Hi Team,

First post here, hopefully my pic's come through. I've owned my Cuda for around 5 years. Been driving her around on a 440-505 combo NA for a while. I drive it every day, usually rain or shine since in Florida you can rarely leave and not get caught in the rain. At the track she' running 11.6/11.7 at at 117mph. Engine made 485hp/670tq to the rubber when I last dyno'd it. This of course tells me she was lacking airflow top end, and it shows since 5500 rpms it was out of pull. Either way, the engine is different now. I ended up hanging a pro charger off it, and thought I had a safe tune in it since I didn't build it for boost, but she went lean and needed a rebuild, which is now complete with around 50 miles on it. She's at a local shop getting the valve lash done, and a professional tune this time so I'm excited to see what she can do.

I wanted to list the build below and get thoughts and feedback to have a safe driver, with possibly turning the tune up a bit at the track with race gas. I'm worried that these blocks can't handle the HP past 800, but reading some of the posts here it seems like you guys have kept them together if treated right. The ultimate plan is to get an aluminum block and build a serious track car someday, but I feel I have plenty of fun to be had with this combination for now.

440 block punched to a 505 with a SCAT crank. It was lightened even more by my engine builder and revs like a street bike. Chevy rods, Mahle flat top pistons. Comp blower Cam with solid rollers. 1.5 rockers. Ported Jr. Victor intake, and Eddy RPM heads that were CNC'd and hand ported as well. (I do believe the eddy heads were my limiting factor before, and likely will be still but the blower should push it anyways). It's 9.23:1 compression now with the rebuild. looking to make 9-12PSI and shift at 6000 to keep it safe. Block does not have a girdle, but I'm hoping the lightweight parts and lower shift points keep her together. Holley sniper and MSD 6al2 control the fuel and ignition.

3.23 gears with a gear vendors overdrive for the drive line. I'm running oversized u-joints, and billet slip yolk since the old combo would torch them. Axles and 8 3/4 rear are stock (as things break I upgrade, but so far so good here). I do have upgraded wheel studs in the back. I have caltrek (sp) bars, double adjustable QA1 shocks in the rear and singles up front. Tubular upper lower control arms. Frame is tied together, and a 4 point roll bar. Trans is a fresh rebuild with a 3300 stall converter. Wilwood front brakes which are hopefully working now. been having booster issues but think we finally got them working so I'm excited to finally launched the car on the converter instead of pushing through the brakes.

Anyways thats all I can think of off the top of my head. Excited to get the tune dialed in, and get her on the dyno. Let me know what wheel HP numbers you think she will do and any other thoughts or future upgrades I should plan to help at the track, while keeping her a driver. I'm hoping to be in the low 10's. Not sure of the weight. Never scaled her.

The lack of a girdle is a big issue..

Those 3.23 gears are leaving some quicker ET’s on the table.

The boost will make up a large part of that.

Welcome and a sounds like a very cool car you have there! The only thing that jumps out to me as a potential problem is the 83/4 rear with all that torque.

Yep....when it breaks!

Dizusters small block turbo car went 10.60s with 2.76.
Dog

Doesn't look like enough tire out back to hurt the 8 3/4. What are they?

What a lot of people don't realize is that boosted cars don't need a lot of gear to go fast.

Nice car! You'll kill the 8.75 rear pretty soon if it hooks. Better to replace it now w/ either a Dana or 9" before you break the trans along w/ it.
Doesn't matter what size the rear tires are, just the type of tires they are. A good drag radial in a little 275-60 will dead hook on any decent track.

FWIW...I've been deep in the 8s w/ a 3.54 gear. The 4.10 was unmanageable launching. The 3.54 REALLY helped. Even on motor only, I don't think the gear swap hurt the performance.
With big power on small tires and stock type suspension, the last thing you want is a deep gear.

