Today I picked up a mid-to-late 70s 440 engine. The engine pad has the following: 7 T 440 E, and then under that is 6 29. So I’m not sure how to decode these numbers as it doesn’t look like the same numbering system found on the earlier big blocks; any ideas?

The guy said it came out of a mid seventies Plymouth station wagon. The air cleaner pie pan says “Electronic Clean Burn System” on it. In addition, the air cleaner has a computer module on it for some sort of purpose? It also has a big Thermalquad (TQ) and factory electronic ignition.

I popped off one the valve covers to reveal it has 452 heads.

The engine came out of a running car, so we are thinking about putting it into a vehicle as is, but are unsure how to by-pass all the existing clean burn components and make the TQ run as well as it can.

Does anyone have any experience with this era of big block? Any guess as to what the compression ratio is? What about horsepower and torque specs? My dad tossed around the idea of putting a .474 Purple Shaft cam into it, but I’m thinking the low compression would make it less than an ideal cam swap.

Thanks for the info ahead of time,

CompSyn

1977 440 with cast crank, built at the trenton engine plant.

to be frank ,i would stroke it ,, toss all the cast crank and rods , and git a 500 stroker for it from 440 source .

I've pulled lots of mid '70's 440s, & they all had pistons about .160 in the hole...so your compression is loooowwww....

The last late 440 I measured was around 7.5:1

Low low low.

As for ditching the lean burn , just throw it all in the garbage, and put in a regular electronic distributor. Wire it to match the car you're putting it in , and away you go.