[BossHogg69]

You guys are obviously "smelling what I'm steppin' in", slotard - you are right in line with me. I put down the deposit on my next engine yesterday, and I will be staying with a short deck block, specifically a Dart Big M. It will be a 4.6" bore and 4.0" stroke motor (get out those calculators and figure the inches!) with a 6.535" rod and lightweight forged crank. I always had my heart set on a 502 way back in the day when they first came out, and even more so a 540 after those became popular. But when I started building the truck it already had the 454, so I used that block as my base and here we are. If it were a mild build, I'd screw it together myself, but a man has to know his limits, so I'm leaving this one to the pro's - Foxwell Motorsports/Straub Technologies will be handling this one. Amateur hour is over!

Most people will question why not a 4.25" or 4.375" stroke to make a 565/572/582, and that is a valid point, but I'm a fan of rpm's and a 4" stroke with 500+ inches will be give me plenty of torque and still be able rip up to over 7k in the blink of an eye. I'm basically building an engine with the same rod ratio & bore/stroke ratio as a bb 427 or even a small block 350, but with a lot more cubic inches. It will be a lot of fun, and I'll post build info and pics in another thread. But for now, I gotta get my butt out to the shop and get those wrenches spinning! I'm including another pic of that spark plug after I wiped all the metal fragments off. Man that thing is beat!

Oh yeah, got a couple more changes going on while it's in the shop; the CPP control arms in the truck now are nice, but the way the front wheel sits back in the wheelwell just bugs the hell out of me, soooo......