FE Power Forums
FE Power Forums => FE Technical Forum => Topic started by: mammyjammer on October 04, 2013, 10:11:15 AM
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I had a machine shop with a good reputation do the heads and build a short block for me. I put the heads and accessories on it and dropped it in my 58 Fairlane. Took a while to get it sorted out, but I got it running pretty darn good and then....it dropped a valve!! I'm guessing a keeper came off, but it does not matter as the machine shop that did the initial work closed.
A damn shame as I'm pretty sure he would have made good on my damaged engine.
Tore up one combustion chamber, bent two rods,windowed a cylinder and exploded the piston, which of course put debris in the oil and took out a laundry list of other items.
Block is sleeved, machine work is done and I think I will tackle the re assembly myself this time.
Engine is .030 over 428 10.5 to 1 , C6aer heads with C J valves, COMP Cams Dual Energy Advertised Duration 275/285, Lift .515/.541.
Nothing radical for this group, but it is the closest thing to a race engine I have ever assembled..
I ground all the casting flash off the block, chamfered the oil holes on the crank and block, did some clean up on the
oil filter adaptor boss,threaded the oil galley plugs and cleaned up the oil drain back holes.
Finally the question:
For an engine like this, should I just use stock clearance and torque specs.? I have a 76 Ford truck factory manual for reference.
Any need to deviate from stock assembly procedures in the Factory manual?
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That engine isn't radical enough to require deviation from stock clearances, in my opinion. I'd go along with what's in the shop manual. Good luck on the rebuild.
Not to open up old wounds, but you really should try to figure out why you dropped a valve. Unless the keepers were the wrong ones, I doubt that they were the problem. Do you have hydraulic lifters in the engine? Do you have a rev limiter? Dropped valves are almost always caused by piston to valve contact...
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Hyd lifters and no rev limiter
I will triple check piston to valve clearance before I do anything else
You check that without the head gaskets in place?
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No, I would definitely have the head gaskets in place when checking p-v clearance. Make sure you use a checker spring in place of the regular valve spring or you will just compress the hydraulic lifter when you turn the engine. Or better yet use a solid lifter in place of the hydraulic when checking.
Even if you have good piston to valve clearance, you can still get contact if the valve spring loses control of the valve or the hydraulic lifter pumps up. At higher engines speeds hydraulic lifters have a tendency to do that. I've seen them pump up and pop the wire retaining clips out of the top of the hydraulic lifter, and then nothing is keeping the plunger from coming way up higher than its supposed to. In a case like that the valve could be hanging open .200" or .300" more than it should be at any point, the valve will hit the piston, the locks will pop out of the retainer, and the valve will drop. Or, if the engine revs higher than the spring can control it, the valve will be bouncing around on the seat in the head and the same kind of thing can happen. Ask me how I know all this ::)
With hydraulic lifters anytime you are past 5500 RPM you are in dangerous territory, IMO. With the right springs and dyno or spintron testing to confirm the combination, you can go higher in engine speeds with hydraulic lifters, but its risky. Your combination probably peaks in HP around 5000-5300 RPM, so I think a rev limiter set at 5500 or so would be a good investment.
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I had no idea lifters have the potential to fly apart!! I will put a checker spring, a solid lifter and a rev limiter on my shopping list.
How much piston to valve clearance do you like to see?
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0.080" on the intake and 0.100" on the exhaust is pretty standard for p-v clearance. You will probably have a lot more than that, but again if the lifters pump up or the valvespring loses control of the valve, that clearance can rapidly evaporate.
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Sticky valve guides will also hang a valve open.
And kAPOW.
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I doubt you will have any issues with valve clearance with that combo. However, check coil bind and retainer/seal/guide stack. Even a stock Ford with stock springs can handle up to about .525, but your exhaust lift is right on the edge of things hitting a stock guide and valve seal. Aftermarket retainers will help, aftermarket springs probably wont coil bind, but don't forget to see how close things are without the spring on the valve.
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I have aftermarket retainers and springs. I will check guide and seal clearance.
How can I identify if I have "Stock" or aftermarket guides?
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What Ross is saying is that the stock guides are usually a lot taller than they would be if we put in new guides or if we had them machined down for clearance. Doesn't really matter if they've been replaced or not, as long as you have sufficient retainer to guide/valve seal clearance. If you have a set of checking springs, it's easiest to use them to see what everything looks like as you roll the engine over. If not, you can sometimes get lucky and peer through the coils on the springs and see what it looks like.
Curious, what does the factory manual say to put the clearances at?
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...a a question on this forum I know the answer to!
