Ford 400 Build

I've never "built up" a 400. I've repaired a few. They are basically a "stroked" Cleveland with a 1" taller deck height. Price Motorsports sells intake manifold adapters that will allow you to adapt 351 Cleveland intake manifolds to the wider cylinder head spacing. Heads, cams, intakes, ignitions are readily available. The exhaust system may pose an expensive problem (meaning cu$tom header$). Of course, the induction system will sit higher and most likely will be taller than the engine screen.

George

Height is not a problem as I am not using the screen:
http://www.rc-tech.net/per2/71pantera05small.jpg

I may weld up the headers and engine mounts myself. I was hoping not to use the adapters. I know Jegs carries at least 1 intake manafold. I had also seen some of the FI set ups where it would be easy to just change the center plate for spacing.

I am aware of an Edelbrock Performer intake manifold for the 351M & 400. I'm not enthusiastic about using a Performer intake in a Pantera, its OK in a truck, RV or tow rig, but not a sports car.

A good combo would be the iron 4V closed chamber heads (out of your current motor?), the Blue Thunder intake with adapter plates & the Comp Cam XE284H flat tappet hydraulic cam.

Better yet, contact Mark McKeown of MME Racing, he'll have some good ideas to make a great Pantera motor out of the 400, and can grind you a custom cam that fits your needs ideally.

I hang out on another forum for the 351C engine, and you read nothing but praise for Mark's work.

George

When it comes to Pantera mods, to each his own. Other than the fact you have the 400, I'm not sure why you'd want to do the swap.

The issues with the swap are similar to other tall deck and/or high port head swap: Headers, accessory interface, intake combo/clearance. If you want to avoid intake adapters you're going to be limited to 2V port sizes on your intake since thats how both the available aftermarket intakes were configured. Are you going to use the M heads or your 4Vs? If your planning on your 4v heads, if they are closed chamber, at least you can get the CR up with the dished 400M pistons. If the M has been rebuilt with flat tops then you'll need open chamber heads or the 4" stroke will produce higher compression ratio than pump gas will like. If your using 400M heads and pistons you'll have typical low CR and the corresponding performance potential.

Irrespective all of this, this deck height will most certainly require custom headers and probably relocation of the pressure tank.

If you don't have the rarer version 400 with the sbf bell housing pattern, plan on some significant $ to remedy this plus more opportunity to misalign your input shaft with adapters and bell housing mods.

400s aren't a very popular swap in most other Ford sport cars for similar reasons; shock tower/exhaust interference, hood clearance, and limited induction choices.

The taller 400 deck of course necessitates a longer rod (well at least longer than a stroked sbf of similar dosplacement). Good ring life here, but this plus 2V heads will mean great low end grunt but little to shout about up top. This is why they're typically dubbed "truck engines".

Pantera's are relatively light and enjoy a fairly low overall ratio in first gear. Sounds like a good match for a 4V Cleveland to me. Why wouldn't you just rebuild the Cleveland? Plenty of inexpensive power to be found there. Seems like a lot of work for little gain, but again, to each his own.

Lastly, I doubt the swap would be viewed favorably in the buying market. If you just like the 400M and don't plan on selling, ...not a factor.

-Good luck.

quote:

Originally posted by Panterror:
When it comes to Pantera mods, to each his own. Other than the fact you have the 400, I'm not sure why you'd want to do the swap.

The issues with the swap are similar to other tall deck and/or high port head swap: Headers, accessory interface, intake combo/clearance. If you want to avoid intake adapters you're going to be limited to 2V port sizes on your intake since thats how both the available aftermarket intakes were configured. Are you going to use the M heads or your 4Vs? If your planning on your 4v heads, if they are closed chamber, at least you can get the CR up with the dished 400M pistons. If the M has been rebuilt with flat tops then you'll need open chamber heads or the 4" stroke will produce higher compression ratio than pump gas will like. If your using 400M heads and pistons you'll have typical low CR and the corresponding performance potential.

Irrespective all of this, this deck height will most certainly require custom headers and probably relocation of the pressure tank.

