Backyard 390 Boat build~

[Qikbbstang]

Wes I presume your boat has got a raw water cooling system. In Florida my boat saw everything from fresh water - up river, to salt water - ocean. For one season I ran it raw and despite having zinc's everywhere the aluminum water passages of the Alum Edelbrock intake at the iron head were eaten big time.  Being a 460 and fairly easy to reach, I coated the entire water passage of the alum intake with a coat of epoxy (it was nicely bored oversize thanks to the corrosion).. This did work well. Worst I ever saw was a US Treasury Auction of a state of the art offshore race boat facility, they had two stacked high pallets of BBC Alum Race Heads that were all useless, their water passage ports at the head flanges were double sized corroded/eaten away.  Again these were from full race motors rarely long in the water heads.
    Personally, I shelled out the big bucks and bought a closed loop system specific 460 to keep crud out of the my 460s coolant jackets - though I never saw one on a FE in a boat like yours, for that matter other then mine I never saw one in a Deep-V either.  I'm throwing out that in a boat anything made of aluminum flowing raw water in the path of electricity is short live'd.

[Ford428CJ]

Not too worried about it. That old Edelbrock timing cover shows a little bit of signs from that. My boat is fresh water only. No salt. The aluminum exhaust manifolds look great and same with the intake.

 Your right BB but I don't put a ton of hours out on the boat ... It's lasted this long... I'm sure it will last my lifetime anyways LOL

[Ford428CJ]

Backyard 390 Build prep work.
Now for the cleaning after getting it back from the machine shop. All passage ways where scrubbed at the machine shop. So now it's time for some scrubbing of the bores and mains.
So I used Borax soap and hot water. It dissolved a half cup of the soap in a5 gallon bucket. I used a new toilet brush and a sponge to scrub out the boards with. To include the mains as well. Next I use compressed air to dry it off and then took some carb / choke cleaner with a blue towel and wipe out the borders. You could see the dirt on the towel and that's what you want to try to get out. And same with the mains.
Now that's all done it's time to file some rings. I have a set of cast rings. So for every inch of bore you have times .004 (so a min of .016)for the top ring and the second ring needs .005 to .0055 for every inch of bore sizes. So the first rings I set @ .020. The second is .021. I was lucky I didn't have to file the top rings to get the size. Now the second ring I had to file them to size. And I number them using a sharpie as you could see.
Now it's time for the crank. I wipe down all the bearings, crank and the saddles of the mains. You would be surprised the dirt that comes off of that. I checked it with using plastic gauge . I have about .002 Clarence. I did it in two separate spots (#1 main and #3 main)just to show. I go ahead and use the Lucas assembly lube. Linda crank in the mains. Houston 20-50 weight oil on the main bolts threads and underneath the heads. There torqued to 105 foot pounds. And check the end play of the crank. It's about .005~.0055. A little bit on the tired side but its very livable. Next step is painting the block





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[Ford428CJ]

Backyard 390 Build paint job!
So I stop by Diamond Home Improvement and happened to pick up this Krylon Gloss basic blue. Happened to see this and thought it'd be a good idea to use this oil based enamel on the block and heads.
Personally it looks better in real than it does in the pictures. I think the pictures speak for themselves. Enjoy!

[Ford428CJ]

Degree time on the Backyard 390 Build.

So the pistons sit .025 down in the hole. I'm good with that! I want to run pump gas and being that its in a boat it will be under a full load all the time. Some good to go with composition head gaskets. I thought about going with the steel shamed head gaskets. But thats .020 thick when crushed. The Fel Pro gaskets .040 thick when crushed. So Fel Pro it is!

I checked my camshaft end play. Came out to .008. That's within spec and that's a GO! Next I checked the Milodon Gear drive back lash. They wanted .006~.008 between the idler gear and the crank gear. I came a fuzz over .006. Excellent!!!

Next is to degree the cam. Set the piston to TDC and my degree wheel too. Should check to make sure that it is dead nuts 0. So take the piston .100 BTDC and ATDC. Came up with 16 degrees on either side so now I know my degree wheel is dead nuts centered. So I check my intake centerline first. It was dialed in @ 105.5 and they wanted 106 so I'm a half a degree advanced. So that's .020 before max lift and .020 after max lift. You add those 2 numbers together and divided by 2.

So .020 before was 78° on the degree wheel and 133° after .020 max lift. Add them = 211 and devide by 2 = 105.5 intake center line.
Now by the numbers. So the .006 valve timing for open and close is 31BTDC and 63ATDC. I got 30°BTDC and 64°ATDC. I would say this cam is pretty much installed by the numbers they wanted!

