Was wondering if those of you that build a lot of FEs could give me a bit of advice.

First question, hopefully the easier of the two. Who makes a good quality, basically stock replacement balancer? Or what balancer do you prefer to use on a mild, let’s say sub 5500 rpm truck motor (360-390) . Does not need to be certified for anything, just a good unit and not a cheep offshore chunk.


Second question, in a performance “street-strip” application, where it does need certification, will deal with RPMs over 6000-6500 and live a long happy life doing so.
What’s the preference in that case?
And, I notice that many performance balancers are dual purpose, for the 386 motor as well as the FE. But usually burried in the fine print it said that some machining is required to make them fit the FE. What needs to be machined? Are there balancers made that are high quality and made to just work out of the box?

First motor it’s quite litterally a back up, bone stock 360 in a truck. Going to be pulling it apart soon for some minor upgrades and such. Origional balancer is looking pretty rough so would rather go back together with a decent stock replacement.

Second will be for the “real” motor that I am still gathering parts for, 520 ish cubes, jays heads ( I hope ) 6000 -6500 rpm or so pump gas weekend toy.  Not a fire breathing 800-900 horse monster , but should still be pretty stout, and I want to use quality components everywhere it matters.

Thamks

Given the following criteria, what would you say is a good “max safe on premium” CR

6500 rpm MAX, more likely 6000rpm

Aluminum heads with good quench

5000lb truck with 3.73 gears

4500 feet in elevation and likely never going to go below that.

93 octane gas

I know most would say 9.5-1 to 10-1 , but that is usually accounting for sea level, and I am no where near that so it seems to me I would be leaving some on the table not accounting for that in the CR.

I have Jays timing cover, and I plan on using a 351c seal.

I bought a brand new steal balancer spacer, and reading the instructions for the cover it says to machine the sealing surface out towards the balancer, by ~ .625 (? IIRC ) .

I gave the spacer to a co worker who has a lathe, but I wanted to double check before he started cutting on it. There is a short step from the large diameter ( balancer end ) to the back, and he wants to make sure he doesn’t cut to the wrong dimension.
I figured one of the experts here would know off the top of their heads what diameter to cut it to.

Thanks!

I inherited my grandmothers 64.5 mustang, it’s been sitting in a field, uncovered, for as long as I can remember, around 40 years.
So it needs a lot of work, pretty much everything, has some rust holes in the front fenders, couple other small spots here and there but otherwise it’s straight.
I’ve been holding out thinking I would just save up and do it all at once,  but I’ve changed my mind, I think I will do the “road kill” thing and just get it back on the road, and upgrade as I go.

So the first thing I’m going to attack is the suspension, brakes and possibly steering.
I know the easy thing to do is just slap a mustang II suspension on it, but I’m not to fond of that suspension, and wondering what recommendations you all might have. I know there are a lot of choices out there, and prices are anywhere from scary cheep to second mortgage level.
I’m curious to know if the stock stuff can be upgraded enough to make a decent driver.
I’m also really wanting to swap out the original power assisted steering  for a R&P unit, wondering if any of you have a manual r&p and how it drives.

Ultimate goal is to have a car that drives and handles like a modern sports car, 5-600 hp and a manual trans.

Thanks

Not a huge project but thought i would share.
I was inspired by Jays work on his intake adapter dyno mule.
Just started on this so not much to show at this point but figured I would update the thread as i go.

Started with an old points distributor i had laying around, pulled it apart as much as i could without driving the roll pins out of the gear and thrust bearing.
Then i picked a spot and used the shop band saw to cut it in two.
I ordered a few bearings on line, however none of them have quite the correct ID. The shaft is .468, not a common size.
I may turn the shaft down to the next common bearing ID.

One other issue i will have, using a stock distributor, there was just one rather long bushing at the top of the distributor, once i machine it for the bearing, there will be no support of the shaft on the gear end. My plan is to drive the existing bushing out of the top part of the dist and drive it into the bottom section to support the gear end.

I got to thinking last night and that's always a bad idea.....

I was wondering if anyone had tried to use a manifold designed for the CHI "3V" heads on one of jays adapters.

http://www.chiheads.com.au/shop/manifolds/3v-ford-cleveland-manifold/#

I started looking at them, and it looks like the CHI port is raised up quite a bit compared to a standard 351C intake



So I'm wondering if this would make it possible to do some custom porting on one of jays adapters, and raise the port in a standard run of the mill edelbrock, FElony, BBM or even a stock head.

Obviously some floor filling would be needed, but if the CHI 3V port isn't too high, it could possibly allow for a raised oval port FE head.

