Ford 427 SOHC engines

A buddy on mine (Kurt) made one from scratch a few years back. He runs in the outlaw class, Its a yellow comet with flames. well known guy. He is a guru on FE's. Want his info contact me, I can PM it to you. He would know all the facts I am sure.... Not to many people can make one from a block of metal, doing all the machining from scratch. He did.... and raced it.

 

Saw this one at Crusin the coast last October in Biloxi Ms. super nice....

 

My friend raced Cammers from 1968-1980,this one was de-stroked to 395",using an industrial truck crank, he built his own 2" gilmer belt drive for the cams. Injected on gas it made 780hp. He would leave the line at 10,000 and shift at 9, pretty impressive for those days!

 

Here is the picture.

 

Didn't see any pics of it there.

I have a friend of mine down in Miami who has a beautiful '61 Starliner with a cammer in it. It was in Super Ford back in the early '90s. I love the '61 Starliners...and a cammer just makes it that much more special.

 

I don't even know if he's on the internet...

 

Frank Currie has a big HP SOHC 427 in his Deuce he drove to Bonneville, went 200 mph and drove home. I drove it once at a cruise, never got above idle.

Damn it.

 

Seems like Micky Thompson had a couple, at least a couple. The two I saw were in Mickey's Fuel coupe's one red and one blue. Danny "on the gas" drove one of them. It was mostly titanium. I saw them @ Thunder Valley Bristol Tennesse in 1968 / 1969. Also Connie Kalitta had one in a Top Fueler...

 

That was a Boss 429-based 514 in Franks '32, not a cammer.

 

He did. One of his Cammers ended up in a black '69 Mach 1 Mustang. Micky Thompson had his own connecting rods cast for the engine.

http://www.classicrestodenver.com/g...69-Mustang-Mach1.html#69-Mustang-Mach1-01.jpg

 

Here is some more SOHC fun.... They are a wallet buster, too!

 

Cool photo. Thanks SOHC427..................................Don.

 

Sure Don, I love there monsters, too. Here is a 56 Bird, that sat at my place for years, as well.
Eric

 

Bob: Right you are! .....and here is documentation

http://books.google.ca/books?id=xnpR53ENCiUC&pg=PA187#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Eric;what is the current status on you Cammer? ROY.

 

427 Cammers ain't nothin..... (JK)

The 427 Calliope was the real king. One of these engines still in the original packing crate after being shipped back from Lemans is tucked away in Knoxville Tennessee......

"The Ford Calliope engine was intended to run at LeMans in 1968, but rule changes outlawed it before it was ever fired. Displacing 427 cubic inches, it was out of place in a class limited to 183 CID. Two or three engines were produced. One even made it into a test car.

Even though mainly of aluminum construction, this monster weighed 577 lbs, but it was no boat anchor. The Calliope produced 630 (supposedly reliable) horsepower at 6400 RPM. While displacing 427 cubic inches, the Calliope was not related to the FE family engine. It used an aluminum block engine with cast iron cylinder liners. Bore was 4.34", stroke was 3.60". The unique feature of this engine is its twin camshafts, one for the intake valves and one for the exhaust. Both are in the block in an over-under arrangement. The intake camshaft lies 6" above the crankshaft centerline. Pushrods from the intake cam run parallel to the cylinder bores. The exhaust camshaft is found 4.5" above the intake cam. Its pushrods lie in a horizontal plane. The camshafts are driven by chains as are the pressure and scavenge pumps for the dry-sump oiling system.

The aluminum cylinder heads feature 3 valves per cylinder, two intakes and a single exhaust, in a pent-roof combustion chamber. The heads are sealed with copper O-rings. No intake manifold is used. Hilborn style injection stacks are cast integrally with the cylinder head. No coolant passes between the block and heads. External water lines are used instead. To shorten the engine to assist in fitting it to the racecar chassis, the standard front mounted water pump is replaced by two pumps on the cylinder banks, similar to the scheme used on the flathead V8."

 

Nice copy 'n paste, but the Calliope never got going or did anything. There was a ton of "new" stuff then (most folks don't know there were CanAm 351W's in '67), but as in NASCAR and NHRA, anytime the Fords get going too fast, change the rules- see Boss 429 and 351C/ restrictor plates, Jenkins Vega vs the 351C cars, let's make the Fords carry a lot more weight, the fans won't notice etc etc etc The Calliope never got any development and only a few ere ever built, as the Can-Am cars went big engine, and Ford went 494/B9- which also never got a lot of development, as the Ford G7-A and the HM HonkerII were pretty heavy and never got dialed in, funding dried up etc. BTW, I still have my Car & Driver from '67 with all the original articles about those cars and engines, and was actually at the CanAm races "in the day". My buddy got a 494 block along with the 15 used B9 NASCAR engines in the truckload from HM around '77- it was so light I could stick my arm down one of the bores, grab the main cap, and carry it around with one arm. Still kicking myself for letting my new Gurney-Weslake (Actually later "Gurney Eagle") heads go- but I was getting more into 427's by then

