have enough money to start a V8 build up for the 75 i think i will be buying a 350 4bolt main 1 pice rear seal and i want to do a 383 stroker so i would like to know what i need to do the block how much to bore where to bore and stuff and what parts i need please help this going to be a slow building project and also my first so please help

it also be cool if u guys can give me a list of stuff i need to get and do and or also in order

Decide what HP level you want and what the purpose of the truck will be. Towing, street, street strip, strip only trailer queen fairground cruiser. and buy your parts accordingly.

sweep the floors, dust the shelves etc in your assembly area.. this is critical.

The basics:
you will first need to take the block down and have it hot tanked. then have them magnaflux it to check for cracks. if its a good one, have them mic the bores to see what oversize it is (or look at the old piston, it may be stamped .030, .040 etc" .

Then depending on what you are going to do... (make a lot of HP, RPM and squeeze) you may want to have it sonic tested to check for core shift, runout, and ensure there is good meat in the cylinders for another oversize bore.

get it bored whatever the next oversize is but i would not recommend more than .040" you can go .060 but thats really pushing it as far as cylinder wall thickness. get it bored but DO NOT get a final hone on it until you get your pistons and are able to measure piston to wall clearances. You will be doing the final hone to obtain the proper piston to wall clearance.

get a crank from a 400 sbc motor (dont know the casting numbers off the top of my head) and have the mains turned down to fit the a 350 block. Remember that 400sbc's only came with a cast crank. They are beefier than a 350 crank but its still a cast. The should be able to handle up to 600 hp normally aspirated HP according to some. I thinkk with a 1piece rear main you will end up having to go with an aftermarket though. VERY IMPORTANT: have your entire rotating assembly BALANCED.

anyway, you can also get a Scat cast steel crank for a decent price these days. Do yourself a favor and toss the 400 5.56" rods in the trash or use them for paper weights or something. use no less than a 5.7 rod but preferrably a 6". various aftermarket steel rods like Crower, are really nice but a bowtie rod will do also. if you use a factory 5.7 x or o rod is the stronger one. have it shot peened or better yet, polished so the stress risers are removed. Important: install a GOOD set of ARP rod bolts.

drop the bearings in and installt he crank using Plastigauge to do the clearances on main bearings. avoid cranking the motor over while these bearings are dry! Mark all of your bearings with a sharpie so you know which journal it goes back into.

for street use, a moly top ring and an iron second ring is fine. insert them into the bore and use a squaring tool or an old piston to get them in there even. take a flat feeler gauge and measure the gap and make sure its where it should be. if it needs more gap then use a ring filer. if it needs less gap then swap it to another bore and see if it fits in there better, once you get all your rings swapped around and get the right gaps, make sure you mark them all so they all go back into the same hole during final assembly.

get some good pistons like JE's or SRP, ROSS or something like that. KB hypeuretectics are ok but remember that is still a cast piston and some of them have a hollow dome. decide what compression you want and what heads you will use and buy the piston. have the pistons professionally installed on the rod unless you are going full floater then its easy as putting on a snap ring. take the piston and rod and decide which bore each one will live in. stamp the rod with 1-8 so you know which one is which during assembly. you will have to drop the piston and rods into the bore and use a round feeler gauge to check piston to cylinder wall clearance. also install your rod bearings at this time. use plastigauge again to measure the clearances and swap bearings around if necessary to get the right clearance. Square the piston with a squaring tool or an old piston and measure. use the #1 stamped piston in bore #1 and #2 for #2 etc. as the piston and bores will all be different.

select your camshaft. remember bigger is not always better when it comes to cam and compression. you can make 500hp from a 9.5:1 383. also remember that the bigger the cam overlap the less dynamic compression you willl have due to the cylinder pressure being bled off during that brief moment that the intake and exhaust valves are both open.

Some people prefer to install the cam first but some say you should install the crank, rods and pistons first and cam last. there will be clearance issues in your block since it was not meant to have a 3.75" stroke in it. the clearance problem will be with the rods and the bottom of the cylinder and the rods to cam . you will have to go in with a die grinder and rotary rasp or something and clearance the bottom of the cylinder and possibly part of the rod bolt. as far as the cam to rod clearance, for smaller hydraulic and solids it will be ok if you use a 110degree lobe center or tighter and it should clear but you should check this anyway. preferrably you will want to buy a small base circle or "stroker" cam shaft. a cheap tool to clearance these areas is a medium sized zip tie as they are about .020" thick...... After you get all your clearances taken care of and you are ready for final assembly, thoroughly wash the block with Tide and water and a scotch brite pad. get some engine brushes and clean all the little holes and orfices. be VERY thorough. once clean, uses lots of assembly lube on the cam and the rod bearings. one of the last things you will be doing is Degree in the cam.... once the timing chain is in, get a crank turning tool and give it a crank and check clearances 1 last time. if everything checks out, then bolt your oil pump, pan, heads and valve train on and fly it. make sure you break the cam in correctly. 2500 rpm for about 20 min on hydraulic an solids. rollers dont need break in. Ok I am tired of typing.. but that shoud get you basically whats entailed. I'm sure there is some stuff I missed but this is the basics. If you have any reservations about doing this... TAKE IT TO A PROFESSIONAL to be assembled. theres nothing worse than getting a $$$ motor together and having it burn up or worse yet, break a cam or rod after a few miles on the street good luck.

in case you cant tell... its boring here at work today.

well its going to be a daily driver after its done and put in my luv so its ganna get driven everyday also i think i would be happy with around 500hp so what should i get?

