Will this work?

[Cruez]

Theoretically, In my head I dont see why you couldn't put a 265 or 283 crank in a sb 400 block. I dont have a whole lot of experience building Chevy engines...all of them have been mainly Datsun L series,

 

Would this combo work...would seem to have a high revving engine with a little more displacement than the 302..

[Mike C]

I don't think anyone makes a bearing spacer to run the small journal crank in a 400 block. You could run a 302 or 327 large journal crank or even a 350 crank. All de-stroke the 400. For my money, if I had a 400 block I'd build a 406. Otherwise, it seems that a 350 can be made into quite the winder. I had a Comp mechanical cam in my motor for a year. 265/265 at .050 .540 lift and 106 degree lobe centers. This motor made NO power below 3500 rpm, but it revved 3500 to 7500 almost before you could pull the shifter handle for the next gear. Take a look at a Winston Cup motor. These 358ci motors turn 7-9k rpm for 500 miles! Real high winders. A shorter stroke smaller displacement will wind higher with the same size cam, but in my experience, the larger displacement motor can be made to rev fast also with good lightweight reciprocating parts and valvetrain which I think is worth more power and durability wise than building an odd combination of bore/stroke. Also, all the money saved on custom parts for the destroked motor can be spent on better parts for a standard displacement motor.