I ran one of those engines at the Merced CA fairgrounds speedway in the late 1970's, a "short quarter" (1/4 mile dirt track measured around the outside wall). It was necessary to weld up and regrind the 350 main bearings to 400 diameter, or buy a $5500.00 King's billet crankshaft. We ran a welded crank. Later, Federal-Mogul and TRW started making thick-shell main bearings to make a 350 crank a drop-in into a 400 block. We ran a 4.56 rear end and a Muncie 4 speed with a 1.88 2nd. gear ratio. That made for a final drive ratio of 8.57:1. RPM around the turns was in the 3000-3500 range depending on tire size, and we usually saw 7K at the end of the straights. The engine had a nasty habit of eating thrust bearings, so we made up a lathe fixture out of two main bearing caps to machine the Babbit metal off the thrust faces and replace it with hard silver solder. We could run half a season on a set of main bearings after that, which was the normal "freshen-up" timetable. That was usually around 800 laps, so an engine with 200 miles on it was an antique!
"Go fast- - - - -turn left!"
Jerry
