FE Power Forums
FE Power Forums => Non-FE Discussion Forum => Topic started by: jayb on March 13, 2017, 11:29:07 PM
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Over the last week I've had the pleasure to host one of our forum's Engine Masters heroes, Royce Brechler, as he dynoed a 510" MEL engine for one of his customers. It's hard to believe that the FE could be considered mainstream these days, but compared to the MEL engine the FE is positively everywhere. So it was a real treat to see this close FE cousin on the dyno for some power pulls.
This engine is destined for a 56 Thunderbird race car but is a fairly mild piece with something like 9.5:1 compression and a fairly conservative solid roller cam (252@0.050", about 0.550" lift). The engine does feature an Offenhauser tunnel ram with a single four barrel carb, which is actually a 429 piece that fits to the engine with the aid of a couple of adapter plates. Bore is 4.41" and stroke is 4.175" for a total of 510 cubic inches. Here's a photo of the engine on the dyno:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/510MEL.jpg)
The engine required some special attention to get installed on the dyno, including a custom bellhousing that Royce came up with and some spacers between the bellhousing and the dyno plate, because the bellhousing was fairly short. It was a little more difficult to get installed than a normal engine because the bellhousing didn't have a hole in the side for a clutch fork; apparently it had been adapted from an automatic bellhousing. Normally when lining up the dyno's input shaft to the engine I reach through that hole to help with the alignment, but since that wasn't possible we had to work a little harder to get the engine installed. Eventually it slid into place, and after fabricating a custom bracket to mount the motor mounts to the dyno stand we were in business.
As we got the engine hooked up Royce pointed out all the improvements of the MEL (Mercury-Edsel-Lincoln) over the FE, including the top exhaust bolts which were through-bolts with nuts, not threaded for normal bolts (and prone to rust in place) like the FE, and the valley pan, which bolted in place in the valley and sealed, making every MEL manifold an air-gap manifold (Royce was to later regret bragging about the valley cover, because it ended up having to come off...) Bore spacing on the MEL is a whopping 4.900", which of course makes for a very dimensionally large engine. But just like the 348 and 409 Chev engines, the head is flat; the whole combustion chamber is in the cylinder, and the decks are not square with the piston tops.
After getting it hooked up on the dyno we set the timing at a very conservative 30 degrees, partly because the timing was locked in the distributor, and started the engine. It fired up with no drama and after warming it up we ran a checkout pull from 3000 to 4500 RPM. Everything seemed fine, but the engine was not making near the power we expected, something like 540 foot pounds and 440 horsepower. Royce decided to run it higher to 5500 RPM and see how it did before starting any tuning. We basically got the same numbers; power peak was fairly low in the RPM range. When we started the engine again, we noticed what sounded like a valvetrain noise. We decided to pull the valve covers, lash the valves, and check everything out. Lo and behold, on the #8 cylinder we found a broken valve lock! One of the pieces had come out, and the valve was hanging on by a thread. We figured this was where the noise was coming from.
Here's where the trouble started ::) I told Royce I had spare valve locks; what size were the valves? Royce said 3/8" stem, so I dug out my valvetrain box and found a couple of valve locks for a 3/8" stem valve. Royce and I installed them. We buttoned the engine back up and it sounded fine again. We went into the next pull and at about 4500 RPM, the engine made a much louder and unusual sound. I backed out of the pull instantly, but thought that the exhaust pipe had just come loose from one of the headers. But on inspection the pipes were still tightly attached. We pulled the left valve cover again and saw a problem with the same valve; this time it had pulled all the way through the retainer. I measured one of the valve stems and it turned out that they were NOT 3/8", but 11/32". We pulled the spring off that valve and it was stuck in the guide, clearly bent.
Well, we weren't going to make any more power that day, that's for sure. Royce tore down the engine, and before he took off the head he cursed his way through removing the valley plate, which bolts to the cylinder heads. I avoided any snide remarks in light of the situation ;D ;D When the head came off it was all pretty much good news. The valve was very lightly jammed into the guide, and with a few taps from a plastic hammer it came out. The piston only showed a slight mark where the valve had hit. It looked like we could replace the valve and the locks and be back in business.
Royce took off for the day with a plan to get the parts he needed within a few days, then come back and finish with the engine. Sure enough, five days later he was back, and got the engine reassembled and running this past Thursday night. Friday was looking good for finishing the dyno tests.
On Friday, overall everything went pretty well. The big power gainer was the timing; when we went from 30 degrees to 33 degrees, the engine picked up a full 25 HP! I've never seen that big of a bump with a 3 degree timing change before. We finally got dialed in at 40 degrees, then we tried a 1" Super Sucker carb spacer under the 1000 cfm 4150 Holley. Nearly unbelievably, we lost 25 horsepower with that spacer! We took it back out and re-ran the baseline pull, and the engine came right back to where it had started. Go figure. Several times during the day we were spooked with noises coming from the dyno room, and out of an abundance of caution we'd pull the valve covers, check the lash, check the cam timing, etc. In the end we attributed any noise we heard to exhaust leaks (there were no gaskets on the headers), because after getting the engine dialed in with timing and fuel, it ran pretty consistently. Peak numbers were 584 foot pounds of torque, and 495 horsepower. Here's a graph of the best pull:
(http://fepower.net/Photos/Posts/ROYCEM11.jpg)
We did try one more test, replacing the 1000 cfm Holley carb with a 750 carb, and got nearly identical results all across the RPM range. It made sense, because the engine just didn't need all the air that the 1000 cfm carb could provide. I thought that a dual carb setup may have gotten us to 600 foot pounds just because of a smoother path for the air into the engine, but we didn't have a setup that would work so that was that.