I also found out that the lift they say it is isn't true! The intake and exhaust lift is the same! At the cam is .327 on both! So hydraulic rockers would come out to .565 or with adjustables would be .575 lift.
Next.... HEAD's! The lungs of the engine...

[Nightmist66]

Lookin good Wes!

[Ford428CJ]

Thanks Jared! The engine is up and running. I'm just behind on my post for all of this

[Ford428CJ]

Backyard 390 Build.... Heads! The lungs...

So here they are. Didn't have the time I needed to do an outstanding job that I wanted for porting out the heads. I needed to get them to the machine shop before it closed for hunting. And I wanted this project up and running.

I just stuck with the 2.02 and 1.56 valves. The valves are brand new. New retainers and locks. New valve guides, harden exhaust seats. Intake seats where just fine. Valve springs are used.

The seat angles are 30°, 45° and 60°. Closed pressures are 145lbs a open is 345lbs. Close to what I wanted. The inner springs are not installed. Just because we need to break in the camshaft.

As you can see most of the valve... These heads should flow very well over stock. Wish I had time to flow those heads and spend a little more time on them. Not bad for a 3hr rush job. Sad to say... Enjoy!

[Ford428CJ]

Backyard 390 Build.... Knowing your rockers!

Ok... According to Crower Cams. They want a preload of .020- .060 on the lifter. Comp wanted .030 +/- .010. So the only way to find out is to Chuck it up and see. So we went a 1/4 turn to find out.

Every 1/4 was .010. That's what we needed to know. Perfect! 3/4 of a turn is what we needed to know.

[blykins]

For future situations like this, I'd use the thinner head gasket.  Having low compression and a .065" quench distance is a lot harder on the engine than having higher compression and .045" quench.

Also, "straight up" means that the LSA equals the ICL.  Your cam is not straight up, it's technically 4.5° advanced, according to your measurements. 

Not trying to nit-pick, but a lot of guys get the terminology incorrect.

EDIT....just saw you had it running....nevermind.

[Ford428CJ]

Your right. The cam has 4 degrees advance in it and I added .5 to it. By the numbers they wanted. Didn't mean to confuse anybody. Sorry about that.

The reason why I didn't do steel shim gaskets is this thing is under a full load all the time (like being on a dyno) and I need to run pump 87 octane if I'm buying fuel at the lake. Didn't want to take a chance on that. Ran totally fine before, without issues. Felt like I would be taken a risk that I didn't want to chance. Otherwise I'm all for it.

[cjshaker]

Looks like lots of cracked intake valve guide bosses there Wes.

[Ford428CJ]

Yep. Common when you use bronze valve guide. Its one crack per guide. I prefer K-Liners myself... But I did those (installed them) years ago

[chris401]

Your build reminds me of when for $250-$600 I would have an extra 390 tire burner ready to go. Thanks for the post.

[Ford428CJ]

So before I shove the Pistons in the holes and torque down the rod nuts. I want to make sure that the boars were super clean. So I just used a little bit of all purpose oil on a blue rag and wiped out the bore again. Just to make sure. Little engine oil in the cylinder before I do so....

The rod bores are very clean as you can see. I installed the bearings in each 1/2. Used a little Lucas assembly lube. Torqued the cap (after a little engine oil on the threads ) to book spec. Since it had stock type rod bolt and nuts.

The pump on the left is the one that came out. That was my problem to begin with. The drive for the gear is recessed in from the top. Unlike the Milodon on pump on the right. It is a used HV pump but in really great shape. So I'm going to use it.
Also using this old Ford Motorsports intermediate shaft for the pump.

My stock pick up had a ton of crap in the screen... So I got a Milodon replacement. Cheap so to speak. Goes with the pump. I'm also using my windage tray too. I bought 2 non crush gaskets for the oil pan! One Milodon and one Felpro. Both great gaskets and don't leak!!! Hard to believe. Great deal and the P/N are pictured. Gasket sandwich the windage tray.

My oil pick up is .300 off the bottom of the pan. A 1/4" min and 3/8" max. So I'm kind of in the middle.
Heads are next. Pay attention to the gaskets! Front and backs. Just remember that the water jacket cut out goes to the back! I used a little engine oil on the threads and head of the bolts. I did them in sequence in started off with 30 foot pounds. Then 60, 90 for the final. You can do 100 if you like.