Technical Ok, Ford FE gurus let’s talk

hmmm....the 396 they put in the C30 originally was a 9:1 motor, not 10.25. And I think they were a bit optimistic on the CR on those things.

 

1972 was the 'magic' year for gross to net change. Partially due to emissions and part to appease the insurance mafia. Can't say for Ford but over at Mopar, the single biggest change in the engine was a drop in c/r.

 

Also depends on whether you run 87 or 93 octane.

 

1972 went from gross hp to SAE hp rating. The 71 460 went from 365 to 212 hp in 1972. SAE was never measured at the wheels but was measured with all accessories running along with full exhaust a 2 point drop in compression, retarded cam timing, emissions carburetor. I think the 460 finally ended with a rip snorting 197 hp.

 

Ford also dropped compression for '72. Mostly with dished pistons, but a couple blocks gained compression height as well. 351W went from 9.480" to 9.503" and 429/460 went from 10.300" to 10.322". Some stroker kits are designed to use the extra deck height of the later blocks, so keep that in mind if building one of these. 429/460 also went to open chamber heads for '72, but they sucked so bad they were redesigned to a larger closed chamber for '73.

I scanned some factory hp/torque ratings from a '73 Peterson book;
Click the thumbnails to read
Ford;


Lincoln-Mercury had some different engine options;

 

He asked that question. I defaulted to 90 octane because that what we have around here.

 

The early 460's are a good pulling engine but 10.5 c/r its a 93+ octane engine. I did a compression test on my 1970 429 SCJ once and it had 200-210 psi cranking pressure but it did have 11.3 c/r. Today that would be a pump/race fuel mix for it to run right.

The late 460's also have about an extra 1/4” on the cylinder skirt, which is good for the big strokers available for them. Technically you can squeeze in a 4.75 crank in them, but not the best idea for any longevity. The piston is pulled too far out the bottom even with a long rod.

 

The scuttlebutt going around says the TFS heads are now out of stock, and will be going up in price if and when production resumes. Nothing concrete that I have read yet, but someone mentioned $3900.00 per pair. That puts me back out in the garage with my die grinder.

 

I was watching the Summit and Jegs website and I noticed that they were all out of stock, so I checked TF same thing.... Edelbrock is in stock for roughly $1800 pr. For my build, that is enough. I don't need a CNC Pro Stock head, just a better flowing head. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/edl-60065

Thanks for all of you guys that are sharing information. I am soaking it all in.

 

That’s not a bad price. I have e-Brock’s on mine. First thing I did was replace the valve springs, they were woefully inadequate for the cam I was using.

 

A better flowing , lighter weight head. I'm curious to know if anybody has real numbers comparing the weight of aluminum heads and intake vs the stock iron parts? Are you looking at the Performer cam or something else?
What are the plans for ignition? Duraspark or the old points style? Do you know how to recurve the distributor, or know somebody who can?
One thing I will throw in here is to buy the very best starter you can find, as its a giant PITA to change the starter once the engine is in the truck and running, especially if it has headers.
Just some other things for you to think about while you are just in the thinking stage.
Good Luck.

 

I had a fairly long conversation with Brent Lykins about Edelbrock vs Trick Flow FE heads. He highly recommended the TF heads for several reasons. One, they come CNC ported, an extra-cost deal on the Edelbrocks. He said they have superior mid-range flow out of the box and if you're after a mid-range monster, that's what you want. Second, he says the parts used to assemble the TF's are better quality, US-sourced and will work as-is including the springs (although you do need to order the heads with the right springs for your cam type). As usual, you get what you pay for. And it should be telling that the TF heads sell out before the Edelbrocks... They went out of stock three times before I pulled the trigger on mine. You might want to throw a wider search net. When I bought mine, Jegs/Summit were out, I found a small online vendor that had a pair in stock, $2400 w/free shipping and no tax.

I don't see a big price increase when they become available again (probably in 6-8 weeks). $3900? That's a 60% increase, I just don't see that happening...

 

I will probably go with an aftermarket ignition system, no points for me. At the very least the Duraspark.

I will also source a gear reduction type starter.

I did read that the factory intake weighs 85 lbs, which is ridiculous. I am looking at the Performer to replace it. According to Jegs catalog, it weighs 28. I will use a one inch spacer as well.

Brent Lykins is drafting up a hyd roller cam for me they will be at its max hp at 4,000 rpm’s.

 

The FE is one of the lighter motors from the '50s. Only 25 lbs more than a Y-block, compared to the other big-inch motors it's lighter than most. The Chevy W is about the same, as is the Pontiac. The Buick, Olds, Mopar Hemis and Caddy motor are all more, some by a lot. It even compares well to the early '60s big blocks, being lighter than the BBC, RB Mopars and Caddy and about the same as the next-gen Buick, Olds. And yes, if you go with aluminum parts you can get the weight down pretty close to the all-iron SBC. One 'advantage' to that huge FE intake is as a percentage of weight when you switch to aluminum it drops more weight than the 'normal' intakes used on other motors. It's worth a 50 lb saving just by itself...

One 'flaw' with the FE is Ford never cast an aluminum manual bellhousing for the FE, unlike all of their '60s motors, sticking with cast iron all the way to the end of production. If you want to save weight, a $1K Quicktime bell is your only choice. I've been mulling the feasibility of converting an aluminum FE Cruiseomatic/FMX bell to a manual... Not legal for racing, but should drop another 30 or so lbs off the complete assembly for street use.

