440 stroker on a budget

Never built one,so input will help
I am thinking of building a stroker out of my 440.
What parts are available at a reasonable price?
I understand stroker and budget are not an easy mix,but there is a good price range in the parts.
I want to keep it simple,ie not mixing mopar crank with chev rods and/or pistons.
Looking at a 4.15 crank.
Shooting for 10.0-10.5 compression.
Good info would be greatly appreciated.

440source stroker kit around $2k or so, Trick flow heads around $2k or so, your choice of camshaft, intake and rockers. That would be about as cheap and effective as it gets.

Sheldon

Parts are parts so you would think that if you were doing an all new parts type 440 rebuild (ie new rods, forged pistons cam heads etc.) the only upcharge should be the stroker crank which is $750 +/-.

The problem is the machine shop bill can sometimes get sideways in a hurry depending on what parts have to be corrected before assembly and guaranteed you will have to correct something.

Kevin

In the end, sticking with all Mopar dimension parts in the crank and rods will cost you in both $$ and weight, which a stock block doesn't like. You could keep an eye out for a used after market crank with stock Mopar rod journals, grind it for a 2.2 Rod bearing and have a cost effective stroker, at least for the bottom end.
Personally, I would look for a used 4.15 and go out to 4.25 + with the available 7.1 rod with 2.2 bearings and a .990 piston pin. This gives you 512 cubes, and a fairly light rotating assembly to help the block live. Better yet, if you stumble across a good crank with center counter weights, that is worth a lot of stress off the stock block as well.
If you give us more details of what you intend to use this motor for, and the manners/power level you want, better suggestions can be given.

I built my 493 using a 440Source 4.15 stroker kit and I use a 440 block. The kit was $1999 and then I bought my solid flat tappet custom grind cam from Dwayne Porter along with my Indy dual plane intake and EZ heads. Dwayne gave me a very good price on the parts I bought from him but you dont have to use EZ heads as you can use the Stealth heads. I went with EZ heads because I felt they may have more potential down the road for me if I want to step it up some later. And I got a good price on the EZ heads. I spent around $3500 total for the EZ heads Dwayne worked a little and that also included the Indy intake and the valley cover plate along with the cam and lifters in which he nitrided the cam. He also went over the heads and made sure the valve job was done right. The price also included a few other parts and his labor. In total I spent about $6k in all the hard parts and some minor parts and that included Dwayne's labor. Course the little parts like gaskets , timing chain , oil pump , plugs , oil and other small parts add up. I built the eng myself but I am sure I spent $7k total with all the little parts or maybe even a tad more. You could use Stealh heads and do it a little cheaper but this can give you an idea what I spent using mainly all new parts. Good luck with it , Ron

The motor will be for a d150 for cruising maybe a pass or two once or twice a year.
I will have to plan ahead and get one piece at a time,have the machine work done in order of necessity.

I think the easiest route for you is a 4.25 stroke kit. .030 over 440 block gives you a 505. My 8.97:1 493 did 500 HP @ 5000 and 600 ft/lbs @ 4000 and it's happy on 87 regular.

Kevin

The absolute easiest and cheapest way is the reason Mopar made the 4.15" crank, but nobody builds them this cheap and easy anymore.

Just buy a 4.15" crank and find a decent set of stock compression height 72 and later 400 Mopar flat top pistons, bore your 440 from 4.32 to 4.342" (check me there for the exact oem 400 bore size) and use the 6.76" 440 rods. keep the cam mild and low lift ~.490" net lift or worst case you'll need to eyebrow the slugs a hair. The real reason mopar selected the 4.15" stroke size was to allow this oem based combo to work.

Assuming you can acquire all of the parts used you're only buying the crank and a rebalance along with some minor bore clearancing for the rod bolts which may take an hour with a dremel and less than 1/2 that with air and carbides.

Sure the bototm end will be heavier but the $$$ you save can be better spent upgrading the heads and torque is torque from there on out.

It's almost too easy to do it real old school if all you really want is more grunt. We're spoiled these days by inexpensive billet rods, back inthe day the heavy OEM stuff was all we had and we still won our fair share of battles!!!

400 blocks with low miles and good sets of reuseable pistons are still easy to find, guys will put down the heavy ( compared to a lightweight forged "kit" ) but the 4.15 stroke/6.76 oem rod/400 oem piston bobweight will still be lighter than any OEM 440 ever built by about 200 grams. you can lose more weight for free by taking the too long pressed OEM 1.09" pins and shortening them by 1/2" inch, old school hot rod trick used by Dick Landy back in the day.

Why are we using 400 pistons apposed to 440 pistons?
" The real reason mopar selected the 4.15" stroke size was to allow this oem based combo to work. "
This is one reason I was looking at a4.15 crank.

It's really very simple, the 400 has a lower deck and therefore a shorter piston which allows it to fit within the taller 440 deck height......when the stroke grows from 3.75" to 4.15" and the rod stays the same length the piston has to get a bit shorter (typically 1/2" the stroke length) for everything to fit.

This is really the beauty of the 4.15, aside from the crank itself you really could do it (if you wanted to) on the cheap using all readily available oem parts. You just got to know the recipe.

I figured that was why the 400 pistons.
This is good info for us poor boys.
With this setup(4.15 crank,6.76 rods,400 pistons),where would that put the piston top from zero deck?

You'd have to calc it out based on your squared deck height, it's not likely to be zero deck but should be as good or better than most OEM builds

RB is nominally 10.72"
a B is nominally 9.98"

RB stoke is 3.75"
B stroke is 3.375"

RB rod is 6.76"
B rod is 6.36"

Assume most Standard OEM pistons put the slug around .100-.110 below deck, Six packs, 68-71 340's and 68-69 383's generally were a little better than that.

I suppose if you had a 426 block you could build a 484" motor using a low compression 383 piston.

Streetwize's combo is a good option for you, because you want low speed torque and will wind up with low revs, if I read this right. Its' advantages are obviously cost. disadvantages are that it will use a big, thick ring pack and will lose some power there. Back in those days(60s to 70s) the ring pack was 50 percent of the power lost just to rotate the motor! It all falls back to speed costs $$, how fast do you want to go? If budget is really tight, then the stock piston deal looks great. If you want to upgrade the power level in the future, a set of H beam rods and forged pistons will set you up for potentially 700 hp down the road, just change out the cam and top end.