If you don't have the rarer version 400 with the sbf bell housing pattern, plan on some significant $ to remedy this plus more opportunity to misalign your input shaft with adapters and bell housing mods.

400s aren't a very popular swap in most other Ford sport cars for similar reasons; shock tower/exhaust interference, hood clearance, and limited induction choices.

The taller 400 deck of course necessitates a longer rod (well at least longer than a stroked sbf of similar displacement). Good ring life here, but this plus 2V heads will mean great low end grunt but leave little to shout about up top. This is why they're typically dubbed "truck engines".

Pantera's are relatively light and enjoy a fairly low overall ratio in first gear. Sounds like a good match for a 4V Cleveland to me. Why wouldn't you just rebuild the Cleveland? Plenty of inexpensive power to be found there. Seems like a lot of work for little gain, but again, to each his own.

Lastly, I doubt the swap would be viewed favorably in the buying market. If you just like the 400M and don't plan on selling, ...not a factor.

-Good luck.

quote:

Originally posted by Panterror:
When it comes to Pantera mods, to each his own. Other than the fact you have the 400, I'm not sure why you'd want to do the swap.

Lastly, I doubt the swap would be viewed favorably in the buying market. If you just like the 400M and don't plan on selling, ...not a factor.

-Good luck.

Actually I don’t know why more people are not doing the 400. With the cobra/mustang I see people building 302’s and other small engines putting out 3-400hp. They say why would you want a bigger engine, these were “race engines”. I think the concept is turned upside down. They are race engines because the "races" limited the cubes. My brother watch these guys all the time at the track and most of them blow their engines if they race them seriously. My brother has a bored and stroked Ford 460 with Aluminum heads he has dinoed 675hp at the rear wheels. He has over 30,000 HARD miles on it; race track, drag strips, etc. He has spun it off the track a couple times. He drives it hard. The only major problem he had was wipping out he main bearings when he put synthetic oil in the car. He put Dino oil back in, changed the main bearings and had not had a problem since.

He got this kind of power and durability from cubic inches. The 400 was always seen as a truck engine because of the way it was configured, not for what it could be. It is one of the most under rated and under priced core blocks out there. I actually sought out the block I have. Jon Kaase was going to use the 400 for the engine masters. It was within the limit but they ruled it an unfair advantage.

As far as the difficulties, engine mounts and headers are not a big deal. Once those are worked out, I don’t think it would drop the value of the car. It would still be a Ford 335 engine; a super Cleveland so to speak. If the bugs such as engine mounts and headers are worked out, there would be no reason for it to keep some one from buying it. I doubt the inch on deck height would keep require moving the tanks. I know the problems the mustangs had but they really crewed themselves engine bay wise with the shock towers. On top of this the Cleveland would be the back up engine which could be swapped out at any time.

I will probably use the CHI heads and I have some ideas about the intakes. I think it will be an interesting project.

This is why we have Pantera’s and not Ferraries!

Kelly,

I knew Gary was really intent on using the 400 from a previous discussion on this issue, so I never touched on the "cons" of the project, which I had done previously. Gary makes some good points about cubic inches and reliable power.

Gary,

if you run the CHI heads that pretty much locks you into running the CHI intake manifolds, the head's intake port location is such that they don't really line up with anything else. CHI has done extensive development on the manifolds to get maximum power when used in conjunction with the heads, nothing else will have had this development work done specifically for the CHI heads.

AFD heads have a more generic "standard" port location, the AFD 2V head matches 2V manifolds exactly, the AFD 4V head has the floors of the ports filled in, or stuffed, so that they would match up with the Parker Funnelweb manifold.

If you want to spend the money, either the CHI heads with the CHI manifold or the AFD heads and Parker Funnelweb manifold would make a mean 400 cubic inch engine. CHI / AFD could tell you which of their heads would work best for your intended powerband (both manufacturers offer small port & large port versions).

