Dump Truck Power

A friend of my brother's has an excavating company and one of his dump trucks threw a rod. He was most concerned with getting that dumper back in service but, also interested in having a bit more torque as long as the gasoline usage would stay about the same.
It was a 370 and we used a weird set of parts to get to the final 429 cubic inches; 4.078" bore x 4.100" stroke.

It had hydraulic brakes so it had no air compressor. We felt we didn't need to use the big snout truck crankshaft.

1, An "offset ground" production 460 crankshaft stroked to 4.100" with a Pontiac throw diameter.
2. The guy is a Pontiac enthusiast so he had a set of almost new Pontiac connecting rods
3. Replacement "press-fit" forged pistons for an Oldsmobile 350 - #L-2412F-20
4. A custom ground hyd. camshaft - 205/210@.050" - .495" valve lift on both sides - 112 separation.
5. A good 45 degree valve job on the stock small valved 370 heads with new OEM production valve springs.

everything else went back together just as it came apart except for the 460 Damper & sleeve.

It has been in service now for about a month and he says that fuel consumption is almost 10% less and the increased torque is noticeable enough that his drivers have a debate every morning about who gets to use that truck.

Cool

Nice!

Need you to do the same for my F350  
Mostly the 10% less fuel usage while towing  

I doubt that anyone else could have even come close to that parts list.  Way to go and think way out of the box.   

There are engine builders that put engines together from everyone elses hard work,then there are the ones that think completely out of the box. You are the latter. Good job Randy.  

Way to go Randy.

ingenuity at its finest 

Thanks for the nice words guys.
I wanted to install a bit larger intake valves because the stock ones are only 1.780" in diameter with a 3/8" stem but, now I am glad I didn't.

I do want to say that this is how things were done 40 or so years ago.  Before the times where you could buy everything and had to make other stuff work.  

Thats true. About 20 yrs. ago when I first switched from the FE stuff,I ran into a guy that had a set of pistons that he had taken out of one of his 385 series builds. When he told me they had been used w/440 Mopar rods,I started asking ???'s. He was a smart ole dude and knew how to make things work.  

How much of the mileage improvement could have been from it being a fresh build, or the bigger cubic inch getting the same work done with less throttle than before?

DILLIGASDAVE wrote:How much of the mileage improvement could have been from it being a fresh build, or the bigger cubic inch getting the same work done with less throttle than before?

I think that being fresh certainly might have been part of it however, I am told that truck when loaded is at Wide Open Throttle a lot. Driving away from traffic lights and such in city traffic; (although it did have a governor type carburetor on it).

I am just glad it all worked well and the outcome was a thing to make him happy.