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I have heard of people welding in bosses inside the lifter valley to take the hemi studs, and putting a hemi head, and hemi cam in a 440. Dont know if its true, but I have heard that a few times from different people from other parts of the country. Id say it would be worth a shot if ya have a few "junk" 440 blocks laying around to test it out on. Im a decent enought cast welder that Id give it a shot. Heck you probly wouldnt really even need the extra bolts for head torque unless you were going for all out compression.

Kasey



I did talk to one guy on the phone one time who said he did just that. He told me about how he used to do it back in the 70's and 80's when you just couldn't find or afford a replacement hemi block. He described taking a 413 block, boring it .060 over to take stock 426 hemi pistons. Said he used the steel shim head gaskets and never had an issue not using the top row of head bolts. Said the hardest part was the exhaust pushrods. Needed to grind clear into the water jacket for clearance. Then heat up a piece of steel red hot and black smith it into shape and weld it in. Said the intake pushrods cleared with a small amount of grinding and needed to thread in some drain tubes from the corners of the head to the oil pan. He said back then you could get a junk 413 and a set of used stock bore hemi pistons for peanuts. Said he'd build one and run the hell out of it until the block started to let go, then build another one. Said he hasn't done one in years since the availability and affordability of repro hemi blocks. Would still be an interesting experiment.