Either choice I would think will make it necessary to fab "custom" made spacers to adapt the available intakes for the 400 block (I am under the assumption only 4V port size spacers are currently available, I may be wrong, but don't tell anybody )

Other than the engine mounting, header and bell housing issues, the other problem I forsee is the alternator, it will be higher with the new engine and probably will no longer fit in the opening of the bulkhead. Amerisport's bulkhead reduction kit could solve that problem for about $1000.

As always, good luck, George

Thanks George,

This engine has been discussed several times in many places. I think it’s time to do it which would be a great test for ideas and theories. I loaded the engine in my truck 10 min ago during lunch (long late lunch).

I have e-mailed CHI asking them about their intakes. One of the options I was considering was the Weber look-a-like fuel injection. On one outfit I saw they had it where it bolted to the left bank, right bank, and a plate in the center. It would be real easy to just make a bigger plate.

The bellhousing is the number one issue. I talked to Bob at Proformance; real nice guy. They have an adapter plate for the 514 (big block) but it cost them 6/10 inch. They had to modify the transaxile mount. I don’t want to do it that way. My first choice is to find a bell housing. I know others have done big blocks and even heard of some one years past doing a 400. There may be something out there. If not, I will see if it is viable to mill down a bell housing so I can weld the adapter plate to it.

The block is ~25lbs heavier than a Cleveland. The aluminum heads are ~25lbs lighter each (50lbs total). Weight should be about the same.

What is the bore dia of a 400? Is it still the same 4.00? or did they punch these babies out to get some of those cubes? I read an article that said when ford first did the Cleveland they were thinking bigger cubes for later on. I was wondering if this one maybe had 4.125 inch bore.

Same size bore as the clevelend, same bore spacing, just an inch more deck height. Same dimensions front/back. Here are a list of things that with interchange with the 400 and the cleveland:

Heads
Cam
Fuel Pump
Water Pump
Pistons
Oil Pan
Some timing components
Probably some other stuff too.

Intake manafold is wider which limits your intake manifold options. I am working on that. It's basically a stroked 351C! stock! It was never looked upon as much of an engine because of the way it was configured from the factory. Choked heads, smog stuff, etc. HP in the late 70's or early 80's got as low as 158. BUT it's all about the bolt on's; Heads, cam, intake, exaust, cr, it has the same potential the cleveland does plus 50+ more CI.

When this post suggested "use a 400M", to me that meant a 4"b by 4"s tall deck M block, with open chamber 2V 335 series heads, because that's what they were. I beieve all of my comments were fair in this regard. I also believe saying that the peviously mentioned mods is no big deal is a bit of an "arm wave" at what I would consider to be a fair amount of work, but that's all relative. I think the same amount of work yields more potential in other combinations but that's just my point of view.

I have a 9.5 deck Dart block with high port Brodix BF301s in my Pantera have done the mods, and it was a lot of work,... and I could use my mounts and bell housing as is. I also have IR fuel injection. The bottom end and block are built in a manner that are suitably durable to routinely take advantage of accessing the HP potential of my combo.

If you are talking about economical performance engine builds, and bang for the buck, bolting on and/or fabricating whatever you can, than that's quite a broader subject. No doubt you can build a good street performance engine on a 400M block.

Let's face it, talented engine builders and tuners have embarrassed deep pocketed check writers many a time.

I generally agree that the 400M block is merely a tall deck Cleveland and in as much is no better or worse than the C in most regards, but there's also no magic there. Yes it will provide slightly better rod ratio than the same stroke in a 9.2 deck Cleveland but you don't need it to gain those cubes. Be advised that there were many M blocks that were prone to breakage. Don't recall the problem but if you search this site and the 335 series forum you can read all about.

The M also has the larger Windsor mains, which again would not be my choice for a high performance or race engine, but again, no worse than a Windsor.

I also agree with the comment about cubes. Given the choice of a large CI engine in a high state of tune over a small CI, I'll take the cubes.

