Down the rabbit hole with ford Fe part numbers

[Ghost Magnum]

Numbers correct 1970 Torino GT 351 Cleveland 4V 300hp .
Loved it but can't afford to feed it the octane it needed with stock engine compression. Cruise fine but knock on hill climb or hard accel even on best pump premium. Would have been a shame to detune it just for a cool looking car. Sold it to a German guy who said their gas is expensive but they get 100 octane at the pump so she'll run healthy and happy.

My understanding is that cast aluminum can run at higher CR

 

[Kinman]

Marine 427 had their own part numbers. That why this engine isn't making since.

Hey...Keep your story coming man, sometimes the best thing about the trip is the trip itself. I'm a nutty engine guy, I don't care for belly button engines but show me something different and I can get interested real quick. I've fooled around with some weird Ford engines, the weirdest was a '67 Lincoln 462 that I found shoehorned into the engine bay of a '69 Ford F-250 Camper Special. The guy that did the install knew his way around a welder and did some of the nicest cut and splicing work I have ever seen. It had the running gear out of a Continental including C6 and its wierd prop shaft installed. When I got the truck everything worked excellent including the Lincoln air conditioning system. I put a huge over the cab camper on it and hauled an 18ft open bow boat, that thing would kick down and pass like it was running empty. The figures on the old 462 for torque were nearly 500ft.lbs., it did like its fuel and had to run two electric fuel pumps when under a load. Another weird thing was that it had a hydraulic system that was powered off the crank, directly at the front cover...you could power the hydraulics on a Sherman tank with the thing.
Sadly...I got a little carried away with it on a long haul and while overheating on a mountain pass and refusing to pull over and cool off...WHAT and let all the people I'd been passing me drive by hootin and hollerin. I stayed on it and ended up warping one of the heads, machine work and other issues including finding parts for the thing led me to another engine install which was a 460 out of an '85 Ford F-350 fuel injected truck, I converted it to carburetor and was never happy with that engine after coming off that big 462. Those 462 were called MEL engines (Mercury, Edsel, Lincoln) they shared very little in common with Y-blocks and later FEs, even had a strange way of having the valves operating in an alternating sequence.

 

[JohnHL]

As I recall, the MEL engines were like the Chevrolet 348/409 in that the combustion chamber was in the block/piston and the heads were decked flat.

john

 

[rubiranch]

Years ago I had a complete 427 HR. Here's a picture of the intake and carbs.



The engine bay of this '66 Fairlane GTA was its intended recipient.

Then one day I woke up and went off in another direction and sold everything.

(My last project)

One of my favorite cars. Love the color too. Do I see Magnum 500 wheels on there too?




Here's my '70 GT. Wish I had a better picture of it. I bought it in 1974.

It came with the "M" code 351 4-v. 300 hp, 11:1 comp and closed chamber heads.




I rebuilt the engine and installed a '71 351 CJ cam, Hooker Headers, this Shelby intake and an early Holley 3310 780 cfm carb and had a friend at a speed shop recurve my Mallory 4-lobe dual pt dist.

I installed the factory ram-air off a 1968 1/2 428 CJ Mustang that we parted out. Another huge mistake.

I removed the little grille piece from the non-functional hood scoop and the foam from the CJ ram air fit perfect.

I was planning on replacing that junk cast iron cruise-o-matic that ate 2nd gear twice with a C-6 but sold that car too.



Helped my good friend build this 289. 302 heads, milled the heads and the block and ran TWR 12.6:1 "Power Forged Racing Pistons". I know it sounds tacky but we had to use two head gaskets to keep it from blowing head gaskets. And it actually worked and was easier and cheaper than o-ringing the heads. LOL

We put it in his '65 K-code fastback. It would spin 8500 rpm all day long. We ran the Holley 735 cfm that came off the 428 CJ that we took out of the Mustang. It worked perfectly.




This '69 Camaro with a very healthy 427 with a 4:11 12-bolt posi and a 4-speed was a lot of fun too.

We were poor back then and all our money went into engines rather than nice paint jobs. Beside, people really hated getting beat by ugly cars.






This 1969 428 SCJ Mach I belongs to my friend that had the factory 289 HiPo Mustang and he still owns it. It has a 4-speed and 3.91 gears.

He bought it in 1973 for $1600 and it had 14,000 miles on it. It was tied up in an estate settlement in CA for a couple of years and then got traded in on a new Thunderbird where he worked.

The last time he drove it was back in 1978. Today it sits in his garage with only 27,000 miles on it. He also has every single piece of NOS chrome for it that he bought back in the late 70s when he managed a parts dept at a Ford dealership.

Beauty rims, 2 sets of the dual exhaust tips, every emblem, trim, door handles and even the little rubber gaskets that go between the door handles and the sheet metal. He even has two black stripe kits for it.

