[SuperDeluxe]

Hey quench you're quoting US prices not Australian ones. Check some clasifieds out here they're NOTHING like what you deal with.
BTW my last 400sbc had over 300k miles when I sold it. My current one has only 70k miles and on teardown doesn't need a ring or bearing. Buicks are like rocking horse dung here and the oiling system sucks. 454s are more common but still much more expensive per hp than small blocks. If you don't believe me come out here and see, I'll gladly REFUND YOUR AIRFARE if you prove me wrong.
I'm not trying to be a smyrtrse, I just think you don't understand the price structure out here.
Ian.

So an Oldsmobile should last 600,000 miles then if your 400 went 300,000? We have the million mile engine stories here too. We had Oldsmobiles that had over 200,000 miles on them that ran fine but the car was swiss cheese after all the salt and abuse from the pot hole ridden roads in the NorthEast here.

But your point is that you have to build up the chevy right? Well if you compare the engines ET/MPH per your currency or even ours it would still be cheaper to use one of the other engines. Don't you have any old Jensen 440 Interceptors down there? Seems to me like you just being biased and not looking in all places. Then again I have been wrong before, I might go to the junk yards here in the states and only find that all other brands have fallen off the face of the earth leaving only chevys behind.

 

[dirtracer21inc]

The 4.00 stroker in the stock block is a tight fit but can be done. I would prefer and aftermarket block. By the time you put all the money in the stock block you could but aftermarket for a few hundred more and have a more durable motor. On the stock blocks we have always stayed with 350 or 400 cranks depending on the application. Good heads and cam will do a whole lot on a 406. But now if money is not an object..............go aftermarket 4.00 stroke etc.

 

[IanRiordan]

A good running 400 sbc costs about 900 here, a rebuilder 454 about 2500. 455 pontiacs and buicks number in their tens not thousands. 600k miles out of an Olds? A friend had a 70 cutlass ragtop - 350Olds/m21 (the only one in the country) and it was using alitre of oil every 300 miles.
Pulling the 440 out of an $80000 rare English sports car doesn't make financial sense. There'd be less than 40 Jensen interceptors in Aust.
I'd love to build a stroked 409 or a 472 Cad but the last w series Chev I saw for sale was an incomplete 348 for $2500. Cads are non existant. Acuse me of what you want, my current daily driver (until the ute's back on the road) is a 96 efi 304 Holden statesman, my hunting rig is an 82 Range Rover with it's 215 cube alloy buick copy and I'm trying to buy a 52 3 ton Chev complete with blue flame. Please quenchpiston check out some Australian ads instead of guessing how life is in a counry with1/13th of the US's population and a consumer market dominated by 6 cylinder 4 doors.

 

[SuperDeluxe]

A good running 400 sbc costs about 900 here, a rebuilder 454 about 2500. 455 pontiacs and buicks number in their tens not thousands. 600k miles out of an Olds? A friend had a 70 cutlass ragtop - 350Olds/m21 (the only one in the country) and it was using alitre of oil every 300 miles.
Pulling the 440 out of an $80000 rare English sports car doesn't make financial sense. There'd be less than 40 Jensen interceptors in Aust.
I'd love to build a stroked 409 or a 472 Cad but the last w series Chev I saw for sale was an incomplete 348 for $2500. Cads are non existant. Acuse me of what you want, my current daily driver (until the ute's back on the road) is a 96 efi 304 Holden statesman, my hunting rig is an 82 Range Rover with it's 215 cube alloy buick copy and I'm trying to buy a 52 3 ton Chev complete with blue flame. Please quenchpiston check out some Australian ads instead of guessing how life is in a counry with1/13th of the US's population and a consumer market dominated by 6 cylinder 4 doors.

Woooooooo just a second. I talked a guy from down there who makes twice what our state police make by bouncing at clubs. Granted he has been stabbed a few times but his wages aren't even similar to what our bouncers make let alone the state police. I did pull up a classified and sure enough a 92 305 camaro was placed for $15,000 with nearly 100,000 miles on it. It did say $ so I am just going along with it.

 

[IanRiordan]

What's your point? I don't need to get stabbed just so I can buy a $15000 car you could buy for $1500 and it's not even an Olds.

 

[SuperDeluxe]

What's your point? I don't need to get stabbed just so I can buy a $15000 car you could buy for $1500 and it's not even an Olds.

According to the guy I talked with and the prices in the add, your wages and prices are relative or proportional to other parts of the world.

 

[Rick WI]

They are? Are you saying the exchange rates have changed since the market closed on Friday. Last I see it takes 1.27 AU dollars to equal 1 US dollar, 1,67 to equal one Euro, 2.50 to equal one UK.

 

[SuperDeluxe]

Your not reading what I am writing. Your reading into what I say in a win/lose logic. When a person says relative or proportional its not a matter of winning or losing its a matter of saying your wages are proportional to consumer prices. I don't hear in the news that Australians are in poverty. A consumer price index that is top heavy cant possible survive. I never seen a business survive yet that priced its products out of the reach of its target market. Even Donald Trump uses the bidding system. Even when I go to sell something, I never sell it at the asking price, but I never list anything at my selling price.

For the life of me I cant figure out why a person on a shoe string budget would drift towards buying high dollar retail priced stroker cranks, rods and pistons for something that is going to make similar power to an engine that is already at or larger than the given displacement from the factory. But then people make the claim that the oiling system sucks on brand B engine but brand C engine will fail in certain situations. If your going to push any engine beyond its intended purposes of transportation something is going to fail.