Well, hopefully it will be a budget build. I'm completely new to this (engine building) as well as Mopars in general and kind of stumbling my way through with help from members from Moparts as well as others. I've decided to document all the ups and downs and ins n' outs of my first engine build so those of you thinking about doing this may avoid the mistakes I have, and will, make. The goal is to end up with a decent, inexpensive, reliable street motor and slowly rebuild the engine that's in the car now the way I want it. A street beast.

Current engine


While the current 440 (stock '66 from an imperial or similar) runs ok (albeit very tired) it uses a remarkable amount of oil; 1 qt. per 200 miles. I tried changing the valve seals and intake gaskets, both of which were doing nothing to contain oil in the engine. No difference whatsoever. Must be the rings I figured.


So the next plan was to try to rebuild the engine. Or more accurately, have the engine rebuilt on a budget by a local builder. He assured me that I could get mine running like new for around $3000-$3500, but that would be a basically stock 440. The good news is that he had a dyno and he would break it in and dyno it for me for an additional fee. This was music to my ears as hearing all the horror stories about engine break-in terrified me.

Then, one day I was looking through Craigslist and found an ad for a "fresh" rebuilt 440 for sale nearby for $1800! Carb to pan! Wow, this is a miracle! When I went to look at it, the owner (for my purposes, I like to refer to him as the perpetrator) assured me that this was a 400hp drop-in-and-go affair. We struck a deal and loaded the beast into the back of my truck. I drove home giggling like a giddy school girl. Nice huh?




Since this is an attempted budget build, I will try to keep a running tally.

Spent so far $1800.