The elusive 224/3.7 MerCruiser banger

tscheerer - That looks good! Even if you posted it before this would be a good place to put a build sheet. Future visitors would look at it with your video. I'm too lazy to go back through your posts. What head, header, balancer are you using? Is it pretty much stock inside? Are those vents on top of the valve cover? Have you done any fit up work with it in the Vega? Interesting project. I will follow how it works in that use.

 

The solution for page 46&47's gearbox input length worries, was for me a 94-98 Mustang T5. they have a longer input shaft. Within about .070" of perfect, which is plenty close enough.

tscheerer that thing sounds and runs great. YES spec Sheet please!
(what muffler? that looks like a TBI unit? Starter "rang" a little pulling off- any problem there?)


OK, boat guys- I have a question for you.
My motor core came with the iron oil pump which has a pick up tube that runs central in the pan right below the crankline (may tag a main cap for support, IIRC?) and enters the pump from the rear, lengthwise to the engine.
I have only been able to find one other pic of a similar set up.

Everyone else has an aluminum body oil pump with a pickup that runs along the driver side (*cough* Port, lol) pan rail, and crosses what looks like under the front main...and enters the oil pump "across" the motor.

Also, I have seen one pic of a full depth box pan (that didn't look home made).

So, I have in the mail, (thanks to that big auction site) one supposedly reusable "typical" pump& pick up, because I need to notch clearance into the pan right where the set up I have sits.

Now, sitting in the garage looking at the setup, drink in hand formulating a plan (it's hard to formulate stone cold sober), I figured maybe the center pick up and box pan were for small boats that the angle to the water changes more than the regular boats that'd take an inboard.
Then I realized, hey! the pick up ended up in the same spot either way!
And not for the first time, figured engineers just changed things to keep themselves employed.

Anyone got a familiarity with the Merc pans and pumps, & can clear anything up?

 

Here are some pics:
This pump I have (& the pump close ups can be see at the eBay link right after)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/OIL-PUMP-AS...ash=item21058affd2:g:atYAAOSwcdBWRR2-&vxp=mtr

This is the one I want

 

Idar : What year is your block with the iron oil-pump/central pick-up?( Possibly early?) Mellings has a new aluminum pump listed(I forget the number) with the tube inlet like your 'other' picture. I think most of us have that set-up as it's the only one I've run across after pulling down 3 different motors. so should be available from a boat-motor salvage at a reasonable price. Or fab it yourself if they're outrageous(you could even do your own dry-sump if you wanted to.)

 

No idea the age of the motor. ser # 6102563

As said: "So, I have in the mail, (thanks to that big auction site) one supposedly reusable "typical" pump& pick up, because I need to notch clearance into the pan right where the set up I have sits."

 

If you call Mercruiser Inc. they can tell you when that [HASHTAG]#motor[/HASHTAG] was built . Getting info & 'specs' out of Mercruiser takes "Effort"!! I had to make 4 phone calls just to get basic torque values(head/main/rod specs). The independent suppliers are easier to deal with! The tube that goes down the edge of the block typically bolts to the block 'wall' in 2 places for support, so your pan may not need to be 'notched' for clearance. Just trying to help out, as I also had an 'interesting' learning curve(& I'm still on it!! LOL!!)

 

My block already has the little (1/4 inch?) studs on the pan rail for the tube, so it having this other pump would likely have come from the history of this engine being made out of 3 or 4 blown up ones. It even has a main cap from another block that has been fitted- that is often a big job (unless you luck out), and has been done right.
This was where the engine was sourced from- super isolated, served partially by barge for larger freight, though I did drive: http://www.google.ca/search?q=bella+Coola+BC

Here are the torque specs. I saved them off this thread AFIAK.

 

Unless I missed a reply, I still don't know who has billet cams- in the market generally and here specifically. Ness&From Racing do. Its a dry sump so whithout a dist gear.. A poster to another forum claimed he had had one done, and knew his stuff. Doesn't mean he can't be a smart BS'er though. Never got him to reply to specifics.

Did you try these guys- Titan? tool steel is good stuff. Edit- I just checked and this is not the "oil pump Titan co". It's a trade name of Callies, unrelated.
Of course there's always AliBaba.

Looks like we all should read a little slower. Yes, you'd need a melonized, or bronze, or possibly composite, gear, but first you have to have a gear, and that is a real open your wallet deal.

