Define "Big HP"
Define "Small cam"
Define "Reasonable heads"
Define "Dependable"
Define "Lower Maintenance"
Define "Into the Nines"

All these things mean different things to different people.

My old Edelbrock RPM headed 440 had the old NF-69 Ultradyne .640 lift solid, Isky ductile rockers, Ross 11.5 pistons. To some that's a small cam, to others it may be huge. It went one 9.96, and one 9.98 in my 2950lb Challenger, so you could say it went "into the nines", but I've got 600 time slips between 10.02 and 10.45.

"Dependable"? In 6 years of racing, every failure was directly attributable to my penchant to occasionally hit it with 275-475 horses worth of spray. The Isky ductiles never moved, and I only ran the valves three times in those six seasons.

"Lower maintenance"? Oil change every 75 passes, a set of plugs once a season. Keeping the air bleeds blown out on the dominator was more effort than anything else.

I'm going to say this as simply as I can. Every single stock stroke 440 block that has been broken at this horsepower level, has been broken by detonation, not because it was making too much power. Period. End of story. But racers prefer to blame the parts than own up to the fact that their tune-up was off. Not saying it wasn't a great tune-up on that cold day in October with mine shaft air and c-12 in the tank, but when you drag it back out in may and the DA is three thousand foot higher, and all you could grab was av-gas...you better back it off some.

If I was starting fresh right now with a stock stroke 440, I think I'd do the Trick Flow 240's a mid 650 lift solid, with another pair of isky ductile rockers, and keep the compression around 11 to 1. It wouldn't run 9s all year long at 3000lb pounds, but it would do it in cool air.