Not really sure what we're talking here, but if you are talking about economical performance engine builds, and bang for the buck, bolting on and/or fabricating whatever you can, then that's quite a broader subject. The 400M block still wouldn't be my choice and I'm not quite sure how aftermarket aluminum heads or IR fuel injection applies to the category of economy or bang for the buck. Good stuff, but not cheap. Figure $4-5k for the IR FI hardware, ECU and ancilliary equipment. $1400 for bare aluminum heads then add machine work and valve train. Why would you put this stuff on an M block?

I have tooled and cast IR intakes for high port and CHI etc, heads. The runners are ball end milled interiors and are very nice stuff. If you cut one of my intakes and make a valley pan as you described (3-piece intake), you're there. I can help you in this regard but modding the lid for the 400M is up to you. This would be similar to the old Doug Nash set ups for Inline Autolites.

If you're fond of the M, that's fine with me. I'm actually a big fan of the 335 series engines. Just my views.... no offense intended.

Kelly

Many of your points are very good, and I understand what your saying. I agree with some but don't agree on a few points.

When you relate price to FI, I was only talking something I am considering. Edelbrock makes a 4v intake for the 400 but I don't know how it flows.

The intake and the Bell housing are certainly the biggest problems. If both of these were easy, I would bet a lot of people would be tackling it. There is a bit of a 400 following trying to petition Edelbrock and others to make a better intake.

If no one is doing it because others have not worked out the kinks, then it may take a few more people doing it to come up with the simple soulutions. I know a few people have done it in the past but I don't know the details.

One reason I like the 400 is because it is of the Cleveland familly which some what stays true to the Pantera and I want to do it. As far as value, I dissagree that a 500hp 400M will drop the value in any way. If some one had a Pantera without the engine installed and said "But I'll throw in a 400M and you have to figure the rest out" then it would be a major draw back.

I am willing to cut, weld, bend mold cuss, spit, what ever it takes. When I get done I can say yes it works well or no it was a wasted trip.

As far as luck? Thankyou, I'll need luck and spare time! I try to make the most of every free minute.

Best reguards,

Gary

quote:

Originally posted by Panterror:

If you're fond of the M, that's fine with me. I'm actually a big fan of the 335 series engines. Just my views.... no offense intended.

Kelly

Ps, honest feelings and beliefs will not offend me!

Gary

Well getting beyond the why part and onto the how:

Your biggest issue is the bell housing. I wouldn't want to hack up my transaxle mounts either. IMO the best solution is to look for a 400 FMX block that has the sbf bell housing pattern. They're rare but out there. I have an acquaintence that has one. I can't remember but they may even have the sb motor mount bosses as well. This would at least mean the swap back to sbf would be a bolt in.

You will need to fab all new accesory brackets, because the mounting holes either aren't there or they are in a new location that causes interference.

For exhaust, it really depends on your headers but the probability is high that the #4 primary will hit your pressure tank. Like I said, my high ports on 9.5 deck did.

As far as intake, the most practical thing is adapters. Price Motorsport makes about every combo you could imagine for 335 series heads. I'd suggest you give serious consideration to just using 4V Cleveland heads. If you buy the intake adapters for this combo you at least have the ability to use all 4V Cleveland intakes. The 4V heads actually do pretty well on big cube strokers. You may be able to just use your present headers and mod your tail pipes. If you can make the passenger side work with just a tail pipe mod, the drivers side will be a sinch.

There are some issues in getting the desired Compression ratio. 400s had very long rods and larger (than 351C) diameter and different length wrist pins. If you want to use a forged flat top 351C piston (they have the same compression height)you'll need to bush the 400 rods and then float the pins. Even with OC heads this will produce fairly high CR but with a thick head gasket you might get it under 10:1. If you just want to use the stock cast dished 400 pistons, quench heads should take you to 9-9.5:1 or so. You may avoid other problems that create balancing problems going this route well. M heads had even larger combustion chambers than OC 351c.

Other than this, I'd say cam and carb as you desire and enjoy your cubes.

This whole issue has been thrashed to death over on the 335 series forum. Just don 't call it a 400M over there. It's really just a 400. The 351 version was designated M to distinguish it from the W and the C. Many mistakenly refer to the M as modified. It's actually Midland for the city of Midland engine plant. Just like C=Cleveland and W=Windsor. If you go to the 335 series forum photo gallery there is a picture of an FMX block on the front page of the photo section.