275/60 /15. I also have slicks and front runners for the track. same size

Thank you - looking forward to learning a lot. I'm early in my racing aspirations, but I have a blast going out there. Hoping to keep my engine together for a bit, and not run it too hard until I have a backup ready to go. Wish there were more old mopars racing in Tampa area. Seems like everyone has mustangs, Supras, or hellcats. Be cool to watch more older cars go fast.

I agree. Can't change that at the moment. My hope is shifting early, light internals along with perfect balancing on them will help keep her together when spinning her hard. If not - then I'll pay the stupid tax and get the aluminum block that I should have started with. Sadly they're 6 month wait times. once life is more stable with all the crap going on I'll get on that list so I'm ready when things go bad on my engine.

Been wanting to build a Procharged BBM stroker for a while now, just can't bring myself to buy one for $7k. I know you can't change to a Girdle at this point, but in the future, you really need one or a better block. I say this because timing and fuel curve need to be dead on to keep this combo from knocking the bearings out of it. The Sniper EFI to keep the fuel in check, is a great way to go....We run the girdle on all our strokers, and we still see cap walk with our NA combo's shifting conservatively. Not only is yours a stroker, its boosted....any miss on the timing or the fuel, and the bearings or head gaskets will take the hit. Keep an eye on it. If your paying someone to do the valve lash, you have a lot of things on your plate to learn....take your time, and get familiar with your setup. Get used to reading plugs, get used to figuring out how to get them all to look the same, figure out a safe timing curve and how to read it on the plugs, and lastly, just take it slow. Everything that affects an NA car's performance also affects a boosted cars performance, but more. Hang around some bracket racers, and see how they sneak up on a tune up...We know what happens if its off. Your perfect AFR maybe different that someone else's, you need to see what your engine likes.

My buddy just found the boosted limits of a stock block the other week without a stroker kit....He runs a roots blown E85 440 +.03 and turned it up, and knocked the bores right out of it....20psi did that, without a stroker kit! Collect some parts for a future build in the mean time....maybe.

Using nitrous here and it loves the 3.54 gear. Been 10.33 @ 130 with a very similar setup to the o.p.'s with a 200 shot.

Boost/nitrous likes the taller gears and tighter converters.

275 E.T. Street Pros are more than enough. We've been 1.37 60 ft with them and Cal-Tracs on leaf springs.

I have a best of 1.6. would be pretty cool to feel a 1.3 60ft.

I appreciate the feedback, and already glad I joined this forum. The other one I was on was dead, and most people just bashed my set up since she's not a show car. What HP levels where you at when you started to see cap walk? Everything looked good when my builder pulled mine apart, but that was with mostly 480 wheel HP and just a few weeks running boost before I went lean and ruin a ring.

I'm still learning how to work on cars. My friend helps me with just about everything, but now that I moved I don't have that resource anymore. We installed the engine in NC and ran out of time to do the valve lash after the break in miles. I had to leave for Florida so had to find a local speed shop. The pro charger needs to come off to get to the valve cover. Kind of a pain. 10 pounds of [censored] in a 5 pound bucket now. With that said, I'm looking forward to learning, and will take it slow. my bank account needs about a year before I have to R and R engine. Also I miss driving it, can't wait to have her back, and I'll update once I get to a test and tune and take some easy passes. Hopefully dyno results this week to dial in the tune.

what HP was your buddy making before he fried the engine at 20psi? I have a pretty large pulley to limit boost to 9 to 12 PSI depending on my RPMs. if I shift at 5500 I believe that was 9PSI. Assuming I lost 25 - 30 HP by lowing the compression I'd put my rough estimate at 700 wheel HP at 9psi. time will tell.

I saw cap walk on a 620 hp naturally aspirated 440, so I'm sure you'll have a bunch of it, lol. I think keeping it out of detonation is the best you can do...beyond that, it is what it is.
You'll have fun for sure, just depends on what breaks first as to how expensive the learning curve will be.

ha - I agree. Bandaid right now to buy some time to save up for the engine that I want. Was that cap walk on stock internals? Not sure how a lighter rotating assembly would effect it if that was stock?