My dream 440 is a stroker but it will still be a while until I can afford to do it right and my 426 is a loosey goosey and drinking oil like its ice tea.
And a friend of mine has a `Cuda he is restoring ( same one one we saved from a backyard a while back I posted pics of)and it has a 440 that he wont be putting back in, so I bought it from him to get me by for a while. It is a bit more radical than I want but it the price was right and it will be a fun experiment. The 440 has estimate of 30 miles on it and the builder is well known in our area for putting together killer Mopower. Since built it has gone three trips down the 1/4 mile, then did a local cruise night/car show then one more 1/4 mile run, then Preston bought the car and we took to Saturday morning meet once.
So this engine is still very fresh, but I know sitting around isnt the best thing for any engine, so I am going to tear it down and inspect everything and see how it looks. Outside looks bad because the guy Preston bought `Cuda from left the car the the backyard covered at least and the aluminum parts corroded like the cheap chrome t-stat housing.
So far I haven't done much other than pull rocker covers and pan and it looks like new and cross hatch in cylinders is barely marked. 1969 440 with 2951908 rods , 915 heads , still waiting on cam card and all the paper work on build.
Little sneak peak inside this afternoon, I just had to pull the heads to make sure it was fine. Only thing that bothers me so far is builder estimated it has 12.5 compression, I just don't see any pop up pistons or signs that that could be.
One rocker lash at zero on #8 intake and not sure why so I will take another look at that.
Builder may think that because of the closed chamber 915 head and I bet there was a steel shim head gasket in it.
It's gotta be 10.5 to 11 if the head was shaved .010.
If your friend Jack helped you off a horse....... Would you help your friend Jack off a horse?