429 Block Question

[gt350hr]

One of those “Doh” moments. I was at Mickey Thompson’s warehouse in Long Beach in the early ‘80s where I bought my tunnel port. He had a lot of other stuff for sale and I remember a row of brand new Boss blocks in the crates for $600.00 each. Can’t remember if they had screw in plugs. (I should have cleaned out my bank account)

     I bought five of them for $500 ea cash from M/T. I bought a couple of tunnel port 302s as well. $5,000 later I was on the home WAY overloaded , springs bottomed out. He had allot of stuff but you had to know what you were looking at.
     Randy

[mike7570]

One of those “Doh” moments. I was at Mickey Thompson’s warehouse in Long Beach in the early ‘80s where I bought my tunnel port. He had a lot of other stuff for sale and I remember a row of brand new Boss blocks in the crates for $600.00 each. Can’t remember if they had screw in plugs. (I should have cleaned out my bank account)

     I bought five of them for $500 ea cash from M/T. I bought a couple of tunnel port 302s as well. $5,000 later I was on the home WAY overloaded , springs bottomed out. He had allot of stuff but you had to know what you were looking at.
     Randy

Sounds like Jay needs one, do you have any left 
Either you got a better price buying 5 of them or Ron Miller was going to be making $100 each off of me 

[cammerfe]

Since this thread has a good bit of nostalgia thrown in, here's the short form of my own first (and only) meeting with MT. I was a member of 'The Escorts', a rod club in Anderson, Indiana where I was going to school. This was likely in 1960---or '61. Our club banded together with several other clubs and formed the operating group for Muncie Dragway as it was just being opened. I, personally did a diverse set of jobs around the track, from manning the CO2 fire extinguisher on the starting line, to taking tickets from those who bought pit passes.

When Indianapolis opened, none of the crew there had any hands-on experience at operating a drag strip show and asked us to come and help with their first big show. We went as a group to help out and the Headline Act was the complete panoply of MT cars. He had his Pontiac Super stocker with hayden Profitt driving---blew a clutch on a warm-up run and the pedal kick-back broke Hayden's foot. He also had the rail with Pontiac power, and the other rails with the engine he'd cut in half so it had a four, and another that had a four cut in half to make a two.

They had to run Hayden off to the hospital, taking the only ambulance out of service. Mickey Thompson used the time to give a free-wheeling exposition on the care and tuning of a rail dragster. He sat on one of the slicks and held forth for twenty minutes or half-an-hour on various subjects for the small group of us who happened to be close enough to catch on when he started to talk. Very instructive of small tid-bits. He was very straight forward---just one of the guys talking.

By the way, our club car won class that day. We'd built an 'E' gasser---a flathead-powered, with all the goodies, '41 coupe. Good Times.

KS

[babybolt]

If your looking at a bare 429 block, the easy way to tell if is a Boss 429 block is in the lifter gallery there are two "towers" for the oil crossovers and some screw in plugs to service the 2nd set of drilled oil galleries for the priority main oiling system.

B9 blocks are 15 to 20 lbs heavier than the standard 2 bolt main 429 block.

Also on the cylinder deck, the oil drainback holes are on the outside perimeter down low near the bottom end cylinder head bolt holes.  One the wedge block the oil drainback holes are further up beside the cylinder bores.

[gt350hr]

One of those “Doh” moments. I was at Mickey Thompson’s warehouse in Long Beach in the early ‘80s where I bought my tunnel port. He had a lot of other stuff for sale and I remember a row of brand new Boss blocks in the crates for $600.00 each. Can’t remember if they had screw in plugs. (I should have cleaned out my bank account)

     I bought five of them for $500 ea cash from M/T. I bought a couple of tunnel port 302s as well. $5,000 later I was on the home WAY overloaded , springs bottomed out. He had allot of stuff but you had to know what you were looking at.
     Randy

Sounds like Jay needs one, do you have any left 
Either you got a better price buying 5 of them or Ron Miller was going to be making $100 each off of me 

      I was there before Ron Miller , I assure you. BTW your tunnel port was for one of the Bonneville Mustangs ( red or blue) which ran them. No other M/T car used a tunnel port 427.
   No , I sold all of the blocks off in the first year I had them. Non O ringed , pipe plugs for freeze plugs.