 

Could the iron oil pump be from a 385 series Ford(370/429/460) that someone used when they weren't able to locate the proper Mercruiser pump? The alignment of the pickup tube & pump does suggest V-8 ; I'm just asking, as I don't know. As to the Roller Cam controversy : if a dry sump is used with an external oil pump, a distributor could be run off the end of the cam, so no need to cut 'camshaft-gear-teeth' in the new cam, as they're only there to drive the distributor/oil pump anyway.

 

The Stock core flat tappet designs marked NEW will "just" work on .874" Ford lifter diameter.
You know... as long as nothing goes wrong.
And they have much more lift area than most hydraulic rollers or even older design solid rollers.
I did the 220/226.
Check out the @ .200 figures .... and compare to... say, CompCams, who are very good. You might be surprised.
In my opinion you are talking at very most, single digit HP gains going from one of these, to a roller.


Oh, and yeah there is a misprint in the lifts. Too lazy to calculate every one and type it into a chart. Pick a lobe or two, do your math. No lash on these- hydraulics.

 

as far as the Cam gear- no it is not in common with anything else. The chain is, but that doesn't help.

And no, oil pumps are nothing like Ford 429/460 pumps, they are one of the areas Mercruiser did their own thing.

 

iadr,
I have 3 motors. All of them have the oil pump setup that you motor has. One of my motors has the "new" style camshaft/water pump drive, the other two are the "old" style. That leads me to believe that the oil pumps styles were swapped out for different boat manufacturers. All of my motors have the 2 studs in the side of the block to support the other style oil pickup tube. I think these were put into all the blocks so they could fit any application. I don't know the production date of my motors.

Clint Neff is running a billet roller in his Comp Eliminator motor. Doug Lee has a billet roller in his yet to run motor. Both are custom built cams, but from different sources. Neither have distributor drive gears. I am planning to have a cam built for one of my motors. My goal is more lift than our stock cams can be reground to. My aftermarket head is capable of a lot of flow so the big lift should make big power. My delay has been in determining if I will run a turbo or N/A. The cam lobe profiles would be different. As if our motors weren't rare enough we have different options for the cam front snout. Some would prefer to run one of the 2 stock water pump snouts. I plan to have mine made like the Lee and Neff cams. They drive a remote oil pump and distributor from the cam snout. That requires an extension be machined onto the snout. This eliminates the stock water pump. If anyone else if interested in a similar cam PM me. The more you buy the cheaper each gets.

iadr, I am not following your cam lobe post. Are you saying there is enough size on our existing stock cams to regrind to this lobe configuration? You said you did the 220/226? Is that the VH43 lobe pattern? Is that the largest that would work on our cores? As you can tell I am not enthused about spending the big money for a custom billet roller cam and roller lifters. If I run a roller cam I will also step up to T&D rockers which adds even more money. If I run a hydraulic cam I would run the blue Scorpion rockers with a girdle.

My project is moving VERY slowly. Life has got in the way. It should move faster in the spring.

 

I bet your project is moving faster than mine. Changed jobs 5 times, relationships, yadda yadda. Close to 9 years now, I think. The supercharged Y-Body Ford has been even longer (and may have changed hands within that time?). The one roadster with the apple green trimmed mechanical bits, the owner passed on, car got more work by Fuller in CA (who mostly posed for photos -and by implication bragged about someone else's work). We've lost Sarge Nichols, Randy Dupree lost interest in these motors & focused for several years on building up his artsy antique shop-home, and may not race at all anymore? etc.
I'm 43, I think your profile said 39. Time does..do its thing.

I am attaching pics of my Lunati regrind. Incidently- is this the early or late nose?

It doesn't look that radical, does it? Big base circle, lobe with big nose radius, it hides in plain sight! I know there are case hardening and other hidden problems but *if* you went right down to the core diameter on the heel, I think you'd be having the lobe material for at least the 242@.050. For that matter, I have a Volvo b18 cam that Isky undercut the core on. A little safer on something that is planned to have 200lb open pressures, maybe not so good an idea on this.
So, looking at it this lobe I have photoed (vh44, exh) gives -with the Boss 1.75 ratio, about .576" lift. If you want a racier duration you are going to look at the two larger lobes. I'll write them as a conventional split duration, though if you turbo, you may run a single pattern or even reverse split.
dur 287 - 242 @ .050 .161 @ .200 lift with 1.73 = .614, lift with 1.8 .639"
dur 297 - 252 @.050 .171 @ .200 lift with 1.73 = .637, lift with 1.8 .662"
There is a some chance the 252 won't fit on a factory lobe (is it worth chasing a 488 cam core?).
For rockers, 1.8 rockers are as easy to find as 1.73.
http://www.summitracing.com/int/search/part-type/rocker-arms/make/ford/rocker-arm-ratio/1-8