Just looking at picks on the internet makes it hard to judge, but it looks like it might work.

Years and years ago i cut up a stock 390 head to see how far i could raise the roof, then proceeded to clamp another 390 head in the bridgeport, and using a 1/2 inch ball mill i raised the roof about .250-.300 ( memory fails me here ), then i filled the floor with about 1/2 inch of JB weld (at the port) I ended up with a more oval port that was smaller in cross section than the stock port. Then i flowed it on the bench and was very impresses with the gains. Life happened and i was never able to get any further than that, but i've always wanted to take it up again.

with modern castings and jays adapter its more feasible now than ever. Of course it's going to have to work pretty darn well to justify going through all that work considering how good heads like Blairs ProPorts are with a stock intake location.

thoughts?

Hi all, I have a brand spanking new BBM cast iron block that I need to get machined.
There are a few machine shops here in western Colorado that would probably do a decent job,
But I don't want a decent machine job, I want it done "perfect" . I have called around and no one has, or is Williamson no to buy a torque plate for honing it, and the one shop that I trust the most has to ship blocks out if they need alighn honed on the mains, he doesn't own a boaring bar. I'm guessing the blocks main bearing saddles are just fine, but I would like to have the option just in case.

So I'm contemplating just shipping the block to one of the fine builders on this forum, that way I know it will be done right.

So I'm wondering what the shipping costs might be from grand junction Colorado ? Just ball park so I can budget for it?

Who would you recommend to ship it with?

Thanks
Joe

Thought I would start a thread, unfortunately I can't upload photos at this time, looks like the format on my phone isn't right.

I bought the truck about 8 months ago, it's in extremely good shape, very straight, new paint and interior.

The origional, tired, 360 is still lumbering away under the hood. 100% stock in all its 2bbl lazy C6 slush box glory. Not sure what gears are in it, need to crawl under and look, hopefully the tag is still there. Seat of the pants tells me it's probably got 3.73 -4.11 gears. Think those were the common offerings in the camper special.


A rather heavy wooden box arrived at the shop a few weeks ago, inside is a shiny new block from BBM. I haven't had time to do more then pop the top off the box, but I can tell you the underside of the block looks awesome. Beefy as hell with ARP main studs and cross bolts, the screw in frost plugs appear to be stainless steel, and really pop against the gloss black paint.

The plan is to build a big stroker, 520 or maybe a 527 ( 527 has a nicer ring to it... ) depends on how big I can safely go on the bore while leaving enough room for a rebuild down the road if needed.
I've been told 520 (4.35 bore - 4.375 stroke ) is a safe bet.

Going to be giving Blair Patric a call soon about a set of heads. I work out in the feild, where we're at now there is no cell service at all, driving me nuts.

Going to be using one of Jays intake adapters as well.

I'm still waffling a bit on exactly the temperament of the motor. Years of building small block motors for street use has probably jaded me a bit. With small blocks, we always tried to use aftermarket heads when possible, but we usually went with the small port offerings, same with the cams, good aftermarket grinds, but small by most bench racer standards. These motors generally were a blast to drive on the street, well mannered and addictingly fun throttle responce.
That is what I want for this truck, except I also would love to get at least 600hp out of it just for bragging rights. Well, bragging rights and I want to blow the doors off of every dodge cummins I see with the massive "CUMMINS" sticker in the back window and billowing so much black smoke that incoming flights have to be re-routed.

Having only ever built one 500+ cube motor, a stock headed 460 for towing, I'm a bit out of my element with this motor.

My instinct is to put a very mild cam in it and call it good. But I'm thinking that I could easily step it up a notch or two, with so much torque available I figure low end throttle responce is not going to be a problem. Spinning the wheels every time I breath on the throttle might be though.

So I'm wondering how big of a cam ( hydraulic roller of course ) I can put in the motor yet maintain good idle quality. Idle doesn't need to be rock solid at 600rpm, but I don't want a choppy, surgy 900 rpm idle either.
My thinking is that it might actually be easier to drive if I move the torque curve up a little.
Lots of time to sort that out though.

I'm also planning on putting sequential port fuel injection on it, that should also help the idle out, but to what extent I'm not sure.

Lots of other fun stuff planned for this, even though it's going to be a relatively tame engine, I still want to make it as good as reasonably possible. Ceramic coatings, highest reasonable compression ratio, modern rings etc. all the little bits add up and I don't want to get it finished and regret leaving something on the table.

Any input is more than welcome.

Hopefully soon I can get some pics posted.