The difference between FE and 460 castings is almost night and day. There is enough casting scabs and imperfections to cut my hands. Some of the cuts was thin enough until I had to use hand sanitizers at work. Trust me, the burns gave me nightmares to this day.

I dove deep into this block and I can't help to compare the differences to my 460. There is some minor imperfections in the 460 block. But my 427 has more wrinkles and sharp edges. I was able to man handle the 460 block without cutting my hands.

I got no reason to believe my 427 has any cracks. But these marks look suspicious. I believe they are simple scratches. I can rub my finger nails on them and chip away the paint without grabbing the marks.

I maybe within arm's reach to get my hands on a medium riser heads.

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Fear only God

I took another look at it. I think it's just the way the casting looks

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Fear only God

Hope you’re right!

If not, it’s a heck of a doorstop.

A machine shop that does heads or welding can flux for cracks in 10 minutes.

Yeah, I'm going to do that soon. I'm just paranoid.

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Fear only God

I would have it checked before
I dumped a bunch of money in it.

That looks like a 427 side oiler.

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How many guns are too many?

I got one guy wanting to trade parts. Other than that. I'm not spending money on it.

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Fear only God

I saw 427 FE's with holes the size of beer cans blown out the side then welded up and re-sleeved and put back into service, and that service was the NASCAR Grand National Series (top tier in the 1960's and 1970's). If those are cracks they are far from making it a door stop.

Has it been in a fire?

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Release the Kraken

Get it fluxed and forget about it...While messing around with sand cast flathead blocks I used to poke around all of the casting holes with welding rod, some of the chunks were easily seen and you could knock them loose, some guys were real nit pickers and would work a block until you could run a cloth jag up into the recesses and not feel any drag, there were a few that it was possible to get enough loose pieces poked out that you could feel the weight in your hand. Those little chunks often break loose, when enough of them collect in an tight area they can cause enough restriction to create a cooling problem when you least want one. Oil galleries were checked religiously and tricks were employed to increase oil flow where it was needed. One of the tricks was to switch to an electric fuel pump thereby allowing you to plug the hole that lubed fuel pump rod by simply turning that cam bearing so that the lube hole was offset, as minor as that sounds when your doing everything you can to increase what little oil flow you have ever little bit counts.

No, this was a Chris Craft 427 out of a pair of two. The other one is already being built with no problems. I made another thread about this 427 about two weeks ago.

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Fear only God

This is my first FE engine. I looked at windsor before to buy and I have a 460 virgin block.
The castings are a lot different than my 427.
I'm just being paranoid. This is my dream engine. Every other 427 I found is much much worst than this one. They all had welding marks and the seller admit they are cracked.
The guy I bought this one from swor by this engine. He is willing to build it himself. But in the car world that means nothing.

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Fear only God

This engine and the other one was running good enough for the boat to crash. So it most had not had to much wrong with it.

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Fear only God

Go with your gut, if it fluxes good and you want to commit to it you'll only have yourself to blame. I have a friend that swears by 460/C6 combinations, loves to roast them tars, if something different is calling you, its your time and money.
Flatheads were my favorite and still are except now I'm messing with a 4 banger. Oddball engines are always more expensive to work on and in the end there are fewer people that really care about what engine your running, its all personal. Its kind of fun when someone asks me if I'm still running the 4 banger because he was impressed with the easy way I can pull hills, I drive the '29 sedan all over town, they are excellent little town cars during decent weather. Flathead V8's are very expensive to work on and the payoff has to be personal because even fully blown your working against everything to get 300hp. You can drop $5K into a long block flathead and you still need to do more work to get much over 200hp, which is double the factory spec. When you can get 300hp out of a sbc for around $1.5K its hard to explain to anybody but another engine nut why you do what you do.
I did a little checking around and found that quite a few of the big wooden boats during the 60's that ran dual engines were running 427's, either that or Mopar engines: Chrysler Crusaders. Many today have been converted to more modern engines (Merc/Marine) because of the parts issues. On the Westside of this state (Washington) marinas are full of old boats in yards with engines of all stripes, parts galore.
Best of Luck...

Actually, I have a real bad feeling about the virgin 460 block. Mostly because the guy that sold it to me was a career used car sells men! Lol
No, I'm going for it. If anything, this 427 reignited my passion for 427 FE engines. Worst case, I will just buy another one. I was mostly looking for holes that was welded shut when I was looking at it. Cracks in the water jacket wasn't on my mind at the time. I saw the freeze plugs was still in it. That and the guy I bought it from said it was running recently before he got it.
I forget to mention the bores measure 4.23

Jokes aside though. I don't feel any real passion for the 460. I don't have a good feeling about it and I can't get myself committed to building it.

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Fear only God

We used to use a product in a spray can that would penetrate cracks in cylinder heads. I think it was called Dytel. Almost anything is repairable, at a skilled shop. There are ceramic solutions to repair water jacket leaks.

The 427 Ford FE engines, and really all FE engines were not the best design to go with. They called em side oilers because that was the way to oil the crankshaft. Stock engines oiled the rockers and camshaft FIRST! How stupid is that? I had a 69 Mustang Cobra Jet, 428 engine, and after a run through the quarter, the oil pressure gauge would read low pressure. Took it back to the dealer, they said after it got to temperature, the oil pressure was SIX POUNDS! WTH?? The manager said it was within Ford specs. I couldn't believe it, but I continued to run the hell out of it. Figured I would get me a new engine, but never blew it.

Plain bearings rely on something called "hydro-dynamic" lubrication.

The journals "hydroplane" on a layer of oil on the bearing surfaces, unable to squeeze out enough oil for the surfaces to make physical contact.

With plain bearings oil volume is your friend, not oil pressure.

John

I think that would go hand in hand. You got no oil pressure, you aint gonna have any VOLUME!