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383 Stroker Swapped Ferrari 400 Should Be Blasphemous, But It Really Isn't

Ferrari fans tend to be purists in the most sincere form, and they don’t like it when someone who only has half an idea of what they’re doing tries to mess around with what they see as masterfully crafted Italian sports cars. If that’s the case, we can only help but think this Chevrolet V8 swapped 1977 Ferrari 400 would be just about blasphemous.
Chevy swapped Ferrari 9 photos
Photo: engine swap depot
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The truth is, though, if you’re going to pick any Ferrari to gut the insides of and replace with something interesting, the 400 is the one to choose. The 400 was one of Ferrari’s first attempts at a lazy, laid-back European grand touring coupe. It was also the first Ferrari in history to sport an automatic transmission.

A company so used to true sports cars as the norm was bound to struggle to adapt to such a new environment. Even still, the 400 wound up being one of the least fondly remembered Ferraris in the company’s 82-year history. The three-speed auto-box could not keep up with the 400’s 4.8-liter V12 engine. Making for a car that wasn’t great at cruising or very good at track days either.

Jeremy Clarkson once famously called the 400 “Simply awful in every way.” Typical bombastic Clarkson, there are certainly people who are fans of the 400. But this one for sale on engineswapdepot.com via an anonymous private seller’s had all its weak guts ripped out and replaced with some that, at the very least, won’t be hard to make fast.

Gone is the Ferrari V12 and the anemic automatic gearbox. In their place is a 383 cubic inch (6.27-liter) V8 and the same T56 manual transmission and rear end found in the C3 Corvette. Suddenly, this tired old dog of a Ferrari’s transformed into a fast, reliable, and easy to maintain weekend pocket rocket that won’t break the bank every time you take it for an oil change. For $19,500 out the door, that’s not a bad deal at all.
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