My contention is that the best hydraulic lobes- bearing in mind you lose any safety margin by going to a .904 design lobe on an .874 lifter, with a 1.8 rocker, have valve open times better than "average" hydraulic rollers.
Here are Comp's Xtreme energy. I'm prejudicing this by picking a mass market hydraulic roller, not a race oriented solid, but to be fair I used the Ford Lobe ie base circle...though maybe we'd be coming down to SBC base circle at this point, actually, IDK.

Point being, this is what every machine shop sticks in their -crate-motor-competitor-packages, and most of us think of as a roller.
Basically zero advantage except some nose radius, presumably.
Hardcore race solids pull up some advantage, yeah. But remember to deduct lash...

Going back to the Lunati's, you'd probably be wise to pay the man to have Nitriding done after one of these regrinds. That at most adds a couple hundred... sometimes less than $100 with another purchase or if you don't need it done "this week". I don't think I did pop for it on mine, but may have? But, I did buy some of the carbide face lifters (Schuebeck) that kept coming and going out of production mid 90's to 2008-ish.

I am using Comp 26095 springs set up "tall" for reduced seat pressure. They are for some kind of Nascar sub series- not quite Cup, I don't think? Beehive with small titanium retainers. They are overkill for me, but I bet -probably with a shim, they'd work for you, if you go this way. Actually not sure if hte Boss head changes that? EDIT- had wrong spring number up here for a couple hours.

 

iadr - From my understanding that is a late style camshaft nose.
I don't think my profile has my age.... 60 and fading quickly
I intended to use the 1.8 ratio lifters if I was using a regrind cam. If I use a billet roller I will stay with the 1.73 since I can have any lift I want on the cam.

 

My high performance motor is moving at a snail’s pace, but I have been daydreaming about building one of these motors for street use.

On my high performance build I bought an A460 head. The intake ports do not align with the stock manifold. This requires a custom intake manifold to be built. That doesn’t sound so bad but it has turned into a major project for me. These ports are also massive which would not be a good setup for a street motor.

Are there any aluminum performance heads that the intake ports match the stock Mercruiser intake manifolds? The 2 heads I had in mind were the Edelbrock’s Performer RPM 460 and Trick Flow TFS-53410001. There may be others. The cheap eBay aluminum heads don't appear to be high enough quality for my preferences.

Do these heads work as bolt on, direct interchange, for the Mercruiser 3.7? I understand there is no water outlet in the front of the head. A different water circulation system would need to be used. If someone was willing I guess the front of the aluminum head could be bored and set up for a stock type water passage.

 

Hi, I have an edelbrock rpm head on mine, all went well except getting all the roller valvetrain setup and lined up ! I went with an external morso thermostat housing. I have a post on here about what i did.
definitely picked up a few 100 rpm, in the jet boat world thats big,lol It got pretty pricey once the dust settled!

 

hey guys,i'm still alive.
i did loose interest in running the mercruiser engine,and i did spend 10 years building my warehouse home.
cash flow has slowed down and its a long haul to Ohio to race,even further to Bonneville.
i still have my speedracer,it has not been out of the trailer in 10 years.
i still get calls from guys running the 470s,and i do check in with you guys every now and then.
i raced those engines for 10 years,and only blew one up,a dumb move on my part.

a friend got killed at B-ville,and since i don't drive my car i don't feel good about putting a driver in harms way.
so,i doubt i will race again.
hell,to tow all the way to Ohio would be 2 days each way,and a lot of cash for the fuel bill.
And,with only a 2 day race,its hard to justify making 2 runs for the thousands it would cost to get to Ohio and race.
The last time we went to B-ville it cost about $5000,fuel,food and racing expense.
Its not a cheap sport.
Plus,now if you go over 200 you need a hans device and other spendy stuff.

What i need to do is build a little diesel engine and run slow,that would be affordable.