 

That’s good point. Truck engines operate under inherently different conditions, if they’re used like trucks, then car engines do. The engine manufacturers weren’t stupid when they always dropped the compression ratio for trucks.
On the other hand, if you use the truck like a hot rod, with occasional short bursts of full throttle, and don’t try to drag a fully loaded trailer up an extended grade on a 100 degree day, run premium fuel and retard the timing a little, you can tolerate a little more compression.

 

On the fabrication side of my shop, I have seen some very substantial price bumps over the last couple of years. Although 60% is huge, much depends on what the raw costs were on the last production run compared to today. Aluminum has had some of the biggest bumps around here, mostly I am told, due to cost of energy and which grid your utility buys from.
Also, at the current rate of inflation, the worker bees need increasingly more so they can pay the bills. It is a never ending spiral that currently has a lot of speed.

 

For those of you with age, do you remember probably around 3 decades ago when the rage was building 9-1 motors to run on 87 octane? With a proper camshaft and an intake manifold matched to what you're doing, they were very good combo's. I run 9.5 on steel head engines and would run 10-1 on alum. head engine and expect good results on 87 octane fuel. Root mentioned modern ignition. The duraspark pickup will work with many modern boxes. I believe it was Crazy Steve who mentioned using an MSD with his.

 

When they ran the 427 FE in NASCAR I'm fairly sure they were running dual point distributors. You'd probably be hard pressed to find one today, even if you wanted to.
Waddell Wilson was one of the guys building motors for Holman Moody at the time. He built the engine Mario Andretti won the Daytona 500 in 67. Lorenzen ran 2nd, he built that one too. Fast forward a few years, Waddell wrote a book, Racing Engine Preparation, and he goes into pretty good detail about the dual point distributor. His writeup for the Ford was actually about the 351C, but it has to be pretty similar for the FE. It doesnt sound like anything I'd want to deal with on a regular basis with a street driven vehicle. One thing he mentioned was that the most likely problem with a distributor was a bad condenser. Even back then it was a problem, I thought the lack of quality was something new.
The Duraspark setup was factory parts, but still looks out of place in a HAMB era vehicle.
If looks arent a problem for you, Mallory makes 2 different billet type distributors that will give you electronic.
I think you can get an HEI type distributor for the FE, but I'm not positive on that one.
If you're wanting to maintain a stock appearance, the Pertronix conversion will eliminate the single points and still have a stock appearance.
I'm still running the old single point distributor in the truck I drive daily, but I think if I decided to change I would go to somebody who makes a living at this ignition stuff and pay for professional help instead of trying to wing it on my own. Good Luck.

 

The old water well irrigation pump engines, are capable of running 200 mph as in GURNEYS FORD GT!

 

Virtually every Ford solid-lifter HiPo engine '60-67 used a mechanical-advance-only dual point distributor. There's still more than a few still out there for those who want one. They were also used in marine applications. They disappeared on cars in '68 due to tightening emission standards, then briefly returned on the '69-73 CJ/Boss/HO motors, now with vacuum advance added. Duraspark showed up in '74, points were now gone...

The beauty of the Duraspark is if you remove the oversized cap/adaptor/rotor and replace them with a points-type cap/rotor, it now looks period correct. Can't do that with a HEI or billet...

 

I didnt realize these were so plentiful. I'm sure there were plenty of people that set them up in the back yard and got them right, but I'd say there were plenty that got them wrong. Distributor machines and people to run them correctly arent very plentiful today.
Id be curious what would be the setup to go in this motor we are discussing. Its going to have different heads, compression, deck clearance, cam, intake etc. The correct curve for romping around town empty is definitely different than running loaded and pulling on the interstate. Nowadays they change all this stuff with a laptop and a few clicks. Maybe I think too much at 2am. At least I get to follow along and learn without spending my own money.
For me, the Duraspark would be the last choice. I had that setup on a 460 in a pickup. It would shut off going down the road, no warning. Sometimes it would start back, sometimes it had to cool off first. So I bought another brain box. All was good for a few months and it started doing the same thing. I got pretty good at swapping those two brain boxes back and forth on the side of the road. If this happens at 35 on the way to the post office its not such a big deal, but if you're towing a trailer in the hammer lane and you suddenly have no power, no power steering, no power brakes and in traffic, the fun stopped happening. At least when points go bad they usually do it gradually and give you some warning they need attention.
Anyway, interested in what happens with this deal here. Good Luck.

 

That's why I use an MSD box, either a 6A or 6AL, the Duraspark distributor is just the trigger. I've had zero issues with that set up. Easier to wire in too. Ford re-circuited their box several times, chasing issues. Adding in uneven quality of the aftermarket replacements didn't help either.

 

I think it boils down to three things- Wants /Needs/Budget. This will guide you to what you build for yourself. FE*s are old Dinosaurs, getting harder to find/support. They are not for everyone, but some of us cant get enough of them.

 

Just for reference, @Crazy Steve you don't have the schematic for that type of setup do you?

 

The Boss and CJ cars actually came with a dual vacuum advance distributor. I believe the inner port was designed to retard timing at idle for emissions purposes. The target was the back for performance engines in the late 60’s for sure.

 

I had a 69 Boss 302 and that’s how I remember it. Mine was “upgraded” to a dual point 289 hipo mechanical advance distributor which was an over the counter dealer part and available at Gratiot Auto and other speed shops in the seventies before Ford pulled the plug on the Muscle Parts program.

 

The original ones are insanely expensive to replace for the very reason you gave. The take away here is never throw anything away, 50+ years down the road it will have value.

 

There's a diagram in this thread for the duraspark: https://www.fordfe.com/quick-msd-6al-to-duraspark-with-msd-8869-wiring-ad-t166647.html

 

When in doubt..... Cam it!....