 

No, the Calliope never got the chance. One of Holman and Moody's tuners was at Lemans with the test car and everyone was afraid to drive it. He has the engine still to this day, along with a 427 67 Ranchero built for one of the the Ford drag teams to use as a tow vehicle. He built a 427 medium riser for me a few years ago as a favor and I was lucky to have him offer his expertise. I still think about that Calliope engine sitting there in it's Lemans shipping crate and wonder what car could possibly be a worthy candidate. One of the three engines is in Greenfield Village, the other still owned by Ford and the third in the crate in Tennesee. Wouldn't it be cool to pop the hood and let everyone try and figure out what the hell it was? lol

 

I'd bet a couple donuts that you're talking about my buddy Rick from Tennessee that worked on the Calliope, and everything else, back then- small world, eh? Just talked to him last week

 

The guys at Masons have 3 that I know about,One in a 64 Thunderbolt,one in a light weight Galaxie and this one on a engine stand in the showroom. HRP

 

Yes I am. Rick did a huge favor for me and helped me out big time. If you see him tell him that James still thinks about him and talks about how he helped me out with my 427 side oiler for my 67 Shelby. He's a tough talking guy that scares some people away but he has a huge heart. I'll never forget that night he fired up my 427 for the first time on that engine stand of his and pointed the headers towards Maryville and revved it a few times with that beautiful sound echoing through the foothills there. Then he shut it down and said he was just sending a message to a friend a few miles away. lol

 

That 'ol boy has some good stories- and they're all true..
Get him to tell you about buying the new '68 Hemi RoadRunner over the weekend and driving it into work at Ford on Monday- he got called upstairs for that one

There's an old guy who lives over the hill from me who has several assorted Model A's, all with turbo'd Pinto engines, so you could say he's into it a bit. So one day I had the Galaxie going in the shop with the pipes off and the front and back doors open for the fumes to get out, and this sweet Model A flies into the front driveway, and he pops out shaking his head. I'm thinking this 'ol guy is gonna chew my ass for making all that noise (about 7500 a couple times ) As he gets to the door he cracks into a smile and yells "I'VE HEARD THAT THING FOUR TIMES NOW, FLY OVER HERE TO SEE WHAT IT IS, AND YOU'VE ALWAYS SHUT IT OFF JUST BEFORE I COULD FIND YOU!" Hung around for about an hour and couldn't get enough of the sound LOL

 

Ahhh.. Good times.

Here is the engine he built from the parts I put together on his stand from earlier that night...

 

I know Holman-Moody advertised 'em in '70 ish magazines for CHEAP! Like 6 or 700 bucks? I'll see if I can scan the ad.

 

Great stuff guys and great memories. Thanks for posting up the stories...Those were certainly some heady times in R&D at Ford................Don.

 

Awesome engines...this is the closest I've gotten to a SOHC motor (so far).



Back then Ford was experimenting with all kinds of configurations and I have a vague recollection of a Hot Rod article from '68 that showed a SOHC setup for a 302!

 

More fodder for the "did they really build one" arguments...XFiles

 

"Bill Holbrook here and yes we did build some SOHC 66 Galaxies. After the Riverside race in California in 66 I was told by my leader Charlie Gray to deliver a vehicle to Shelby's shop at the LA Airport. It was a rust colored 66 427 SOHC Galaxie Hardtop, four speed. I had met Gordon Cooper, the Astronaut, at the track where he gave me the keys, he had been given the car to drive several months earlier for publicity. We were trying to get NASCAR to allow us to run the "Cammer". I think Shelby was to ship the car back to the Dearborn area. Did you know that there was a 1968 Torino Talladega that was the first one we built. I know because I was given the task of building it by Jacque Passino. I sent for A J Foyts master metal fabricator and to Holman Moody for a guy named Bob Sweetak. We took a new 68 Yellow Torino from our department car count and acquired a enclosed room at Karkraft where we cut the nose off the vehicle and proceeded to build the first Talladega. As I recall this was accomplished in approximately two weeks. Now for the weird part, somehow this car later was sent to the "B" lot at Ford for resale. A Ford Engineer that worked in the "X-Garage" had tagged this car for resale purchase when we were done using it. His name is Bob Schnieder, I'm not sure of the spelling. A while back I contacted a old mechanic that worked in the X-Garage and he told me Bob had driven the car for many years but didn't remember what happened to it, now that would be a real find even if it was a "rust bucket". I was also the guy that directed the build of the 1965 427 SOHC Galaxie that we later gave to Bob Ford that Jerry Harvey drove. It was called the "Quite One" and ran in BFX, turning low 11's high 10's, another one of a kind vehicle. There is a ton of stories to be told and I only wish I could remember all of them. Retired from Ford 1985 - Bill Holbrook 9/14/08"