[frnkeore]

      I was there before Ron Miller , I assure you. BTW your tunnel port was for one of the Bonneville Mustangs ( red or blue) which ran them. No other M/T car used a tunnel port 427.
   No , I sold all of the blocks off in the first year I had them. Non O ringed , pipe plugs for freeze plugs.

I knew and raced with Danny Ongais, from Nov of '73, through the end of '75.

I always held those MT, endurance runs, in high esteem too but, Danny never talked about them, not even, when he started his SCCA drivers school (his second, my first). At the beginning of the schools, your asked about your former experience. Everyone of course, knew who Danny (he drove Parnell's funny car at the time) was but, he didn't say anything about Bonneville or talk about his drag racing. He was a very quite, shy and unassuming guy but, in the car, a methodic, no non since driver. Carol Smith wrenched his car, at that time.

Regarding the class C records, for those that say that the tunnel port, 302 and FE, for that matter, won't put out competitive HP, those records prove different, 159.5+ for 500 miles and 157 for 24 hr, takes quite a bit of reliable HP, especially at that elevation. Both speeds include pit stops and not anywhere near the NASCAR speed of pit stops.

[mike7570]

One of those “Doh” moments. I was at Mickey Thompson’s warehouse in Long Beach in the early ‘80s where I bought my tunnel port. He had a lot of other stuff for sale and I remember a row of brand new Boss blocks in the crates for $600.00 each. Can’t remember if they had screw in plugs. (I should have cleaned out my bank account)

     I bought five of them for $500 ea cash from M/T. I bought a couple of tunnel port 302s as well. $5,000 later I was on the home WAY overloaded , springs bottomed out. He had allot of stuff but you had to know what you were looking at.
     Randy

Sounds like Jay needs one, do you have any left 
Either you got a better price buying 5 of them or Ron Miller was going to be making $100 each off of me 

      I was there before Ron Miller , I assure you. BTW your tunnel port was for one of the Bonneville Mustangs ( red or blue) which ran them. No other M/T car used a tunnel port 427.
   No , I sold all of the blocks off in the first year I had them. Non O ringed , pipe plugs for freeze plugs.

MT told me the motor I purchased was a back-up never used. It looked like it when I had the heads off to remove the light weight exhaust valves. Put it back together and dropped it in a '67 coupe with a pair of 660's and went 10.70's. 

I think Ron was acting as a go between trying to pocket his share by upping the amount MT wanted.
 

[machoneman]

One of those “Doh” moments. I was at Mickey Thompson’s warehouse in Long Beach in the early ‘80s where I bought my tunnel port. He had a lot of other stuff for sale and I remember a row of brand new Boss blocks in the crates for $600.00 each. Can’t remember if they had screw in plugs. (I should have cleaned out my bank account)

     I bought five of them for $500 ea cash from M/T. I bought a couple of tunnel port 302s as well. $5,000 later I was on the home WAY overloaded , springs bottomed out. He had allot of stuff but you had to know what you were looking at.
     Randy

Would have loved to have a SBF TP set of heads long ago. We ran an injected gas F.E.D with a Boss 302 engine. Yet, the straight valve TP head on say a 351 block, std. cranks or maybe a 3.75" stroker would have been a wailin' combo. IIRC, the heads required huge rpm's in the Trans-Am series and even with good factory rods, too many blew up at those high r's. In our 1/4 mile dragster with aluminum rods, it would have lasted forever. 

[jayb]

Saw the block again today.  Turned out to be a Ford Performance A460 block, with the splayed 4 bolt main caps.  Thanks again for all the replies - Jay

[gt350hr]

One of those “Doh” moments. I was at Mickey Thompson’s warehouse in Long Beach in the early ‘80s where I bought my tunnel port. He had a lot of other stuff for sale and I remember a row of brand new Boss blocks in the crates for $600.00 each. Can’t remember if they had screw in plugs. (I should have cleaned out my bank account)

     I bought five of them for $500 ea cash from M/T. I bought a couple of tunnel port 302s as well. $5,000 later I was on the home WAY overloaded , springs bottomed out. He had allot of stuff but you had to know what you were looking at.
     Randy

Would have loved to have a SBF TP set of heads long ago. We ran an injected gas F.E.D with a Boss 302 engine. Yet, the straight valve TP head on say a 351 block, std. cranks or maybe a 3.75" stroker would have been a wailin' combo. IIRC, the heads required huge rpm's in the Trans-Am series and even with good factory rods, too many blew up at those high r's. In our 1/4 mile dragster with aluminum rods, it would have lasted forever.

