Here I go with a long post, sorry! Please help me think about a street 400 block build for my antique truck.

Details and The intended chassis:

I have been looking for a 400 block for a while and finally scored one complete carb to pan with all accessories and brackets. Perfect candidate to stuff into my 1954 3/4 ton dodge pickup truck! The truck already has a jeep grand cherokee rear axle, new suspension and kingpins, a nice aluminum radiator, and four wheel power disc brakes. I heard I would need to do an oil filter relocation, electric fans, and re-work the steering. The steering box is beat anyway but otherwise the truck is pretty roadworthy and ready for a little v8 power. The rear is 3.55 limited slip and it has all terrain 12”x31” rear tires.

Goals/limitations:

I know this block is going to get a rebuild but I would like to keep the iron exhaust manifolds and probably the 452 casting # heads for now too. I want to keep the stamped rockers and use a hydraulic cam, probably flat tappet for economy. I want to make power from idle to 5000 with neck snapping torque from any speed under 40mph. I want to lay stripes at will from a roll. I don’t want to do more than 80mph or do any real racing over 45mph. I don’t want a lazy pig of a motor! If I got bored with the initial result then stealth heads and headers could probably uncork it later. I’m definitely doing pistons, a cam and intake but I’m unsure about stroking it.

Build options I’m considering:

-400 with rods, 9:1 pistons, cam, intake. This one would give up some power from a stroker but I’m sure a de-smogged 400 could put out 350hp/400tq without being too revvy and wouldn’t cost much if I could find stock weight .030 over slugs maybe hyper not forged. I could probably get power like a smallblock 408 pretty easily with the huge bore.

-470 stroker kit. The 440 source 512 kit is a sexy number but their 470 kit offers lower compression ratios. I have a feeling that I couldn’t possibly put a big enough cam in with the limitation of stamped rockers to get poor idle or street manners with a 470-512 eating up duration?

Would a big CID kit just be an ego/bragging rights thing all corked up with stock heads or would it have that big flat torque curve from idle to 5000? I don’t need it to rip from 5-7k, all done well before 6000 is fine. I also don’t want it to feel like a tow truck all power no giddyup- the decently light vehicle should come into play there?

What do you all think? I’ve seen some shredding low deck builds on here- I’m trying to do something way simpler but that 512 is calling me hahaha

Thanks for reading and as always any type of constructive or non constructive commentary or discussion is welcome!

Radar