Royce has more MEL engines planned for the dyno over the next several months, including his Engine Masters entry for the year, so I will be posting more info on these engines as they come across the dyno. Stay tuned...
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What year are the heads?
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The heads are 66 462 with 2.15 1.77 valves and fully ported
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Great dyno run! Wow, with that 4.41 bore, I'll venture that compared to any FE, the valves have little shrouding from the cylinder walls.
Not knowing this engine type at all (but I do know a tad about the 348-409 Chevy head/deck/piston design) I wonder what other improvements would seriously raise the hp numbers. Put another way, if the c/r was raised to say 12:1 or 13:1, the cam was a lot hotter (like mucho!) and with a few other tweaks could this design hit say 500 hp? Maybe 600?
510 x 1.00 hp/cid = 510 hp
510 x 1.25 hp/cid = 638 hp
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Go, Royce, go!
I like seeing non-cookie-cutter combos.....
Good work.
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I think the heads are good enough to make 1.4 hp/cube at 12 to 1 compression it should make 1.2 ft/lb per cube
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OOPS, at that 510 cubic inch size 1.4 is not in the cards.. I think the heads could make in the 625 to 650 range. The heads are about as good as well prepped medium riser FE heads
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLPR2iwnfTs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLPR2iwnfTs)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt1xdW3xNb4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt1xdW3xNb4)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLPR2iwnfTs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLPR2iwnfTs)Is that a FE water pump?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt1xdW3xNb4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt1xdW3xNb4)
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Yes, the owner cut up and re-welded an FE pump to fit.
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It's nice to know there are some folks out there who are more gluttons for punishment than we are! ;)
Seriously, that's a very cool piece. Nice to see Heron-chamber heads making some real HP instead of just torque.
- Bill
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James Butler and Wife Inez of Morton, TX held several NHRA National Records in A/GS with a blown MEL built by Butler and Howard Johanson of Howards cams.
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I know a Lincoln-engined dragster long ago won a big NHRA race (when I think they only did 3 races per year) but I'm not sure it was the same MEL engine.
On edit: Google is our friend!
http://www.draglist.com/Danny/fordfuel.htm
It was Ted Cyr of Downey, CA with a 8.00 e.t. @ 187.5 MPH.
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Very interesting to see the piston tops to this engine.Glad things got sorted out.One of these should be powering the wagon.
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Steve. I don't know....385 power is kind of intoxicating when you can pull the front wheels on a 4000 lb wagon.. I am not sure I can build a MEL to that level.
I am toying with the idea of going this route with my MEL... I just need to have Jay put in a fire suppression system in the dyno room in case of a major backfire lol
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Say Royce, with that big bore spacing and your great results.....
I wonder if a revised hi-port version of the O.E.M. MEL head (intake and exhaust ports as is current practice on lots of push-rod race engines) would allow the engine to even surpass say a hi-riser FE engine in hp output? ;D
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It would probably work.. but not a lot of room to raise the roof.. Unless Jay writes some MEL code for a Hi Port head. It needs the floor raised as much as the roof.. The short turn is not very good and the floor slopes up toward the valve.. The ports are sure big enough though. The exhausts are a lot better than most Ford heads. Joe Craine, who ported my heads, was impressed..
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Unless Jay writes some MEL code for a Hi Port head.
He would truly be J.C's hero if this was to be done.Definetly be towards "The trailing edge of technology"
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I was actually thinking of a new casting, in aluminum, where a lot of port raising like 1/2" to 1" on both sides, would pop new life into this large bore engine design. Still, few would buy such a beast these days as most are used IMO for restos, not racing.
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Do you have a dual four top to try? I am not impressed with a single four top on a tunnel ram intake. I bet there is a lot of horsepower left there. Joe-JDC
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Joe, Jay said the same thing.. and I had mentioned to the owner that these were not as good as the 2x4 tunnel ram, but it is what he had..Jay had an Offy 2x4 top for an FE that looked like it would fit and we were going to try a couple 660s.. Alas it had different bolt spacing
Between the single 4 and the old school cam I figure we left nearly 50 horse on the table, but owner seems happy.
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Bob, designing and producing a new head for the MEL would fall into the more money than brains category, and I have a deficit of both
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Royce you are incorrect! More money, yes.
But brains you have in abundance! ;) ;) ;)
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Pretty cool "off the wall" engine. As for the aluminum MEL heads, I imagine the market would not be huge, but perhaps if the heads were available, there could be some added incentive for MEL powered nostalgia cars. A local bracket racer runs a 58 Olds Super 88, all "old school", 371 cube Olds , 4 speed Hydramatic etc. Over the past several seasons, he has gone from mid 15 second ETs, and normally runs 13.4-13.5s, pretty impressive for such a heavy scow. He used to run an Offenhauser low rise 2x 4 barrel setup, but has since installed a factory Olds J-2 Tri power setup, but one thing that really picked him up was a set of aluminum cylinder heads. (Yes, Really!, For a 371-394 Oldsmobile engine.) I asked where he found the heads, and he told me a group of nostalgia racers got together to have some heads made up for their Olds powered gassers and gas dragsters. I don`t know how many sets they had cast, but I doubt that it was a whole bunch.
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I love to see non common engines like this.
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Royce,
Have you built any power with the 63-65 heads that have the small combustion chambers?
Do the C3VE blocks tend to be thin in the cores?
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The '59 Nationals in Detroit (at the brand new Detroit Dragway) featured a lincoln-powered Devin (I think) taking the win in Modified Sports.
It looked a bit awkward because a spare cylinder head was fastened under the back bumper area to help traction.
KS
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Chris I have only worked with 58-60 and the later 462 blocks. I have never owned the chambered heads, but I doubt they would be useful for performance.. It is hard enough as it is to get enough compression out of a MEL.