A 500 hp motor is a little too drastic for a first time builder. It would be great to have such a setup but if your new to building engines, you might be better off going for a milder configuration. Build the motor to a refreshed "stock block" and maybe get an aftermarket intake/carb and headers. You'll still need to fit this to the truck and it's gonna cost you some money to tie it in(exhaust, radiator, driveshaft, and such). Once your running you'll find that other aspects of the truck need to be looked at( weak front end parts, fresh brakes and such).
Nelson, to be honest with you, you have big dreams. But your dreams are hampered by the fact that being in school you dont have the financial resources to attain your goals. My advice is to build the motor to a stock configuration and fit it to the truck. This alone will be costly to someone in your position but it is very attainable. And you WILL be happy with the performance. Do not make the mistake that i've seen in the past of somebody building a killer street motor and promptly wrecking it because they didn't think about the chassis, suspension, steering and brakes untill it was too late. Growing up near military bases it was normal to find blowers and superchargers in the wrecking yards because a G.I. was too concerned with speed and disregarded the idea of control and stability. Finding busted up cars with fresh, built up motors was pretty common. Nelson, dont bite off more than you can handle. Site members have modified their trucks with a stock small block and they've all stated that it's the coolest thing they've ever dealt with. Those here who have got major powerplants have had some experience with Hi Performance. In your case if you build a performance motor, it would cost too much in fuel to be a daily driver. Get the truck correctly on the road, after you get it right you can decide to upgrade from there.

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Previous setup: 4.1 Buick V-6/TH 350
Current setup: 400 Small Block Chevy V-8/TH 350
9" ford rear end/short bed/blue
What do Water, Electricity and Humans have in common... They all travel the path of least resistance.

well J im not planing on droping it anytime soon in my truck. like i said its going to be on the stand in here in my room. ohh by the way i bought the block already and the guy gave me the stand for free. anyway i know its going to take alot of money to do it thats why i want to do it slowly so im not planing on being done in a month this thing from what ive calculated it will take me a year or two and i want to learn it well. but i know what u mean J

even a fairly mild 383 is gonna move. 500 ponies is alot then your talking even more extras a good posi good sticky street tires that last about 5000 miles if your good to them. my truck i would estimate puts out about 420 horse. with a 2.80 gear ratio in the rear which are serious high way gears. and a 3500 stall converter runs 11.60 at 115 with a 9" slick. so you don`t have to get out rageous to make these pretty quick. and there is always that nitrous system that i`ve never even hooked up yet. you can build respectable truck with out going overboard. plan wisely

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don`t have the luv no more but I still like em.72 el camino,
00 & 06 silverado one 4x4, turboed vw sandrail,99 banshee, 06 raptor 700, 02 polaris trailblazer.

500HP is not too bad for a first time builder... its anything above that that starts to get difficult... back cutting rings, deschrouding valves, pocket porting, the reversion concept, tricking out your carb etc. but one thing is for sure... (everybody thats done this please back me up) SPEED COST MONEY. theres really no way around that. I have tried to do buildups and cut corners and it ended up biting me in the ass later. Now i buy the best product I can and have piece of mind.

ChevyToyR... you want to have some fun? put a stock V-8 into it, slicks, gears and a shot of nitrous. it will hold up for a while. just dont get too happy on the jug.

My friend goes to Kragen and buys their 350 short blocks 3 at a time for $399 each and bolts his own heads, intake and cam on it and then starts pushing 250 shots thru it. It puts his 3200# El Camino in to the 11.50's and each motor lasts about 6 months of severe duty drag and street racing every weekend.

so what should i do first to the block before anything?

or should i just build it stock?

whether you build it stock or hi perf. before you build anything, you MUST hot tank and magnaflux it to make sure the block is good otherwise you will be spending money and time on a boat anchor.

hey I forgot to mention... down here in SD, you can pick up a parts trader and buy a fresh rebuilt 383 motor with pocket ported heads and a Schneider Cam for about $900-$1000 with exchange. also check the deals in the Recycler up in your area. they advertise a lot of stroker kits and assembled motors for a decent price.

run you a flat top motor with the vortec 64 cc heads. you'll have plenty of pwr to spare.

im ganna hold off on the engine building but now i went to the junkyard and pulled out a rear end from a lincoln mark something 1985 with disc brakes is this a 9" i dont know how u can tell if it is or not

i think its a 8.8" ohh well that should do

first think you're going to notice is the 8.8 has a cover on the rear of the pumpkin. 9" has a removable "3rd member" that comes out from the front.