Kelly

See Kelly,

I told you Gary was determined

Another "issue" with bolting 4V heads on a 400 engine, the pistons are notched for 2V size valves. I know folks have done this, so there is a solution, I've never paid attention to hot-rodding the 400, my guess is either some company like TRW made pistons for that application, or folks are getting custom pistons manufactured. Kelly is right about the compression ratio issue, I recommend closed chamber heads & a "tight" squish area for max power & detonation control, which would require dished pistons to adjust the CR. Using open chamber heads is cheating

George

Many of the down falls listed with the engine are when using stock heads, intake, etc. I will likely use the CHI heads. Intake may be the CHI with adapter although I think the car NEEDS Down Draft FI:
http://www.rc-tech.net/per2/71pantera05small.jpg
It had webbers on it before I bought it. The down draft FI is more of what I want more than what is realistic. I have a good engine builder in my corner to help; My brother:
http://www.rc-tech.net/MGB/pant/slow.jpg

quote:

Originally posted by comp2:
Same size bore as the clevelend, same bore spacing, just an inch more deck height. Same dimensions front/back. Here are a list of things that with interchange with the 400 and the cleveland:

Heads
Cam
Fuel Pump
Water Pump
Pistons
Oil Pan
Some timing components
Probably some other stuff too.

Intake manafold is wider which limits your intake manifold options. I am working on that. It's basically a stroked 351C! stock! It was never looked upon as much of an engine because of the way it was configured from the factory. Choked heads, smog stuff, etc. HP in the late 70's or early 80's got as low as 158. BUT it's all about the bolt on's; Heads, cam, intake, exaust, cr, it has the same potential the cleveland does plus 50+ more CI.

Well with the extra inch of deck height you should be able to run a stroker crank from Coast performance and take your 400 way up on cubes. Have a 500 cube small block!! If some is good, more is better.

I had thought about it. They don't have anything for the 400. The crank is not interchangable. I did find one co that cut down a 400 crank for stroking but then again,,,,,,your cutting down a crank. ? . ?

quote:

Originally posted by comp2:
I had thought about it. They don't have anything for the 400. The crank is not interchangable. I did find one co that cut down a 400 crank for stroking but then again,,,,,,your cutting down a crank. ? . ?

Yeah that doesn't sound too good to me either. If they can't cast it, I wouldn't buy it. But I know on Windsors they like the extra deck height for stroking the motor to the max. Something to do with allowable piston travel. But if you had a 4.125 bore and a 4.25 stroke, that should give you a 454 small block. If properly balanced you could move some serious air through your motor without resorting to boost.

If we could generate more interest we could get some one to cast a crank, cast a bellhousing, and cast a good intake. I know these guys have been pushing for it:
http://www.broncotech.com/351M.html

quote:

Originally posted by comp2:
If we could generate more interest we could get some one to cast a crank, cast a bellhousing, and cast a good intake. I know these guys have been pushing for it:
http://www.broncotech.com/351M.html

Well there is something you can try in the meantime. What do you think of this?? Use a stroker crank assy from one of those 9.8 deck windsors. "But Detom" you say "the crank diameter is too small!! Only a toatl numbnuts would even suggest such a thing." Well yes the crank diameter will not fit the main bearing journals, this is true. BUt only if you are trying to use conventional bearings. Why not go the formula one route and get some needle bearings??? Let that puppy spin a 12,000 RPM redline. Imagine the awesome, effortless power that would produce!! You can leave you 4.22 rear end in and still have a 200 MPH machine. Now remember, I never said it would be a piece of cake, and before you start calling me names, fantasize about it a little. OK??

Tim Meyer is getting me a quote for a 400 stroker short block; 4.0 x 4.25:

http://www.tmeyerinc.com/400Ford.htm

He is using a forged Windsor crank. Mate that with CHI eads and a good intake. Should be a good combo.