End stands ?

[bigbadblue]

 When did the end stands support come about? A question came up about the movie Ford vs Ferrari. The engines were shipped to California and were not suppose to be messed with. In the movie they were adamant about not revving the engine past 7 thousand rpm, I remember very well when I was a kid being told you couldn't rev a 427 past 7. A guy who raced em in a stock car had a pile out back to prove it.
 The Question we had was, did these engines have end stands?

[Katz427]

You have to remember the time frame, yes, you could go well past 7000 rpm, with an FE, but metallurgy was that the valve springs didn't last very long. A good friend of mine raced a 427 Hi-Riser, in a super modified oval track car, if he limited rpms to 6800 max, the valve springs lasted half the season, start turning it above 7000, and you found yourself changing valve springs every 2 weeks. But this wasn't just FE, BBC could last fairly well at 7000 rpm, but move it up to 7300, and you were checking the valve train after every race.
It really is amazing what today's metallurgy, PAC springs can do.

[Katz427]

A little note the Ford tunnel ports at Daytona in 1968 were hitting 7300-7400 rpms. Back a couple years prior, at the 1966 Daytona race the limit was 7000 rpm, and drivers knew, if you pushed it the whole race, they stood the chance, of a valve spring breaking, ending their day.
Two years later Cale and Leroy battled it out at Daytona and Cale won for the Wood Brothers.

[Katz427]

Answer your question, I never saw the end stands back in the 1960's or 1970's, I did start seeing them in the 1980's.

[1968galaxie]

One must also remember that the 427 used steel shaft stands (with a slot) that supported the rocker stands far better than the garden variety 390 aluminum design.
The aluminum design did not support the shaft very well - I was breaking rocker shafts above 6000 rpm in a 390.

[Rory428]

You also have to keep in mind that back in those cams, cam lobes were much gentler, and valve lift was much lower than what is used in recent years. The majority of Ford "race" cams for FEs were under .550" lift, and the top of the heap, no holds barred cam was only .600" gross lift. Lighter load valve springs, hollow and sodium valves, shell and spiral groove solid lifters, all to reduce valve train weight, plus I imagine the cylinder head numbers of the day didn`t really show any benefit to revving the 427 any higher.

[SSdynosaur]

The first valve train stabilization solution was in the form of thick-wall, special metallurgy rocker shafts which appeared late '68, early '69 seasons. The problem was that those things were outrageously expensive for their time and didn't completely solve the problem; although they helped cut deflection by 50-60%. By 1970 several racers had fabricated their own versions of "end stands", mostly from steel, and successfully anchored the ends of the shafts, negating the need for the expensive shafts and, actually, eliminating shaft deflection. It was only a short time until shops like Pro Stock Engr., etc., copied the racer's designs in aluminum and began offering them for sale.

[Katz427]

Well thank you for that history! I never did much with the engines, as our builder Roy Murphy rip, had a direct line to Holman Moody. He told me about the good rod bolts for Lemans rods, I put in my 390 back in 1971. He called Holman Moody and I had them in a week. Though to be truthful Roy built the short block and set up the heads.

[SSdynosaur]

I too relied on Holman Moody for FE advice and parts during the '60/'70 era. A relationship was formed with both Joe Rumph, H&M's cam grinder and dyno operator and Paul Norris, an H&M employee that was entrusted with driving and maintaining the A/FX Mustangs that Ford financed under the H&M banner for a drag racing presence. It begs the question, where else would you go for the best real world information on FE engines?

[cammerfe]

I too relied on Holman Moody for FE advice and parts during the '60/'70 era. A relationship was formed with both Joe Rumph, H&M's cam grinder and dyno operator and Paul Norris, an H&M employee that was entrusted with driving and maintaining the A/FX Mustangs that Ford financed under the H&M banner for a drag racing presence. It begs the question, where else would you go for the best real world information on FE engines?

Triple E

KS

[Val406]

Yes, the Jumbo shafts will break if unsupported. Since this minor mayhem I've run normal wall thickness shafts WITH end supports. No further problems...kinda.

[GJCAT427]

SSdynosaur, did you know Dave Straton? He was one of the parts guys. He lived here in Westfield NY and moved down there in the 60s and came back when H&M got out of racing. A real wealth of info and knew the parts system in & out.

[fryedaddy]

my neighbor bought a tractor trailer load of fe parts off H&M a few years back.huge score

[SSdynosaur]

SSdynosaur, did you know Dave Straton? He was one of the parts guys. He lived here in Westfield NY and moved down there in the 60s and came back when H&M got out of racing. A real wealth of info and knew the parts system in & out.

Sorry but I don't recall that name. One of the attractive points of dealing directly with H&M was the staff treated established customers like family even if you weren't spending thousands on a Grand National roller. During the '65 NHRA season, Crane Cams offered free cams in exchange for advertising while everything I got from H&M was cash. Even so, it took five iterations of Crane's cam designs to just get close to the H&M performance. H&M was updating their cam/valve train designs about every six weeks but, most importantly, I never received an "updated" version from them that didn't outperform the version it replaced.

[pbf777]

When did the end stands support come about?

     I think the engineering introduction with F.M.C. in performance application was probably with the '68 302 Tunnel-Port program (google it, as I'm no good at posting photos.  ).  Also they side-stepped the bad engineering of the having the bolt passing thru the shaft by backing up to the Y-Block stand mounting execution of the two bolts straddling the shaft.   

     And, rather than just copying the O.E., here were it would appear the engineering endeavor transgressed from the older (better!  ) design to a more cost effective execution, this is perhaps as could be adopted by someone if manufacturing a new FE cylinder head to solve the age old shaft breakage problem of the original.   

    Scott.