The elusive 224/3.7 MerCruiser banger

They use ford lifters.

 

Noted bike builder (and too-cool self promoter) Fuller's Garage has taken over a project illustrated in the first 10 pgs of this thread, after the original owner's early passing. Have to say it's looking good.

http://instagram.com/p/iuibmxrMCC/#

http://instagram.com/p/iuiQlYLMBy/#

 

BUMP ! Please; MORE UPDATES!!!

 

So I have read and learned lots about these motors from this forum over the years! Just wanted to say thanks to everyone.
My setup is in a small jetboat, 16.5 ft. It is the 180 version with the 4bbl carb. I got a good runner for 600 bucks off craigslist. I ditched the stock exhaust manifold and put an older log type for better flow, then had to put a moroso external thermostat. I altered the stock intake like you guys mentioned for coolent outlets on each end of the intake. I have a edlbrock performer head with comp cams XD rockers and 3/8 pushrods.
I ran it for one season with the oem head , then this winter i did the rest and really made a noticeable difference! 300 rpm and 5 km faster! this coming winter i am going to rebuild it and zero deck the block and probably put an elgin cam in..
Keeps my friends with the v8s on there toes, not much difference and better fuel economy! They do have bigger boats though..

Curtis

 

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You are doing well Curtiss. $600 for a good engine is a steal. I started with a $100 engine and spent four times what your engine cost. I decided to go cheap, used an old Ford head did some of its valves and zero decked it but would have been better to buy a P51 head as I will do it anyway because I like the engine.

 

Thanks Dennis! I like the P51 head, I just didnt feel like machining new eyebrows in the pistons. I hit the easy button! I never turned down the center of the headbolts like someone on here did, I took a chance, if the headgasket goes then i will... I also have another 190 engine that needs work as well..

 

The new AFR head is right with the P51

 

ooooooo that looks good !!! now what to do with the edlbrock head !lol

 

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I guess everybody's too busy driving to put-up any new info?

 

I will add a bit more info, When going to the edlebrok head I had to use different rocker arms and pushrods. That ended up being a bit of a pain, lots of fiddling around to get the roller tip to ride on the center of the valve stems. Its good enough for me but I am sure the right thing to do is cut and weld the guide plates. Correct rocker arm geometry is a WHOLE other story depending on how in depth a person goes. I went with comp cams XD rockers as well as comp cams 3/8 pushrods I think 8 5/8 " not exactly remembering right now.I ended up setting the clearance running and going by sound once the motor was hot.....
This winter i am looking forward to zero decking the block and freshening up the rest of the motor as well as an elgin cam. Should probably build a single plane hi-rise intake but might try a 2" carb spacer first. My particular motor didn't com from the factory with forged pistons, What would you guys do there? I was thinking of using a falcon global rebuild kit with a Mercruiser head gasket.
Starts and runs awesome right now, kinda scared to get to radical but i was thinking 230-250 hp should be achievable and reliable with this motor.
cheers

 

I thought it should have new pistons and so bought a set of four pistons from Summit. They were not forged but work well. Actually, the old pistons would have worked just as well. One suggestion, if I had it to do over again, I'd use teflon buttons or some other way of locating the wristpins in the pistons than heating the rods and poking the wristpins in. I paid a machineshop to do it but hated to see the guy get it glowing hot as that degrades the rods. I'd rather have the wrist pins float in the rods and pistons so I can assemble it myself. I tried pressing them in cold (dry ice cold) but doing that just galled the wristpin bores in the pistons (pistons then had to be replaced).(The wristpins warmed up too soon.

I'm using an elgin cam now, but prefer a mild car profile for its low end torque. I'm not even using guide plates, it all just lined up. A roller cam is essential unless there is lots of zddp in the oil. Roller tips don't hurt but I thought the roller had to be in the lifter and run on the cam itself so the cam doesn't wear out. I'm running soft valve springs shimmed to 100 lbs or so for longer cam life.

 

The idea of using 'modern' hydraulic roller lifters seems like a good idea if we can make them work with a cast camshaft. Most of us don't get much over 5000 rpm, so 'light' valvesprings might be a start. Any of the cam 'gurus' want to jump-in with ideas on how to make steel rollers work with a cast cam?

