The 361 in the school bus is a 4.0469x3.500 bore x stroke. What kills it's rpm capability is a 2bbl carb, and 8.5:1 compression. It's not meant to rev, athough if there were to be a high po intake, better pistons and rods (the crank is already forged), and some compression, it'd probably wind over 5000 pretty easy.
Big blocks are heavy, bulky, and as a general rule high rpms meant 5500rpm-6000rpm. The 427FE was as rev happy as you could get in the FE line, and it redlined between 6000-7000rpm depending on how it was built.
There are several series of engines. External block dimentions were how they were designated big block/small block. Ford used a couple different sized blocks in the lineup for many years.
FE
385 series
MEL series
Those were the big blocks.
Y Block
Windsor or 90*
335 series
Those were the small blocks.
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