In that last picture is my dad's '72 Ranchero GT. It came with the 351 4-v and a C-6 with the factory 3000 stall torque converter and the instrument cluster gauge package.

Also my mom's '66 Mustang with the "A" code 289 4-v. Factory AC, Pony Interior and a limited slip rear end. Dad special order both of those.

You might say I grew up in a Ford family.



And today I drive an old man's car. A 2007 Lincoln Town Car and a Chevy PU. LOL

 

[Ghost Magnum]

Hey, I love lincoln town cars! Lol.


My little adventure down the rabbit hole ain't over yet. The timing cover dates 1967 truck engine. The harmonic balancer dates 1965. I manage to pull up the pictures from facebook post and found the two pairs of heads date 1968 428 heads and maybe 1973 390 truck heads. The picture make one of the 428 head looks cracked.
Both heads are painted chris craft blue and show their age.

This is one hell of a mystery I have here. It's like this engine built inside of a time machine.

 

[rubiranch]

I looked for quite a while before buying this one. I bought it just this past Feb in Las Vegas. A clean one owner. Bought new in Henderson NV by an elderly lady. It only had 76,000 miles on it when I bought it. Selling Lincoln dealer serviced since new. I love it.

In Nov 2019 the title was transferred into her son's name and he traded it in Dec 2019.

428 CJ heads take three exhaust bolts per exhaust port. I think 12 bolt holes on the exhaust instead of 8 but I could be mistaking.

428 CJ heads came off early "390 GT" engines. If I remember correctly the 390 GT (that's what it was/is referred to as) was rated at 335 hp. Same as the 428 CJ.

They took those 390 GT heads and bolted them onto a 428, recamed it along with a few other tweaks and all of a sudden they had a 1968 1/2 Cobra Jet Mustang.

I was building a 390 tri-power and was going to use a pair of 390 truck heads and now I can't remember why?? Maybe because they were virgins and had never seem a machine shop.

Now you're making me think about going down to my storage shed and digging out my old spec book. Brain cells are burning. LOL

I just remembered when I had my cousin do the heads on my 351 Cleveland and he had to buy new stones to cut the seats because he didn't have one that big. 2.25". They were good breathing heads back in the day.

 

[kreuzlover]

Buddy of mine was a Ford fanatic, think he had blue ovals running through his veins. He was also a roundy-round racer, and his car was a Chevy, powered by Chevy. I asked him why he raced Chevys and not Fords. His answer was it cost at least twice, if not three times the money to have a competitive Ford because the parts were so HIGH. Ford had a habit of changing stuff too much, unlike Chevrolet, who tried to keep things fitting the old engines too. Don't get me wrong, I am a Ford man to the core, but having owned and raced Chevys too, my buddy was right.

 

[Ghost Magnum]

My oil pump dated 1962.

 

[Ghost Magnum]

Okay, I'm about to lose my mind. I was going through the parts and realized I lost one of my spacers.

 

[Retired W4]

I just sold my '69 Torino Cobra (10-bolt top loader) last week to an old classmate of mine. A whole bunch of parts and pubs went with it.

 

[Ghost Magnum]

This is probably what I have.

 

[Retired W4]

if the block casting number, 3rd character is a J rather than an A it is a marine engine block. Also they did make hyd. lifter side-oilers in '68 with additional galleries. I tried adjustable rockers on my hyd. lifter 428 which works (different push rods) and delivers a little more lift. Plus you can adjust for perfect pre-load on the lifters.

 

[Ghost Magnum]

if the block casting number, 3rd character is a J rather than an A it is a marine engine block. Also they did make hyd. lifter side-oilers in '68 with additional galleries. I tried adjustable rockers on my hyd. lifter 428 which works (different push rods) and delivers a little more lift. Plus you can adjust for perfect pre-load on the lifters.

There is no casting numbers. Other than 66-427 P on the back.
All the parts I took off are truck parts from the 60s.

 

[Ghost Magnum]

I found some C6AE-R heads for 400. I'm thinking on passing on them. Feels like that would be a disservice for a 427.

 

[Retired W4]

Yea, those would be for a 352. Not good. The real hot ticket is Tunnel Port but those are like 24 kt gold. Low or medium risers would work well.

 

[PatriotX]

At what rpm range will this motor live ? That should pretty much decide the heads/cam/converter selection, unless you plan on 3-pedaling it !

 

[Ghost Magnum]

Street strip monster. But I might go with cast aluminum.

I just mic 3 different cylinders and found the same measurement. Two of the cylinders have a faint ring around them, sleeved? Don't know for sure. Could be rings left behind by gaskets.
Unless ford was desperate to fill what ever contract obligations with Chris Craft, and used off the shelf parts. This 427 did not start life as a Chris Craft 427. The guy I bought this from showed me parts that came off of it. I guess this was built as a replacement.

Already sleeved or not. I'm still building it. I always wanted one. Other 427 blocks I found was far worst than this one.