 

Great to hear from you Randy. $5k is what our car owner spends also, but he just hauls from OK. The salt is going away so there may not be that option much longer. He has run at Ohio also. I don't enjoy the mile events as much. There are some new mile events for 2016.
https://www.usmileracing.com/the-u-s-mile-announces-event-locations-expansion-for-2016/

Randy you need a car knowledgeable guy to partner with you on your Bonneville car. A guy that wants to drive. That cuts your cost in half. Get them involved on the car before the Bonneville trip. Let them make the decision if it is safe to drive it. Our car owner/driver has a talk with the crew every year. He let us know it is his decision to drive it and he is doing something he dearly loved. IF it would turn out bad it wasn't our fault. He ask us to do the best we could knowing none of us were professionals. If we saw a concern he wanted to hear it. In the end it was all on him. He thanked us for helping him live his dream. Racing can be dangerous especially at the really high speeds there. We went 250mph. Would I rather go in a crash there or slowly in a nursing home? I think you know.

Where can I pick up my partnership application?? The driver supplies his own safety apparel, including hans device. A 10 yr old cage will need some updates.

Little slow diesel? At Bonneville? The only diesel classes are in a streamliner or truck, right?
OR a diesel for around town? If it's for around town check out the Kubota V2203 on the net.

 

Randy, I'm pleased to hear from you. Your advice was invaluable for me and I thank you for your generosity in providing it. I'd say you did well only blowing up one engine, I broke mine last fall (hydrolocked) so I bought a replacement a month ago.
In trailering a car, much of the expense depends on the tow vehicle*. I have parked my 9mpg ford pickup and pull things with cars that get good gas mileage. My wife towed my car and got 28mpg doing it. *(of course the trailer matters also)
Beck, the statement your driver made was touching and wonderful. I respect his attitude of responsibility, I see things that way also.

 

Hey guys. I've been super inactive lately due to my schedule but I have made A LOT of progress on my 470 with the boss 9 head. Here are some pics.
We made the decision to go with the crank fire ignition. Also, we are running two holley 500 carbs with a custom intake. We really took no short cuts with this engine.

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Here is some more manifold pics of the finished product for the ports. Still have to make the top playes tomorrow. Also had to make a plate for the head to make it 90 degrees since the boss head is tapered.

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How about a shot of the whole engine with the manifold and head in place? I'm really liking what you're doing here.

 

The engine i blew was my own fault.
I narrow the rod bearings up in my engines,and i put a chamfer on both sides.
On the destroked crank the #4 crank trow has the oil hoe moved quite a bit,and whn i narroed the bearing i uncovered the hole slightly.
I know better,but the phone may have rung,or some other thing happened during assembly and i missed it.

No,theres no diesel class and to tell the truth i'm done with racing for a while,heck,its been 10years now.
I have a nice big drop tank and the fiat speed racer,i should just sell everything.

I travel by motorhome,i'm spoiled and proud of it.
I like my own bed,my own food and my wife and dog to be with me.

No matter what it cost huge money to race,and the time it takes is another thing,i still work 7 days a week making a living and keeping my stuff going.
Back when i was racing i had a few employees,but these days its just me.

Anybody want to buy a speed racer?

 

I will post some pictures in a lil bit. Currently working on the manifold some more. Might even have a mocked up exhaust header by the end of the weekend to share.

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Here is the pictures I promised. I'll post the exhaust flange as well.

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2.25" primaries should make the little bullet sound healthy.

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My cam grinder said his equipment depends on the centering hole so regrind before cutting off the cam nose...I now need a second regrind and a centering hole.

 

You can't chuck it up in a lathe, and drill and tap a new hole?

 

Boss9 Brian : What starter are you using in the photos? Mine came with an International starter that has the solenoid rotated to be outboard of the bell housing &, for clearance reasons I had to go 'after-market'. (the Model 'A' brake lever wouldn't 'clear' the solenoid, & the starter couldn't be 're-clocked' for clearance.)

 

Brian;

I am putting a 3.7 in a Watson Indy car. I bought a starter off of Ebay from a shop in California. Number on the box is IMI 302-012. IMI High Torque starters, Whittier, CA. My delivered price was $260.00 in April of 2015.

I needed a starter that did not extend beyond the outside of the engine block. It did what I required. Good luck on your project. Hoping this helps.

Craig