 

BTT

 

Comp Cams sells cast core hydraulic roller cams so they could do one. The side cover bolts are where the link wants to be so may have to perimeter bolt it.

 

Instead of using a 'modern' front -mounted 'single-link-bar' lifter, what about a much earlier style that was kind of like a flat plate or bar with a pair of 2-tined parallel slotted forks facing away from each other that located each pair of lifters with 'flats' on front & back of the individual lifters & were between each pair instead of in front of each pair : would this solve the clearance problem with the side cover?

 

Dick,this summer I replaced my 1935 ford wheels with disk wheels as a test and found an amazing thing: the old Ford wheels were doing odd things when I applied brakes my car would pull unpredictably to one side or the other and stopping power was not good either. As soon as the disk wheels were on, it stopped markedly better without its former sideward pulling.

So as the old Ford wheels caused such severe problems for me, I suggest restricting their use to parades.

As I had modified the old Ford wheels by welding a plate into the brake drum shaped part of the wheel my next step was to burn away the original center of the wheel allowing the use of normal length wheel studs. I had been using welded-in spacers between the old and new wheel centers. They were all discarded along with the old wheel centers. Then I welded the two halves of the Ford wheels together. I have not tested them,but perhaps they are better now.

note: This is not a wheel forum but as one member has written that he expects to use 1935 ford wheels I'm posting this so he sees it.

 

As new cams for this motor are hard to find and the cast cams already in these motors are worn, would it be possible to have a steel rod ground to the desired profile and fab up the rest?

 

Here's an article on Nichols' engine that used a billet roller from Comp Cams. http://www.enginelabs.com/news/homegrown-horsepower-four-cylinder-mercruiser-in-a-dragster/

 

that's cool !!!
inspiring not to give up on this motor!

 

Will a 460 main girdle fit this engine? Looking to build a turbo 3.7 and will use one if it fits.

 

No. The Ford 460 bottom end looks quite a bit different.
However it is not hard to design a main girdle as the Mercruiser main cap bolt bosses and pan rail are all very close to being on the same plane. Measurement has to be dead on, but from there... fairly easy

I would say a turbo of this is likely to be troublesome. The free standing bores and the block being (allegedly) die cast instead of sand cast, means there are multiple weak points once you get up into the 350+HP range. As always it depends a lot on tune.

I think the sweat spot for these is a fully built naturally aspirated 260-340hp. The ones beyond that, the Puerto Rican "Mitsubishi" drag car, the Randy Dupree Salt flats car (his girdle photo'd), Neff and From's Comp Eliminator, and Sarge Nichol & his son's drag build build are all pretty serious engineering projects.
If you are talking a new power plant for the white Mustang as your avatar, I think you will have more trouble reaching your goals than with using a 2.3.

 

I mentioned the Puerto Rican "Mitsubishi" drag car, a 1999 magazine article about which got stuck in my head, and eventually, I guess got me into these engines.
Not sure I ever posted the magazine scans.
There's a typo in the article- BMC rods should be BME ( http://bmeltd.com/ ) rods!

 

Thanks for the reply. This will be a 1/8 mile drag race engine, so if the head gasket can live for 6-8 runs during an event that will be enough. For the first engine, planning .030 over, crank offset ground to 4" stroke, 11:1 compression, A460 head, alky fuel injection, dry sump, 76mm turbo. Need it to make 800hp on 15-20lbs boost, which would mean about 400hp on motor. Have chatted with Neff & Nichols on theirs, will try it without a deck plate and see what happens.

 

I have a few of these engines setting in my shop and am planning on shopping for parts at the upcoming Columbus swap meet next weekend. If this question has already been answered, excuse me. What is the maximum overbore that this block will safely accept and still have life?

Thanks;
Craig

 

I've got mine at 4.40" which isn't all that common a ring size (you can special order pistons set by set, but you can't special order rings in anything but huge qty's).

All the race engines through out this thread have been resleeved

 

I believe Niagara ring is still in business and they will make anything from a single ring and up?

Craig

 

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