My friend wants to do a stroker motor with a 400 block. I have a 440 crank and rods. Is it better to align bore the 400 block than cut the crank down? What is the going rate to open up the 400 mains to accept it and how much does it need to be opened up? Do the 440 rods have any clearance issues? Which pistons should he go with?

Is there a guide out there somewhere when making this setup to go by?

I've always heard it's better to cut the crank down.

Leave the meat in the block. Cut the crank.

Crank

Boring the mains is a lot of work and requires some special tooling to recut the bearing tangs. Check with your local machine shop to even see if they can do it. I bet they'll tell you they can't.

Turning down the crank is an easier operation but it is getting harder to find anyone who can do the crank work. The mains need to be cut down and the counterweights need to be trimmed. Then you need to rebalance the crank.

One thing I don't like about turning down a 440 crank is that you are stuck running the big ugly Mopar rod journals. If you offset grind the rod journals to BBC size then you have even more machine work.

All of the machine work on the crank only makes sense if you have a local shop that works for cheap. If the shop charges more than $500 for the crank work then you might want to consider just ordering a new crank.

I am in the middle of this process now, with a forged 440 crank, offset ground to bbc rod journal, and cut the mains yesterday from 2-3/4 RB to 2-5/8 B journals. Next is to trim the counterweigths, and final is balancing. Those old cranks are non-twist forgings, and make bright sparks when grinding! Good old-school materials!

More chance of an expensive mistake cutting the block.

Cut the crankshaft, the block needs all the help it can get.

everyone I know that runs the 440 crank in a 400 block always have the crank's cut.