Anybody tried this?

360 2.125" journal crank offset ground to ~.3.80" (ish) using a 2.00" SBC Journal
6.00" 327 journal Rod. 927 pin
Standard Flat top 327 piston (for a standard 5.7" rod) Compression Height is 1.678" EX: Icon UEM-IC792-030
Square Deck the block 9.6" block to 9.58" and you are .002 in the hole and you have Easy-Peasy 388 Cubes (.030" over) or 394" (060") with a lighter bobweight than a .964 pin Mopar 408.

You'll probably need to Eyebrow the intakes but that's a super easy combo.

I'm sure some Dirt trackers have been doing this one for years but it's fun to see what can be built with crap laying around in the yard !!

I made a 431-383 low deck stroker out of some low compression 454 pistons way back when.

That is interesting. I was unaware they even made a 6" rod for a small journal 327 as people have kinda moved away from those earlier engines in favor of the 350/383 stuff based on core availability.

Main cost would be the offset crank grinding and balancing work. Is offset grinding a crank cheaper than just buying a 4" cast crank I guess would be the question?

Rods and pistons don’t care what the name on them are. Then when you say cut on the tops they go baserk, btw great idea. Some of the racing Chevy rods have Honda bearing size for more offset

Could a stock 360 crank handle cutting it to Honda journals

Do you know of any forged stock 360 cranks?

Not from the factory

Back to stock 360 crank could it handle 500 hp turned down.what is the max someone on here has turned down a cast crank

I had a new Mopar 360 premium cast iron crank turn down and offset ground to 2.00, it ended up with I think 3.870 stroke, I bought a set of aftermarket race SB Chevy small journal I beam rods that are 6.125 long with small wrist pins, I'm hoping to start making that motor this winter and put EFI and a turbo on it and use it in my 1965 Plymouth Valient Signet running on the E85 pump swill so I can learn how to tune a EFI direct port system for both street and strip use
I'm hoping to make around 600 HP or a little lower, this is not an all out go fast project, next one maybe

No, but then I don't know everything, stating the obvious.
I do know the 360 had larger mains for the stock CAST OEM crank, and they made that change for a reason.
Reducing the throws in a higher output motor would seem to be counter to the extra strength the OEM was likely seeking to gain by having larger mains on a stock cast 360 crank.

Are you using stock Chevy piston

Lots of company’s make a 327 flat top, forged or hyperutectic. A Mahler with the small 1, 1, 3 mm rings would be even better. As for the journal And cast crank, I would think the much lighter Bob weight and still decent rod ratio would be fine to 7k if the ignition is timed proper. This combo would probably make very close to as much or more power as a Mopar journal Mopar pin heavy bobweight motor all else being equal. There’s probably other off the shelf pistons and rid combos that would work as well

My 450” 360 uses an ICON SBC race piston with a 1.28 ish compression height. The bobweight just over 1800 grams

Some basic math:

Journal overlap:
360 = 0.6775"
318 = 0.6575"
3.7" stroke 360 w/ 2" = 0.5525"

Offset grind from 2.125" down to 2" would change the throw by 0.0625" and increase the stroke by 0.125", netting a 3.705" stroke.

The increase in journal diameter for the 360, was obviously to maintain as similar journal overlap as the 273/318/340 crankshafts.

No, i am planning on using an aftermarket custom piston, if they have a shelf piston, I would be glad to use it

Stock Mopar rod journal 4 inch stroke cast crank lists for $414 at CNC motorsports web site. A forged4.125 stroke 340 crank is $1100.00 put that in a .030 over 318 magnum junkyard dog and you would have 402.5 cubes. Stroke would require a rod of 5.8 inch length?

Never seen anything shorter than a 6” rod in a LA block but that’s not to say you can’t I guess.

I built a 341” 318 an MP steel 3.55” crank and a 6” aluminum rod using an off the shelf Keith Black 318 flat top


My 440”/360 uses a 4.25” Bloomer crank with a 6.200 SBC rod and off the shelf Icon SBC race piston with a valve relief for the 15 degree W2 (48 degree in a 59 degree block) heads.

My 427” ford Windsor uses a 4” ford 400M cast crank offset to 4.17 and uses a bushed 340 rod (6.123”) , it works really nice but it’s a torque motor and I never rev it past about 6200

LA360 I was calculating about .090 from the .125 difference in throw and that was based on what the late Paul Savadin (Paul’s crank shop) told me was possible on a cast steel crank mainly because you don’t have the fillet radius (like a forging) to contend with… so you can go out closer to the max offset and you really only need about .0015-002 to clean up the journal. Maybe most shops can’t take one out that far. He was considered by most of his peers to be the best in the business.

How about a 400 block wirh an offset ground 383 steel crank down to 2.0 sbc, you can get 426 cubes, use a custom aluminum rod and have a real light rotating assembly in a bigblock, well matched to the 2.45 low gear of a torqueflite? I went with a similar combo in a 440 block, 475 cubes, ran very well. But the lower torque of the 426 size would help consistancy and other than the rods be dirt cheap.

Greg what length rod? the SBC rods are a lot narrower that the BB stuff. I remember talkig to AndyF I always wanted to do a 383 Steel crank out to 3.51" and put it in a 400 and use a BBC 6.70" rod and make a high revving B motor. But this was way before we had all the Strokers-R-Us choices we have today.

I just think in the 400-420" world you can make more power per cube cheaper with a Smallblock, but with the Trickflow BB heads, maybe that's no longer the case.

But if I'm gonna do a B motor I'm already thinking at least a 470, i think the 3.90" stroke with a 6.700 rod makes the best HP/Cube of all the 9.98 deck combos, And it can use the same 1.32" CH piston you would use for a 451"/ 6.76 (bushed to a .990 pin) or a 512" /6.535

depending on how good your chassis is a 470 will make a little less torque but the same power, just at another couple 100 rpm higher. I think at higher compressions the 470 won't beat up the bottom end as bad too.


I guess my OP is just trying to use off the shelf parts to come up with a 360 stroker for more of a Street/truck occassional strip type motor without having to buy a Mopar Journal kit. the 2.00" journal SBC rods are used in a lot of Chevy and ford stuff already and the 4.00" bore Chevy pistons are usually state of the art and cheaper than Mopar slugs. There may be LS pistons that work too, I think the LS1 is about the same bore as a 318.

There was an article in a old mopar magazine in the late 80 that did do some of what you are talking about, thought their combo came out around 370 cubes

My whole idea was a moderate torque motor for bracket racing. A well done 426 could, with rpm heads ,12/1 compression on e85 be a killer for consistancy, at about 10.00 or slower for less hassle for safty equipment.. a simple 590 solid cam, nothing exotic. Just a solid 1,000 run motor.