This brings back memories! We were poor as church mice back in the day but still hated to run at the rear so we used (I believe) a cheap Michigan 0.040 main bearing in the 400 block and then fly cut a groove in it for the 350 main bearing lock tab. Most others swore by Clevite but we had better life out of Federal Mogul AP though it did eat a crank if any trash circulated through the system. Poor boying it on gears we used a Chevy 6 cyl pickup 3.00 low gear 3sp and then a Ford 9" in the 2.75 to 3.25 range as this got us in the 8.00:1 final range, were easy to find, and CHEAP. Running in low gear we didn't need an kind of shift levers but just a pto shift cable to select low-neutral-reverse. We didn't use the water soaked alcohol from the track pump but rather super dry methanol from a company that made dyes. Allowed much more leeway in tuning and after seeing the car run at the front the dye company sponsored us with FREE fuel. The reason for not just running a 400 was everything (long rods, forged pistons, forged crank, etc) for them was expensive and our accessory parts (balancer, flywheel, clutch, etc) were all for an internally balanced engine. Looking back I believe ones with skinny pocketbooks are the ones that really advance the sport.