    Bob ,
       I ran the tunnel ports as 302s and 331s. The valve springs were the problem , but the rods/bottom ends got blamed. Even with a soild roller , ti valve, 13.5-1, 331, the engine was FIFTY hp down over a set of Vic Jr's and the compression dropped to 11.5. When I ran the 302ci one back in the '70s I didn't know better , LOL
    Randy

[hwoods]

just for discussion, I think the 385 Series Ford Blocks are not legal in top alcohol or top fuel classes.  NHRA outlawed them due to large bore spacing.  I heard John Force among others were working on them several years ago only to have NHRA get word of it and they were outlawed in these classes

[frnkeore]

As I said months ago, when the SB TP's were mentioned, I too, would have like to have a set and still would.

With the porting tech that we have today and valve train/cam options, now available. I think both size TP's could do extremely well. Even back then, it took a LOT of HP, to get that Mustang, going 500 mi at 160 mph, with a 302. That means, with pit stop, they had to be getting speeds in the 170 range.

I'd love to try one with long, 7mm titanium valves, FT pistons, 4.155 bore, aftermarket block and maybe have Blair port it. Also, since the first time they came out, I thought both versions could control the air flow, with a airfoil shaped push rod tube. You could do all kind of air flow modifications with it.

[fryedaddy]

what about the 429 thunder-jet.my uncle was going to build one of these a while back but he got sick and passed away before he could build it.what would be the difference in these.i dont know nothing about 429s but the thunder-jet has canted valves.

[machoneman]

One of those “Doh” moments. I was at Mickey Thompson’s warehouse in Long Beach in the early ‘80s where I bought my tunnel port. He had a lot of other stuff for sale and I remember a row of brand new Boss blocks in the crates for $600.00 each. Can’t remember if they had screw in plugs. (I should have cleaned out my bank account)

     I bought five of them for $500 ea cash from M/T. I bought a couple of tunnel port 302s as well. $5,000 later I was on the home WAY overloaded , springs bottomed out. He had allot of stuff but you had to know what you were looking at.
     Randy

Would have loved to have a SBF TP set of heads long ago. We ran an injected gas F.E.D with a Boss 302 engine. Yet, the straight valve TP head on say a 351 block, std. cranks or maybe a 3.75" stroker would have been a wailin' combo. IIRC, the heads required huge rpm's in the Trans-Am series and even with good factory rods, too many blew up at those high r's. In our 1/4 mile dragster with aluminum rods, it would have lasted forever.

    Bob ,
       I ran the tunnel ports as 302s and 331s. The valve springs were the problem , but the rods/bottom ends got blamed. Even with a solid roller , ti valve, 13.5-1, 331, the engine was FIFTY hp down over a set of Vic Jr's and the compression dropped to 11.5. When I ran the 302ci one back in the '70s I didn't know better , LOL
    Randy

Interesting for sure Randy. Yeah, the line had always been weak rods + too much rpm. Had never heard before it was the springs and I do believe that. Many SBC hi-rpm Chevy guys about the same time also had big spring issues as the technology and material used didn't match up to ever-higher rpms that users wanted to run. Interesting too on the hp loss. Maybe I got lucky by not being able to get a set!

[RJP]

just for discussion, I think the 385 Series Ford Blocks are not legal in top alcohol or top fuel classes.  NHRA outlawed them due to large bore spacing.  I heard John Force among others were working on them several years ago only to have NHRA get word of it and they were outlawed in these classes

NHRA was fine with the 385 series engines until Walt Austin [Tacoma Wa.] spent considerable money and time developing the 385 for Top Alcohol. The bigger bore centers [4.90"] allowed for thicker, more stable cylinder sleeves thus making more HP. He spent considerable time/money working the bugs out of this new combination, with the usual and typical 'growing pains'. When he was comfortable and confident with the new combo he contacted NHRA for approval and their blessings. They denied approval citing this "new" engine would increase the cost of racing and cause grief among the other teams having to upgrade or switch to remain competitive...Since when has NHRA concerned themselves with the cost of anything? They "outlawed" the Ford by limiting bore spacing to 4.84"...Guess what engine uses a 4.84" B/S?