It's been a while since I've done one of my engine posts, so I thought I'd do another one for ya! This time around, we'll take a look at the 440 Mopar engine as a street motor with plenty of grunt! The big Chrysler 440 doesn't pop into one's head straight away as the most traditional hot rod powerplant, but it has been around since 1966, and was on the scene in 413 and 426 wedge form before that. These engines are hefty in weight, but they offer a strong foundation upon which to build a very healthy street/strip performance mill. Let's start with the block. For street use, many builders actually like the later (1971 and up) blocks due to their slightly redesigned water passages which allow for better cooling, and these thin-wall castings can still handle up to an .040" overbore safely if the block is comes up good after sonic checking. The earlier (1966-70) blocks can handle .060" overbores or more due to their beefier design, but they don't cool quite as well and the newer blocks are more than adequate for street use. (Racers like the older blocks, since cooling in 1/4 mile applications isn't a major issue, and the bores can be cut bigger). A friend of mine currently owns a 440 powered ride that tends to run hot on the street, and it's based on a 1968 block. To determine if you have a 440 block on your hands, and to figure out what year it is, look at the machined pad to the front of the intake manifold on the right side. There will be a stamped set of numbers there which will include "440" if you indeed have a 440 block. The year of the casting can be checked by looking at the numbers cast into the block just below the cylinder head on the passenger (right) side of the engine. The numbers will indicate the month, day and year of production. Easy stuff on the big Mopars! As far as prepping the block for some serious street use, there's really not much to it! These Mopar giants were very well designed and are tough right from the factory. However, some attention to the oiling system is a good idea for maximum life. Start with the pickup tube for the oil pump. The stock one is a wimpy 3/8" tube that should be replaced with an aftermarket 1/2" tube for maximum flow at higher revs. My one Mopar buddy also insists on spending some time working over the stock external oil pump. He just takes it apart to double-check the clearances, and cleans up any casting flaws inside to make sure that nothing disrupts oil flow...a good idea! The earlier (71 and older, I believe) 440 engines came equipped with steel cranks from the factory, and they're certainly stronger than the newer cast cranks...but in the beefy 440 block, even the cast crank will hold up to use in a street engine. If you have an earlier steel crank, that's cool...but there's no need to seek one out when your dollars can be spent elsewhere to enhance performance! Some carefull de-burring and polishing are about all that's needed to ready a 440 crank to do battle on the boulevards!! Most Mopar gurus prefer to use the "six pack" connecting rods in their rebuilds, but the standard 440 rod will work in the majority of streetable Mopars kept under 6500rpm with basic prep work. As with any engine, good quality aftermarket rod bolts and bearings are recommended for anything more than just a stock rebuild. Flot top pistons with chrome-moly rings work great for a street motor, although current technology also offers the option of ceramic or gapless rings for builders who want to get even more out of their engines. Three of my close friends have all run chrome-moly rings on forged pistons in their 440s and no complaints as yet! For anything less than an all-out race engine, I would just run the moly rings...but that decision is up to you. Buttoning up the short block calls for selection of an oil pan. With the larger 1/2" pickup tube installed, a pan with more capacity is almost a must! Moroso and Milodon both offer street pans with added capacity that should still get you over the speed bumps and up the driveways!! Since the 440 Mopar is essentially a "y block" design, the pan gasket is a flat, one piece item that looks kinda like a big valve cover gasket with alot of extra holes! Very easy to seal, but Big block Mopars are infamous for rear main seal leaks...so pay close attention when installing yours. I add a dab of silicone to the joints where the upper and lower seals meet, and smear a LIGHT coat around the circumfrence of the seal TOWARDS THE BLOCK AND CAP, not against the crank itself! Now, we're ready for a cam! Mopar big blocks use either a single bolt cam, or a three bolt cam. You can talk to three different builders and get three different ideas on which to use, but I haven't seen a failure due to single vs three bolt cam/timing gear issues yet, so I believe that either is fine for a street engine. I'm partial to Crane cams, and they offered a great single bolt hydraulic cam a few years ago that may still be available. It's the one currently in my friend's 440 Cuda, and has .467" lift on the intake, .494" on the exhaust, an advertised duration of 278/290, and .050" duration of 222/234 with 114 degrees of lobe seperation. I think the grind number was BH278. It runs GREAT, with PLENTY of grunt out of the hole and a good pull up to 6000rpm where the shift points are in that particualr car. (The car in question runs a six pack with a 727 tranny and 4.11 gears and has turned a best ET of 11.7 to date on slicks and open tubes.) Cylinder head options now include a few attractive aftermarket aluminum choices, in addition to the favored factory castings. Many Mopar