Technical Re ringing an engine

390's baby brother! Good engine......
6sally6

 

Ive had 390s.
One wore out one, one mid 70s
I’ve had a few 360s.
The 352 was a lot better than the 360s
I’ve got access to a set of 63-4ish heads that came off a 352 police interceptor. I’ve wondered if they are better than the truck 352 heads.

 

The 352 Ford FE does not oil through the push rods, they are solid! The rockers gets the oil from the head , around a bolt and oils through the rocker shaft!






Bones

 

Very few FE heads are “ good” heads , other than the 428 Cobra jet heads. There are some exotic heads that came on the 427, but chances of finding those laying around is somewhat slim. Some early FE heads that had the machined combustion chambers are somewhat sought after.
Now, days most FE builders are going with the aftermarket aluminum heads. Better and cheaper, if you have to totally rebuild the old iron heads.






Bones

 

I’m cruising.
HP isn’t important and I’d rather build old heads. But, if the PI heads are better than truck heads, I’d rather build them.
Isn’t the exhaust mounting different for the car heads?
If so, might have more options for exhaust with the car heads
But after refreshing my memory, the valve sizes for the average 352-390 should be the same. Some CC differences. The exhaust was different for performance heads.
I had a 390 GT engine that had the different exhaust mounting. An unwise much younger me sold it for $150

 

If you have a little blow by, you might try shooting a little PB Blaster in the cylinders and turning it over without the plugs. Then throw another shot in and let it set for a few days. If you have any stuck or gummy rings, this can free them up. We are not talking a lot of oil here, you just want to wet the rings.

Like a lot of people, I have had very good luck re ringing engines. As has been recommended, I would also try to run a can of restore in my engine oil. But I swear by freeing up the rings, especially in engines that sit a lot, or have sat in the past. Always try the simple stuff first. You see some of these guys who do the You Tube videos where they put some mystery oil in the gas, and put the rest in the crank case, or so a seafoam treatment and put some in with the oil, and often they get a cleaner, better running engine for it. You do something like that, and do a couple of rapid oil changes, and that might be all the rebuild you need. You get a little light oil on the tops of your pistons, and when you put the plugs back in, compression will help to push it in where it needs to go, and like magic, your rings start to seat a little better. Like a well oiled machine. If you do a before and after compression test, you might be surprised.

FWIW, I had an engine that kept pushing the dipstick out with blow by. A new o ring on the dipstick cured it. Seen it on a couple of engines. They were both OK runners that didn't really use oil. Even though they were pushing out the stick, neither of them really had a lot of problems. If you have blow by, but aren't really using a lot of oil, I would definitely try freeing up the rings first.

If you have to do a re ring, your car is a good candidate, because it already runs pretty good. 40 or 50 years ago, I had a buddy who bought a cheap gasket set and "rebuilt" an engine just by taking it all apart and cleaning it out real good. the gasket set came with umbrella valve seals, so he threw those in. It actually ran a lot better just from that. All the major re ring points have been covered here. Don't use chrome or moly rings. Clean the crap out of the cylinder walls after you hone. Really, clean the whole block. But don't do it unless you absolutely have to. Cars sometimes respond to oil changes and motor flushes, especially if you drive them. Cars like to be driven. I have seen a few cars stop using oil just because I did a couple of quick oil changes and drove them like I stole them. I'm not telling you to rag on your engine, but they like to be used. Run them around and go through a few tanks of gas, and a lot of cars start to get very happy. Look at all these cars people haul out of fields and make run after who knows how many years. I really feel like your engine might be better than you think.

 

Just my experience moly Moly rings finish with a 400 stone Crome and cast 180 and set every thing valves and timing as close as possible before starting. Start the car check for fluid leaks get the car on the road and do 10 reps of 50 to 70 MPH in high gear the rings will already be seated. Loading the engine will cause the cylinder pressure to go up and force the rings out into the cylinder walls.

 

Oh yeah, when I first put the .040" over motor together, it only got about 500 miles to a quart of oil. When I ran it on the dyno, I made 2 pulls and it smoked a little when I let off of it. After that it went right to 1200 miles to a quart of oil. That was the best ever oil mileage I had to date.

My position on ring seal is, RUN IT LIKE YOU STOLE IT!

