When I bought my Willys it had a Ford 260 with 289 heads. The previous owner told me that it was a 289 and I believed this until I tore into the engine and found that the cylinder bores measured only 3.8 inches. The 289 has a 4 inch bore. At the time I would have settled for the 289 but when I found out it was a 260 I was a bit disappointed. I really wanted a bigger motor. In hindsight, the 260 would have been just perfect. I later sold the 260 and found a 4 bolt main GM 350 to build instead.

During the rebuild of the 350 I decided to add some extra "cubes" by stroking the motor with a 400 crank. As many of you know, this is a very common swap known as a "383 Stroker". The "383" part of the name comes from the final displacement, 383 cubic inches. This swap requires the use of custom pistons, a 400 crank shaft, balancer, and flywheel or flexplate.

This turned out to be a very expensive rebuild. If I were to do it over again, I think I would purchase a crate motor from GM.