Projects SBF Gurus Input Appreciated

Is this what you need? See diagram below.

 

as you have learned, lots of ways to build a 302 Ford! main thing to remember is, everyone that posted a reply to your question had a good running 302 that they are happy with. My 2 cents are: you do not need studs on the mains, put rings, bearings(including cam bearings) a timing chain set, HV oil pump, s 3-angle valve job with a set of springs matched to the Ford roller cam they sell for Mustang upgrade. I can't remember the # now) use your 600 Holley with 65 jets all around. Main thing is decent headers and exaust system for mileage and power. also a cheap Procomp distributor and the procomp multispark ignition box. More cam means more fuel. Just set the throttle so it only opens half way, will do wonders for the fuel economy!

 

Ok so since the site has been down I havent updated in a while but here goes. After playing with the timing a ton it likes running at 38 degrees initial advance that seems to be its sweet spot. I have gone over everything twice and I dont know why the timing is different now short of something to do with the cam. Also after swapping out 3 brand new carbs on it the 600 Edelbrock and Holley just would not run period but I finally put the holley 670 street avenger I had laying around on it and man did it like it. Otherwise I got the exhaust welded in and it sounds really sweet with that E303. Power wise I am not blown away but its faster than anything else I have driven so it is quite enjoyable. I got the TV cable adjusted and for how much bs there is online it was incredibly easy to set with just road testing till it felt right. Of all the things I have done to my old cars the 4 speed trans is by far the most practical. I am able to cruise up and down the hill with low rpms and it makes it a lot more tempered for the highway as well. As an every day driver having that extra gear really makes the difference. I havent driven it enough to get an exact millage but with some full throttle driving it looks like I may come close to 20 mpg. I will complain a little further as to the headers since my drivers side hits on the pitman arm, drivers side on the floor pan and trans bell housing (yes I know the AOD is larger) plus the collector bolts keep coming loose every time I drive it. Other thing is at somewhere around 60 I am getting a vibration so I have to isolate that as well. Otherwise it runs and drives pretty nice it doesnt die at every stop like the sixs liked to it has some power and it hasnt overheated too baddly though since its already supposed to be 106 tomorrow I removed the 12" electric fan and installed a 16" which should help in slow traffic. I am not positive whether the rear axle is a posi or not. When I pick up the rear and spin the tires one stays normal and the other spins backwards while turning the driveline spins them both forewards. Doing a burnout (which only really happens on dirt since all the power is up high in the rpm) some times both tires will turn and sometimes only one will. I am leaning towards a worn out posi. Another thing for driveability is I would like a torque converter with a higher stall speed because this one stalls a little too low. I will add more information as I remember and play with it.
Next on my endless list is disc brakes (I may give the scarebird kit a try) because I feel it needs them now, better heads with roller rockers because that is the last thing holding the engine back, a rear sway bar, and a higher stall torque converter
Here is a great article explaining what I was wanting to know about the neutral safety switch. http://myrestomodmustang.com/articles/AOD_NSS/aod_nss_harness.html

 

Hmmm.....it should be running around 38 degrees total,not initial..Did you check the timing with the vacuum advance still hooked up?

And with that E cam and a Performer intake and stock heads,that thing should just annihilate a pair of tires.I forget what your rear gear is,but Im guessing that its fairly tall,and that the tight stock converter and tall gear are making things unhappy for the motor on the holeshot.

I would still think it would be able to move that little Ranchero out pretty good though...?

Scott


Posted using two Dixie cups and a medium length piece of string.