Per the 76 Ford Truck factory manual:
Rod Bearings 0.0008-0.0015 desired 0 .0008-0025 allowable
Main Bearings 0.0005-0.0015 desired 0.0005-0.0025 allowable
Crankshaft end play 0.004-0.010
As far as the valve train goes..it sounds like if the retainers don't hit the guides or the seals,I should be in good shape.
I will check piston to valve clearance again to make sure.
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Aim for the high side of those specs and you'll be fine. My stockish stuff gets .0025" rods and .0025-.003 mains.
Manuals like that show what can happen when you stack tolerances....you wouldn't want .0008" bearing clearances. :-)
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If you have adjustable valvetrain can you control lifter pump up better than non- adjustable ?
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Yes you can, by minimizing the pre-load on the lifter. Maybe go a half turn on the pre-load. This limits the amount that the lifter can pump up, assuming that you don't run it so hard that the spring clips pop out of the top of the lifter; if that happens there's nothing holding the plunger in the lifter body. After I had that happen on a couple of engines I got in the habit of replacing those flimsy spring clips with normal C-clips, but its probably better just to limit the engine RPM.
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How many times have you had that happen Jay? That would get under my skin real quick....
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So if a hydraulic cam will spin to 6000 rpm , power wise its done by 5500 ish most likely so set the limiter a couple hundred higher and be safe ?
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How many times have you had that happen Jay? That would get under my skin real quick....
Just a couple of times, back in the 80s. The worst one was with a 429 SCJ engine. I had a fairly strong hydraulic cam in the engine and of course the cam manufacturer said it would run to 7000 RPM, so after I got the engine together and in the car I took it there a few times. For some reason, after the first few times it wouldn't turn much past about 5500. Then one day the engine just quit on me while driving down the road.
After getting back to the shop I discovered the distributor wasn't turning. Took it out and the gear was stripped. Looked down the hole and the cam gear was stripped too. Pulled the oil pan and took out the pump, and it was frozen solid. Disassembled the pump and there was this tiny little steel wire jammed in the pump rotor; it had fed up through the oil pump pickup screen and lodged in the rotor, jamming the pump and breaking the gears.
Next day I took the pump into my machinist's place, and asked him what he thought about the situation. We were both puzzling over where the piece of wire could have come from, and just concluded that it must have been a foreign object that got into the engine somehow. A week later, though, my machinist called me back. He said, "That wire is just about the size of the wire they put in hydraulic lifters to retain the plunger."
After that I pulled the intake. Six or seven of the lifters had the clips popped up, so that the U part was still in the lifter, but the ends were sticking up out of the lifter body at an angle. And, of course, one lifter had the clip completely gone. It had clearly popped out of the lifter early on, and was mangled by the reciprocating assembly on its way down to the oil pan. Finally a piece of the wire fed into the oil pump, and that was that. Pulled the head on the side where the lifter clip was completely gone, and the exhaust valve that was controlled by that lifter was slightly bent and had obviously been hitting the piston.
Being a slow learner ( ;D) I went through a similar situation a couple years later with the 428CJ in my '68 Shelby. This time, though, when the engine quit wanting to rev past 6000 RPM, I parked it and pulled the intake. There were a bunch more of the clips popped up, and two missing clips. I found them both in the oil pan, then removed all the lifters and put hardware store C-clips in them in place of the wire clips. Never had a problem after that.
FWIW, knowing what I do now, I would never try to rev a hydraulic cam to 7000 RPM. I've never seen one make power on the dyno past 6000, so what's the point. Most of them I've tested peak in power a lot lower than that. Back in the day, if I couldn't rev to 7000 RPM I wasn't cool, so I had to do it ;D Now I know better...
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So if a hydraulic cam will spin to 6000 rpm , power wise its done by 5500 ish most likely so set the limiter a couple hundred higher and be safe ?
Yep, I don't think you'll run into any serious problems with the rev limiter set at, say, 5800 RPM.
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So if a hydraulic cam will spin to 6000 rpm , power wise its done by 5500 ish most likely so set the limiter a couple hundred higher and be safe ?
That's about where I generally aim for a hydraulic roller in an FE...5500 peak. I've had a couple of them peak at 6000-6100, but that was with the standard issue lazy lobe cam, Morel lifters, etc. In my experiences, the lazier lobes from Comp (High Energy, etc.) will make about 20-25 more hp than the more aggressive lobes, such as the Xtreme Energy, XFI, etc., when you start pulling to the higher rpm ranges.
Barry's going to 7100-7200 with his hydraulic roller EMC engine, but it takes a lot of specialized parts.
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Even with lighter valves , smaller stem and lighter retainers ? I would think that would help the control somewhat in the higher rpm s , say to maybe the 6000 rpm range .. maybe ?
