Event Coverage PHR EMC Winner 400M Ford by Kaase

Since there have been a half dozen or so threads on the HAMB that I can remember over the past year regarding the 400M Ford as a "hot rod" engine I figured I'd post this result. Once again a Ford V8 has scored a win in the very intriguing Popular Hot Rodding Engine Masters Challenge. This year as in a couple of times before with a "boat anchor" 400M. Here's the link......http://www.popularhotrodding.com/enginemasters/index.html




and a link with some great pics.....http://www.460ford.com/viewtopic.php?t=30004


P.S. I love this image of the "Camfather" Ed Iskenderian blessing the new Jon Kaase Boss 429 top end components. Yes my friends these are street friendly Boss heads with many improvements designed to bolt onto any garden variety 429 or 460 engine block. Screw the subprime mortgage doom and gloom happy days are here again!

 

I'm gonna go ahead and bump this. I know the 400 Ford is an O/T engine here but quite a few guys have posted about them in the past year. You can practically get them for free and they can run and look good. So here's another run at this......

 

I think it has more to do with those awesome "Cleveland" style heads than the 400 short block sitting beneath them, am I right?

People were even posting about this on an all FE website.

 

Well there IS 400 cubic inches sitting beneath those heads. Those 400's have a 4" stroke and from what I understand torque output is what put the 400's in the finals. I think 3 of the top 5 were 400M Fords.

 

Yeah, but 400Ms do come with 2bbl Cleveland heads. I don't know of much in the way of good intakes for a 400/351M and none that will accept 4bbl 351C heads but it must be a pretty good motor.

 

The early ones do. From 1975, they use the same head casting as the 351M...basically the Cleveland 2bbl. OC head with an extra 1/2 ton of metal crammed into the exhaust port...Ford routed more water around the valve guide.

There are adapters available from Price Motorsport that will accept any Cleveland 2 bbl., 4 bbl., or 351W intake, including the FunnelWeb. Not the cheapest of parts, but they work. Beyond that there are no particular 400-specific performance intakes that I know of, unless you count the Performer/Action Plus/Offy basic stuff.

The two basic 400 hangups are the low placement of the piston top at TDC, in factory engines, and the weird 400 motor mount pattern. The piston problem can be fixed by using Tim Meyer's pistons (common "rebuilder" pistons are just as bad as the OE stuff), or using 351C pistons & bushing the 400 rods...and of course calculating the deck height correctly, milling the block to suit.

The motor mount issue generally means custom-fabbing mounts, unless you happen to find one of the very rare 400 blocks with the SBF 6-bolt trans pattern, which also has the SBF motor mount bosses.

 

If memory serves me correctly the 351M/400's have the 429/460 motor mount and bellhousing flange configuration. This because they were used to supplement the 460 in truck applications during the `70's and early`80's.

Here is a pretty stout intake option from CHI

 

The 351M, & most 400s, do have the BBF (385 Series) bellhousing pattern...the exception is the rare 400/FMX I mentioned above. They do not have the BBF motor mount pattern, though; as I mentioned, they are unique to themselves (again, except for that 400/FMX deal). The guys who originally had 400-powered trucks will testify to that, as you have to use a L&L kit, or Advance Adapter pieces, or custom-fab your own mounts, in order to swap in a BBF. You could possibly weld on new frame brackets as well.

The 400 has three holes in a triangular pattern, which is unlike anything else Ford uses. The 400/FMX block I keep referring to has additional bosses, undrilled, in the normal SBF location...but apparently some of these have only three bosses there instead of four.

I know that at least one Hot Rod article claims that the 400 has BBF mounts, but it just ain't so. It would have been nice if Ford had done things that way...

 

Yep thanks "Spun" it's all coming back to me now. Not a very big technical hurdle though and certainly worth it to get an engine in that breathes this good.