The Elephant In The Room: unloading the load from a B-body.

[fullmetaljacket]

Halfway there with the first polish. I will have to sand a few spots again to rid 'em of casting marks. Lots of small crevices and edges carefully being sanded with a ten step process. White tape in the middle of the handle lever is there to protect the fine engraved lines while sanding.
Believe it or not, Passing the time sanding while at America's favorite pass time events; baseball games. All for the sake of 10 karat aluminum. LOL.

 

[rmchrgr]

So the word on the street is that 440 Source is going to be producing and potentially shipping their first clean slate design cast iron 440 blocks by the end of this year. Supposedly these will be in full production by next spring. This is huge news for the Mopar hobby and everyone should be doing cartwheels down the block in celebration.

As you'd figure, they've added a lot of strength to the block and are claiming it will be able to handle anything you can throw at it and more. It's going to have four cross-bolted mains, .25" cylinder walls and denser castings. That's amazing in and of itself but in the context of this thread, the block is going to be HEAVY. A factory 440 block weighs 230 lbs. Due to all the added strength, this 440Source block will weigh 300! You read that right - 70lbs over the already porky stock block. At some point let's hope they think about making a low deck version which could help shave some heft. Maybe a small block down the road too but I won't hold my breath on that.

To me, this is an interesting juxtaposition. Here we are being presented with the opportunity to obtain last engine block anyone will likely ever need but at the same you're adding a bunch of weight to the front of the car. Will the power potential "outweigh" the added mass?

Discuss.

 

[fullmetaljacket]

So the word on the street is that 440 Source is going to be producing and potentially shipping their first clean slate design cast iron 440 blocks by the end of this year. Supposedly these will be in full production by next spring. This is huge news for the Mopar hobby and everyone should be doing cartwheels down the block in celebration.

As you'd figure, they've added a lot of strength to the block and are claiming it will be able to handle anything you can throw at it and more. It's going to have four cross-bolted mains, .25" cylinder walls and denser castings. That's amazing in and of itself but in the context of this thread, the block is going to be HEAVY. A factory 440 block weighs 230 lbs. Due to all the added strength, this 440Source block will weigh 300! You read that right - 70lbs over the already porky stock block. At some point let's hope they think about making a low deck version which could help shave some heft. Maybe a small block down the road too but I won't hold my breath on that.

To me, this is an interesting juxtaposition. Here we are being presented with the opportunity to obtain last engine block anyone will likely ever need but at the same you're adding a bunch of weight to the front of the car. Will the power potential "outweigh" the added mass?

Discuss.

I think a fairly decent power level can outWEIGH the extra weight with peace of mind attached.
Some cars could use that extra pork upfront such as DVW's masterful '64 that honestly likes to up its nose at everybody. LOL.

My car can't afford that surplus. It can compete to a certain degree because of the lack of weight up front and the factory rear end suspension design, whereas a coil over linked or Calvert bar setup probably won't mind the weight.
Glad that at least something is coming down the pipe to relieve the stress from the old stocks.

I wish some like 440 Source would produce a down to earth fully water jacketed aluminum block that could operate in REAL WORLD ways without all the expanding or contracting distortions, then again what is there to be expected out of the light weight alloy. I'll take the small horse losses of an aluminum block over the iron version just to be easier on parts and maintenance. Inconsistency is what shy's most racers away from an aluminum piece. Street rats don't care of consistency just as long as the thing hauls.

I wonder what grade of aluminum is used for the 426 Hellephant and Corvette LS7 blocks.

Sheeeiiit, if people only knew how hard it is too rid the frontend of 70 Lbs.