gurus flock towards the "906" heads with their decent flow 'out of the box' and their 2.08/1.74 valves, but the cheaper "452" castings have hardened valve seats for unleaded fuel and work almost as well in a real-world street performance application. Other than a good three-angle valve job, most Mopar guys will advise little more than gasket matching and minor blending of the ports for the bulk of their mild performance builds. The new Edelbrock heads offer excellent flow characteristics and the benefit of heat dissapation to help prevent detonation, but for the average backyard engine builder, the old iron castings won't let you down, and cost far less! Up top, a six pack intake is hard to turn down if you can afford the whole set-up...and I'm here to tell ya...they DO run hard! Tunnel rams also work really well on big block Mopars according to some of the more recent tests I've seen, but for many, a single 4v Holley on any one of several intakes is hard to beat for the cost involved. Edelbrock Performer intakes work well for warmed-over stockers, with the Weiand Action Series dual plane intake being favored even more for a dual purpose vehicle. I've also seen the Weiand Team G intake work wonders on a friend's 440, but that engine was a little more radical than just a typical street/strip motor. A big Holley 800cfm 'double pumper' will deliver impressive performance, while the 750cfm vacuum secondaries Holley tuned for the big 440 will be more streetable and deliver slightly better mileage figures to get you to the rod events and cruise nights for a few pennies less! I like the complete Mopar electronic ignition conversion kits when it comes to selecting a distributor. You get a brand new electronic distributor, a control module, the correct ballast resistor and the wiring needed to hook it all up in one complete package. That said, my friend with the Cuda still runs an Accel dual point distributor with an old Accel Supercoil and has had ZERO problems with it over the years. Either way will work...depending on your personal feelings towards points vs electronic ignitions. (I generally prefer points myself, but when it comes to Mopars, I really do like their electronic ignitions over their standard points systems!). Once dropped in, the 440 Mopar shares the 1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2 firing order with the Chevy mills...so it's easy to remember for those of us who grew up around 'rats and 'mice'!! Add a set of headers and your favorite dress-up items, and you're ready to tear! Backing up a 440 usually falls to either a beefed up 727 auto, or a heavy duty Mopar manual tranny. Up to you...both will do the job. In light cars, I've seen tricked out Powerglides adapted to 440 engines, but for most of us, factory trans choices will fill the bill. I lean towards four speeds with Mopars, but a properly built and adjusted Tourqueflite will do the job as well! So, they may not be the most traditional engines out there, but having been around since the mid 60s, they still offer us a viable alternative to the catch-all Chevy motors, and they REALLY score you points with the Mopar crowd when you stuff one between the rails of an early rod! Don't be afriad to examine the possibility of running a 440 in one of your dream projects...they rev quickly and make impressive power with basic common sense building and off-the-shelf factory and aftermarket parts. Good cores are still out there cheap, since these engines came in large cars and even trucks and motorhomes into the late 70s.
Equal time for Mopars, it's about time!! Just kidding. Don't forget, you can use 413 and 426 cranks in 440's too, I believe. If having a forged crank is that big a deal to you. Jay
The 440 is a great motor, but it's huge and was a pain to install in my wayfarer. Nothing like setting the firewall back almost a foot. Mine has keith black pistons, comp xtreme energy cam, edelbrock intake and carb and the mopar performance electronic ignition. It pulls hard and cruises right down the highway getting 10 miles per gallon. There's nothing like opening the hood on a custom and watching people's reactions to the huge wedge underneath it.
That thin wall rumor was started by the factory and passed around for years. It is 100% wrong. One of the mopar mags tech guys rounded up a whole bunch of blocks and measured them all. No matter what the year of the block, they were all just as thick as the others. Great article. And don't forget they are the cheapest motor to build in the 400-550 horsepower range. Dave
<font color="red"> Too bad it's not a <font color="blue"> F O R D </font> ......HAHA R E D M E A T </font>
Thanks, Dudes!! Didn't know that the 'thinwall' thing was just a rumor...but I can see Chrysler spreading it to keep people from creating problems with massive overbores!! But, the newer blocks are still the cheapest...so that's the ones I'd go after anyway!!
great info fat hack! i can tell you from experiance that the chrysler big blocks are bad ass. nothing sounds like these things when thier wound up. i think the chrysler big block swap would be a good choice for any swap. if you can handle that much power! and this comming from a chevy guy. thanks hack for your research. i read the one about the 305 too awsome info.
Very cool post... a lot of information about that motor I've got in the garage. It's a early year... I think a '67 with a 727. It sounds like it could be a serious goddamn powerhouse... but I do need to get rid of it though if I want to see any other cars done...
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