Have to use Delrin plugs or the like to keep the pins where they belong after shortening the pins?

Pressed pins

The more modern solution would be to get some thin wall pins that match your pistons required length. Too short of a pin puts too much load and stress on a part of the piston it is not designed to take.

Any part of the pin sticking out past the pin tier adds virtually nothing to pin or piston durability. Thin pins actually put more load in to the pin tiers. New pistons designed for thin pins are reinforced in this area. Taking a production piston and installing thin pins in will eventually crack the pin tiers. Only a matter of time and cycles.

I’ll check that but doubt it

Standard bore 1.93 CH 440 pistons with 383 Eagle rods are your best bet for a street cruiser, all that other stuff is a waste of money. The longer rod ratio will only hurt the low end torque as well as the V to P clearance.

Bore of the 383 is 4.250 , 440 is 4.320 , that's .070 over , sonic checker is your friend ...

look at this ...

linky

Nobody is talking about pin sticking out past the piston, anything sticking out past the piston is useless and should be removed and it is only possible on pressed pistons, we're talking about floating pins and others have mentioned even putting something between the end of the shorter pin and the clip...

A modern high strength thin wall pin if sized properly can flex less than an ancient heavy stock pin. If you run one made of tin foil that is on you.

I've done many of them, the extra .005" per side over a .060" over isn't going to make any difference. I have a sonic tester and I haven't bored one yet that was anywhere near the danger zone, I'm sure there are some thin ones but I've never run across them and think they are probably the exception..

Great Timing!

I have a smoked 383 crank with a decent block and was thinking about having it turned down to 2.2 rods to use BB Chevy rods. I had a 458 back in the day that used BB Chevy 6.80 rods and 1.32 pistons to get all the compression in a 400 block. That engine ran great.

I noticed BB Chevy pistons had the right bore for a 383 but wasnt sure if it would work. I can hear my engine builder now...lol.

I would love to hear more about this if some has tried it.

Did it years ago with a buddy's Duster. We used long rods and custom pistons to build some compression. It had Edelbrock RPM heads ported by Dwayne and a small Ultradyne solid roller (236/236). That sucker ran hard! Made 600 hp and pushed his mostly stock Duster into the 10's on street tires with full exhaust, full interior, etc. No rollbar, nothing. Just went to the track, ran some 10's and got kicked out. He drove that car to work for a few years and then got married and sold it.

Andy - I think my 458 crank was from you waaaay back in the day (2001ish).

As far as know that engine is still running 10.50's in NSS.

I have the Enginemasters crank with 6.7 rods and 1.32 pistons. The 1.32 pistons can be used with a number of different stroke/ rod combos. works wit ha 3.75 stroke , 3.9 stroke and a 4.25 stroke. I'm thinking of upping the stroke on the 383 stroker I'm doing now to 4.25 , just need a 6.535 rod.

The one issue you may have is the valve reliefs on the BB chevy piston may not work with your wedge head mopar configuration , might be easier to just buy a mopar piston.

I looooong time ago I had a stroked 383 (440 Crank) built from a low compression 454 chevy truck piston and a LY rod bushed to .990.

I'm thinking the compression height was 1.4 something.

We did all kinds of crazy Frankenstein stuff back in the day....because we had to.

But that little '383' (431) ran stout with a Racer Brown cam and a street dominator and some ported 915's. I don't think we had any P/V issues

The math says zero deck would be 1.337 , I'm finding pistons with a 1.395 CH and a single valve relief in a weird spot.

logged in the memory bank for future use ???

Yeah I think we whacked at least .030 of the top of the BBC slugs, they were OEM (maybe what? 7.8:1) 454 slugs straight out of a junked mid 70's suburban.

We tried to do the math to make a 383 rod work but there was nothing even remotely close. I think we ran .060 copper head gaskets, it was definitely a frankenstein but it ran like a scalded ape.