I have located a 440 from a 75 New Yorker. I am told the engine is fine but I would like to rebuild the motor with my son. I have rebuilt a couple of engines before but never a 440. I was hoping you folks might give me some advice as far as your opinions go, with regard to things I need to look out for, should I bore it over any and if so to what degree? I am assuming the safe way to go is a master rebuild kit or should I first disassemble and check out the pistons and cylinders and go from there? I would like to do this and not invest a crazy amount of money. The end product should be reliable as this car will be my son's daily driver when done (72 Charger). He and I both have no problem with beefing it up a bit as long as it will remain reliable and is reasonable in cost. I am making him stay within a smaller budget on this. We will also be rebuilding the 727 transmission that came with this engine.

Any advice you can offer on these lines is appreciated. Thank you in advance.

You need to define "budget".
From your description of your situation, my first response would be, install the motor. If you want more power, put a bit of a cam in it ,along with a new timing chain. An intake/carb/headers with cam will get you up around 400hp.
As soon as you crack the whole thing apart, its $$$$.

I say it will work out cheaper and less agravating in the long run if he does a rebuild now before dropping it in.

Still, defining "budget" like you say is the key word here.

So,,,,, what's the budget?

I'd drop the eng/trans in & run it & see what you got, one step up would be to replace the fuel/water/oil pumps. Next step would be to R&R the cam/lifters/timing chain. Next step would be to R&R the rings/rod/main bearings which is called an "over the fender overhaul" which is done w the eng/trans still in place which keeps you from spending on extras such as cam bearings/turning the crank/boring/honing the eng as these charges mount up fast and if an over the fender overhaul is a good plan is dependent on the piston/bore clearance and bore out of round/taper/journal surfaces but an O.F. overhaul can last 100K miles. But if your are going to OH the 727 (get Munroes tranny book) your in a better position to tear down the eng at the same time. Projects take alot of down time, I'd get it up & running and let him burn some rubber and then he could easily do a compression test/check oil consumption without having to wait for months

I would get it out and find what your crank is going to clean up at and what bore oversize you need then get a bottom end kit from
http://www.manciniracing.com/
like this kit nice forged pistons
http://chucker54.stores.yahoo.net/sealpowkitd1.html

get a set of these heads and save yourself lots of agravation before using poor flowing crack prone 35 year old iron
http://chucker54.stores.yahoo.net/perpalas84ch.html

A kit like this rebuild the bottom with above kit a nice 3310 750 holley and you will have the perfect engine
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/EDL-2087/

Well thank you all for the advice so far. You are completely correct in that I did not provide enough information in my original post. Unfortunately, we are going to have to keep this at about $4000 for now. Our intent is to rebuild it as it is completely unknown and we have wanted to do that together as a father/son project, I just don't have the funds I wanted to throw into it right now.

So for that budget I will be able to do little more than a stock rebuild I would suppose, but anything I can do to give it a little boost would be nice. We will have to replace intake and carb as the thermo quad there now needs to go away. I liked the links above but will have to forego the RPM heads for now but that bottom end kit was nice.

We have time as he is currently driving the car with a 360 and 904 tranny in it. No rush there.

Thanks again for the advice and if you have any other suggestions I am all ears.

I'd probably go with a summit of jegs engine kit. PAW also seels some nice kits Spend a little more and get good pistons. The thing that kills late 70's 440 is compression so make sure you get some decent height on your slugs. As for bore..have the shop check it if it doesn't need one why get it? I'd go with the Summit 488 cam, CH4B intake or S/D, headers, 750 HOLLEY, mopar 175k converter and 3.55's. that'd make a nice driver that has plenty of tire smoking power.

In the old days (1980s) we would take good running 67-72 engines and just put rings, bearings, oil pump, cam (Crane fireball type), intake, headers ,carb and go. If it were a smog era engine we order cast replacement pistons for the 375hp 440 and rebuild using them. You should be able to build a nice 440 with your budget. KB makes affordable cast pistons. Hyd flat tappet cams with around 228-230 deg duration makes for a nice responsive gutsy street 440.