 

After trying to set timing with the gun I just decided to use the good old vacuum gauge to set it with the vacuum advance disconnected and that's where it was happiest.
It has the 3.23 I believe and it could be capable of a burn out on dry pavement it just isn't easy and I haven't pushed it too hard as of yet. It moves nicely for regular driving and above 3k it scoots nicely

 

On the ranchero things are running well and I am quite surprised with how little fuel it is using so far though I believe it should have a little more power then it does (still incapable of doing a burnout on pavement even holding down on the brake). I keep tuning it with the vacuum gauge so its running quite well and I pulled the plugs today and they look white so it would appear even with the 670 holley on it that it may be running a bit lean. I would really like to invest in a wideband o2 sensor to do a bit more fine tuning.
I think I need to degree the pinion angle because I am having some vibrations in excess of 60 mph and I believe that to be one of the few things unchecked in the process. The other possibility is the ring gear is worn and causing play seeing as I can turn the drive shaft back and forth more then I believe it should before the wheel begins to turn.
Ok the next thing I will throw up here is the need for disc brakes. Yea the drums work fine and I am used to driving them but I sold a little more and have just enough to buy a disk brake conversion which would make this thing significantly more driveable. I am looking and after doing a bunch of reading it looks like the two that stand out are CSRP and Scarebird. While doing a scare bird setup interests me because of the supposed cost savings I have read more and you need to have the drum brake hubs turned down and you have to assemble all the parts so while it looks cheap I could see it coming close to the price of a bolt on kit by the time I am done. While there are a number of others that offer disc brake kits CSRP seems to have great reviews and a very competitive price. For the moment I would like to retain the 14" rims at least for the time being but I have the rims backspaced to allow for disc brakes. I would like to know if any of the followers of this thread have any input on either of these company or just general advice for the disc swap.

 

I went with CSRP and am very pleased. I was originally going to use junkyard parts but for a few dollars more and a lot less work I got brand new stuff that bolted on and ran perfectly. If you have some parts already, CSRP will tailor your order to provide just what you need.

 

Thanks that is good to know. I called today and talked to CSRP and they suggested the 1.3 kit but said I should use the entire kit and not any of the parts I already have.
So today I talked to someone a little more into fords than me and he was telling me that with the timing issues one of two things are happening. One the pushrods are now too long and holding the valves open more than they should be or even all the time. Two that the cam is some how off and that I would need to degree it to bring it to where it is supposed to be. Because of this I took it home and ran a compression check on it and I believe it is low. The check was done warm with the fuel pump disconnected.
1 - 130
2 - 130
3 - 130
4 - 135
5 - 135
6 - 140
7 - 135
8 - 135
I pulled the valve covers and the push rods spin freely when not under lift.

 

Putputboom,

FYI, I purchased a master cylinder at Rockauto for a ridiculously low price (the shipping cost more) and a combination valve on ebay for much less than elsewhere. CSRP had no problem with me deleting these items from their kit and lowering my price. Of course they recommend their stuff.

As far as your engine, I think you need to examine the components you installed to determine where you're at. You shouldn't be suspicious about your pushrods--- you needed to measure and test them before final assembly, especially with a head, cam, and rocker swap. Just google "find pushrod length" to find a lot of advice on how to do it with an adjustable pushrod. Did you also change the rockers? From pedestals to studs?
If so, did they mill the rocker stud bosses?

Your compression does seem low. You installed new pistons--- raising the question of the compression height of the new pistons. Which pistons did you buy?
You swapped heads--- what is the size of the combustion chamber compared to the old heads? How much were they milled at the shop?

I just built a "Frankenstein" SBF and went through all of this stuff. I still have it fresh in my mind (and on linked web pages). Feel free to share the info and I'll help any way I can.

 

Stock rocker arms stock pushrods and E7 heads that were taken off of the motor and then put right back on after having the new springs installed and the surfaces checked. The heads were not milled this time as they were fresh but I do not know how much they had been milled previously.
The pistons were 4 valve relief summit .20 over flat tops and this was going from dished pistons in the block originally.
Thanks I appreciate having other minds thinking to pick up on the little things I have missed.