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I can get 6000-6200 pretty easily but that's about it with "normal" parts. My higher end FE stuff gets 11/32" valves, usually hollow stem Ferrea, tool steel or titanium retainers, and usually a dual spring or a beehive spring. All usually net the same results. Spring pressures are usually around 175 seat and. 400 open and I've tried a good bit more than that too.
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Thanks for the feed back , this 428 cj is my first f e is it possible to get 1.09 to 1.10 hp per cubic inch with a dual plane intake and a hydraulic cam ? , just looking for an honest 475 hp out of 434 cu i .. Bud
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Factory parts or aftermarket?
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The short block is .040 over and crank is 10/10 , rods are stock with arp bolts , windage tray , heads are Edelbrock out of the box , blue thunder dual plane intake , holley 750 hp double pumper , msd distributor and box and coil , and fpa headers and have a comp XE 274 H cam , hence the rpm questions , lighter valves , lighter retainer s and T @ D street rocker arm kit as well .. Bud thanks
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I don't think you'll have much trouble making 450-475 hp. If you dyno it, it will depend on which dyno you use. That cam is 236@ .050", which should peak below the rpm that you would have valve float issues with.
Maybe Jay has built a very similar combo that he could lend as an example.
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Thanks Brent for the fedback , just want to make this 428 cj healthy , and i guess im looking for every hp or foot lb of torque cuz im 5500 feet above sea level and have a lack of air or cylinder pressure . i have another 428 block and want to stroke it and have h beam rods , forged pistons or even buck up for a 427 block and really add some cubes , and again thanks for the input .. Bud
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You will be at a disadvantage that high up...
I know it's not a direct comparison, but I did a 428 with out of the box Edelbrock heads, a Tunnel Wedge, and a 248/254 solid roller cam and it made about 540 hp @ 6500. It had more cam and intake than you, but your engine certainly won't be a slouch.
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I don't think you'll have much trouble making 450-475 hp. If you dyno it, it will depend on which dyno you use. That cam is 236@ .050", which should peak below the rpm that you would have valve float issues with.
Maybe Jay has built a very similar combo that he could lend as an example.
I haven't built one quite like that, but I agree it is very do-able. Bud, I have to ask - why don't you want to run a solid cam?
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I guess i was just wanting to do it with what parts i had , sense this motor has stock rods , cast pistons and is together . Really want to upgrade to h beam rods , forged piston s and internal balance and more cubes on the next motor . And being at 5500 ft above sea level i feel more cubes is the direction to go for hp and tq . I really thought about the 282s for this motor , but want to spend the money on the next motor and get more aggressive with head work , compression , cam . Do you know anyone that wants to a hydraulic cam and lifter s lol .. Bud
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Jay what you think the horsepower diff would be on my motor with the info listed above with a hydraulic 230-236 @ .50 562-565 lift on a 110 lobe vs the 282 s solid where your at , and 5500 ft above sea level .. just curios i was thinking about 20 hp at sea level and maybe half that at 5500 ft .. thanks Bud
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That's probably pretty close for the sea level number, and I don't think it will drop off by a factor of 2 at your altitude; maybe only drop off 20% or so. It really depends on how well your springs and lifters work together. On my 428CJ dyno mule, when I swapped the hydraulic lifters for solid lifters on the Edelbrock Performer RPM cam, the horsepower continued climbing for a few hundred RPM past 5300. With the hydraulic lifters it had always hit 5300 and then fallen off. At a speed of 5800 RPM there was about a 30 HP difference between the solid and hydraulic lifters. There's a graph of the two horsepower curves in my book.
If your valvetrain setup hangs in there to 6000 RPM with the hydraulic lifters, then you probably won't gain anything with solids; you might even lose a little. But if its a run of the mill hydraulic cam setup, I doubt it will go past 5500 before it starts to have issues. If you don't want to spend money on a new cam and lifters, I think you might consider a spring upgrade to keep the lifters under control up to 6000 RPM (assuming you haven't done that already).
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Thanks Jay for the feed back , i will look into springs and try to set up to keep control of the vales better . Do you have any 428 s to 462 s builds info ? Thanks Bud
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I have been looking at Rev Limiters. I have a Uni Lite distributor and I have always been happy with Mallory parts, but the coil I bought from them was made in China, so I'm a thinking MSD may be the way to go.
Question is which one? 6 AL? 6 AL-2 ?....something else?
I need a knob style adjuster a it appears the pill style boxes start with a 6000 rpm pill and I'm looking to limit mine to 5500.
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I like my ready to run dizzy from msd with a built in adjustable rev limiter. If you wanted to go that way.
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I really like the MSD Digital 6 boxes. You can dial in whatever rev limits you want.
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M S D stuff is great and excellent quality , simple to set up so you wont be disappointed with any off there products .. Bud