 

A guy I know said he didn’t really believe in engine break in or he could care less about it. He just hammered em.
“If it survives a 8-10k launch, it’s good. If not, I’ll build another one”

 

Ford built many different FE heads from 1958 to 1976 (?). All the “ regular” heads had the same size valves, the ones that came on the 352, 360, 390, 410 and 428s. The 427s and 428 Cobra Jets had slightly larger valves. But are hard to come by, now. There are a few FE heads that can be found laying around that are considered “ better” , the most common is the “ R” head. It is called the poor man’s Cobra Jet head. It can be reworked with CJ valves and will flow almost as good as real CJs.
The “ GT” heads didn’t flow any better than most heads and have a unique exhaust bolt pattern and can give you problems with headers. And the stock GT exhaust manifolds are the worst ones of any stock FE exhaust!
Lots of different things about the Ford FE engine…..it is a challenge…..but it is my favorite engine! After all it was the engine Ford used to beat the Ferraris in 1966!







Bones

 

I’m a fan.
After owning a few 360s I wasn’t. The gas it drank didn’t equal the fun.
The 352 was different. I’ve thought about using it in my merc.
It was far superior to the 302 that replaced it. I still mourn a 410 I barely missed at our local pic a part. I’ve got a friend with a 428 that I could possibly trade him out of. But I have no plans of owning the exotic FE stuff.

 

I wonder why the 360 was such a poor performer compared to the 352? That being asked, I’d still take a 360 or any FE and something to put it in!

 

The exotic FE stuff is very pricey! Even the quasi exotic stuff is expensive. I am in the slow process of building a 462 FE with 3X2s and 1965 factory cast iron long tube headers. I bought them several years ago and now they have doubled in price! But this project is coming along S L O W L Y! Lol Still saving up for my 4.25 crank kit.

See what you can do on that 428 trade, they are bringing good money , now!






Bones

 

Well, that's pretty much what I did with my drag racing engines. Can't really drive those around to "Break 'em in." If the motor had all new stuff in it, then the first pass would be limited to 6000 rpm. Check it over for any loose fittings, oil seepage, and see what the plugs looked like, etc., then run it. If it'll survive that, then it'll likely survive until the next freshening.
Sometimes they don't. I've brought the car to the track with 15 minutes on the motor on many occasions. Once, at a major event, I ended up going rounds. The later rounds were 15 minutes apart. I was getting concerned, but one of my buddies reminded me of where we were, and if I broke it, I could fix it. We ended up turning on the win light in the final round, and when I drove up to the time slip booth, the car shut itself off and that was all she wrote! Motor was locked up. After it cooled, it turned again, but the damage was done. The rings had butted solid from the excess heat and scored the bores pretty bad.

Seems a lot of you guys are satisfied with throwing a set of rings into a block with worn bores. I reckon if it's good enough for you, then that's great. I reckon it all depends on what the intended usage will be. But even on a low rpm daily driver, smoke and oil usage is something I can't be satisfied with. But that's on me. We all develop habits as to what we can accept and what we cannot.

 

The 360 came about at the time of retarded camshafts and low compression pistons. Plus smog timing. The 360s are the same block as the 390s, so are still desirable for rebuild. Some early 352 were fairly hot engines, back when the factory tuned them for power!




Bones

 

The 360s I had got around 12 mpg.
Ran good but not like a 390. The 352 surprised me. Also in a truck, the 352 had more pep. Got in the 16-17 mpg range.

 

For true, Mike. It's OK some guys are still doing shadetree, because good engine shops are backed up a year out now. We turn down any and all patch jobs, because the labor is the same to R&R the engine, disassemble, clean, reassemble. The only way it pays shop overhead is to use all new parts and do everything to the half-thou while it's in there. Some don't need that level of precision. Some can't afford that. There are enough who want it done as well as it can be.

jack vines

P.S. - Don't get me started about "crate motors". There's a lot more marketing goes into some of them than accurate machining and good parts goes into them.

jv

 

Like Bones says, Ford dropped the compression on the 360. The 352 was gone in '67, and the 360 was restricted to trucks only so Ford dropped compression enough for export use also. The 352 had either a 8.9 (2V) or 9.5 (4V) ratio, the 360 was only 8.4. Plus retarded cam timing...

The poor mileage was due to the C6 autos most of 'em got. My '68 F100 (three on the tree, manual brakes/steering) with a 2.9 rear axle would knock down 20+ mpg on the highway but was no powerhouse. That was a great truck...

There's little difference in factory FE cast-iron heads besides the 'exotic' race stuff. I saw a chart years ago comparing chamber sizes and port volumes, there are some 'better' lo-po heads that with some port work and bigger valves can perform pretty close to the 428CJ heads but given the economics of the needed machine work, unless you home-brew the porting it's almost as cheap to just go aftermarket.

 

Piston compression height A 65-67 pickup 352 had a half point more compression..

 

I've done it using a 351-W block... Piece of cake!....

 

That’s what I tell my friends. Then talk em out of their old heads.