 

If all you changed was the cam, provided the base circle on the new cam was the same, then you shouldn't need to worry about the pushrod length. Call the cam tech line and ask. if the base circle was smaller, then you'd need longer pushrods, not shorter, obviously. When you bolt down the rocker pedestals you should be able to spin the pushrod by hand until the final 1/2+/- turn to torque it down. If the valves were being opened from being too tight, you'd probably have catastrophic compression loss and/or backfiring through the carb. Pedestal shims are available for fine-tuning the valvetrain. You should still verify pushrod length with a magic marker on the tops of the valve stems.

There were different kinds of E7 heads with different sized combustion chambers. For example E7AE-AA were 62-65cc and E7TE-PA were 60-64cc. Do you know your casting number? What I'm driving at is that you need all the specs to calculate your compression ratio.

Compression height is the distance from the wristpin to the piston top. Some "rebuilder" pistons have lower compression heights to compensate for machine shops milling the block, the heads, or both. What part number did you get?

 

Not positive on the casting numbers but the entire engine and trans were from a 1987 Ford Crown Vic and I verified that previously. Pistons are Speed Pro Hypereutectic H273cp20 and summit lists the compression distance as 1.605 in
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/slp-h273cp20

Something I decided to check and is in fact happening is the cam is eating up the gears on my duraspark dist so let me get the correct gear on it and see if that changes anything though I am doubtful.

 

Since you had a roller cam to begin with, I would have thought your Duraspark had the right gear.

It's good to see you didn't buy Sealed Power AP273 pistons with the 1.585 compression height.

Your combo should be running something like this:

 

Here are a few pics. The dist gear is hard to see but the teeth are worn significantly. All wear on dist gear is from the past maybe 100 miles with this cam the previous roller cam gave it no wear at all. The harmonic balancer appears to be good. The dots are on between crank and cam but the video you posted it sounds like your engine is running significantly more smoothly than mine has.

 

Here are a couple better pictures. The gears are off a little bit so I may just invest in a cam timing kit now

 

Holy crap! The wear on those teeth is beyond me and beyond belief for a short run. Did you install a 351 grind cam (with the 351 firing order)? Does the 351 use a different distributor gear?

It's hard to tell from the photos, but it appears that your timing marks are less-than-perfectly aligned. They should be squarely 12 and 6 o'clock across from each other.

Cam timing is not just about the marks, it's about degreeing the cam despite the marks. Do some research on cam degreeing.

 

I had the person who did the machine work come over and take a look and the dot on the cam gear was off so we set it to tdc and aligned to that rather than the dots and it fired up and was running much better. I need to order a timing cover gasket and distributor gear before I put it back together and run it fully but with luck that fixes things

 

Have the engine back together with the new distributor gear but now I have water in the oil and a broken motor mount. The mount is a easy fix but I am not sure whether the water came from the front timing cover leaking as they are extremely hard to get to seal or whether it came from something else.

 

Pictures of the next two problems

 

Ouch! Sorry to hear about your water/oil problem. Front cover, head gaskets, & intake manifold are all potential suspects.

 

I put new oil in so I will run it and see if that starts happening again. I am guessing it was timing cover because they are just a pain of these SBF engines but I resealed it again with gaskets and permatex this time so with luck that eliminates that as a problem. The odd thing being the water hadnt gone down noticeably in the radiator yet. The timing problem was solved by the gear and I have it set at 14 initial at the moment so we will see how it runs once I get the new motor mounts on. I am doing a ton of small tweaks and changes along the way such as dialing in the speedometer gear teeth count and what not but not too much of it is worthy of mentioning on here.

 

So I have it back together again and with the timing chain adjusted one tooth up it runs super smoothly and it will run at 14 degrees initial but it is much happier at 50 degrees initial. Either way it idles nice at 750 and runs smooth but still has no power what so ever and cant come close to doing a burn out. I ran another compression test on it and I am averaging 115 lbs now but evenly across all cylinders. Leak down test on num 1 cyl at tdc has air coming out the oil pan which means rings still seating but nothing I can hear coming from intake or exhaust. At this point I am considering pulling the motor and degreeing the cam because thats where the trouble seems to be coming from. More info as I get things figured out.

 

115 psi..?It should be up around 160psi.
Was that a typo?Did you mean to type 150 psi?

Scott


Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!

 

Nope I mean 115 psi as in it has very low compression. Hell the flatheads I had were getting 160 psi and they were worn. Somethings not right and I will be talking to my machine shop Monday because this is really activating. The weird thing to me is it is even across all cylinders which leads me to believe it's at least partially the cam

 

Sounds like the valves are open on the compression stroke...Somethingis definitely wrong.
As soona s you said that the motor was a lazy slug and wouldn't turn a tire,that was a red flag.
That little sucker should have all kinds of piss an vinegar!
Sounds like its still a tooth off on the gear alignment or something?

Scott


Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!

 

Try this with your valve adjustment,with it cold rotate the pushrod between your thumb and forefinger and adjust until you cannot rotate it,DO NOT add a 1/2 turn then recheck compression after running it about 15 minutes.

 

I will find out what's going on with the cam for sure. I keep hoping for more but this ranchero has been a jinx since I first picked it up. The push rods are stock with stock stamped 1.6 rockers so no adjustment. With it at tdc on each cylinder the push rods spin with two fingers but have appropriate firmness. Yes they do need to be measured to be spot on but I do know they are not being holding the valves open

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The last thing I like to see is a young person getting frustrated when they try as hard as you are.
A few pointers if I may,are you opening the throttle blades fully when you are checking your compression?
The readings you are getting are verry low and explain loss of power, heat is energy to make power you need to make heat. Either through static compression or ignition lead.
So the ton of ignition you need is a band aid.
Late intake closing events will cause a loss of pressure,you changed the crank gear and saw even less pressure indicating cam events may be way off.
A quick cam degree check will confirm this.
Since you have a decent idea of your combination you can plug in the stats to see what you should have for cylinder pressure. Wallace and Kb pistons have compression calculators that should get you in the game with what it should be with what you have.
For compression to be as low as 115, cam timing is off or a drastic miss match of parts.
If you can spin your pushrods at the closing point it sounds like your ok on the length.
A leak down test is a good idea,use a quality guage to have a number,2-15 percent for a stret car is good,20 percent or higher indicates issues.
Good luck and keep focused on the cause of the problem,hope this is helpful.

 

Never heard of a worn flathead with 160 lbs compression. Fresh rebuilds have around 120lbs, worn flatheads 85 or less....

As others have said, you have a serious compression loss. You also have a serious ignition timing problem needing 30 initial. Like others, I'm suspecting a cam timing problem that is probably either a timing gear or a camshaft problem, or both. Are both your timing gears a new matched set or perhaps you bought them separately? Does your cam manufacturer recommend a particular timing gear set?

Remember you're not tuning for the best idle. When I first started my SBF I turned the distributor to get a smooth idle. When I attached the timing light it was about 30 initial. Bringing it to 10 initial worsened the idle but woke up the mid range and top end.

Your coolant leak problem also indicates a potential head gasket failure.

 

For taking the compression reading I have the throttle wide open and the fuel pump disconnected. I will have to have the machine shop tell me the exact specs on the build but from what I know I am coming up with roughly a 8.6 CR which is low but not too bad and It is going from dished pistons which were in it previously to flat top which is going to bump up the CR possibly higher than I am thinking. I am not doing an official leak down test at the moment I am just putting 80 lbs air in through an adapter and its blowing out the crank case noticeably. I am quite possibly off on my statement on the flathead that was more out of aggravation than reality. The timing chain set up is a Cloyes C3057K and while not specified for the E303 cam I would believe it to work the same. If I have the cam degreed I believe I will go with an adjustable timing chain since this one is not adjustable for advance or retard. I have been tuning it with the vacuum gauge and timing light then taking it on test drives to see how it performs at each setting.