Today we tested the SE (Stock Exhaust) version of the cylinder heads, with both the 4V and 8V intakes.  A quick summary is below:

- Again today we observed no rocker arm issues.  I'm pretty confident with these rockers right now...
- The SE heads made almost as much power as the RE (Raised Exhaust) heads:

       RE heads, 8V intake:  860 HP, 734 lb-ft
       SE heads, 8V intake:  854 HP, 725 lb-ft

       RE heads, 4V intake:  857 HP, 719 lb-ft
       SE heads, 4V intake:  842 HP, 719 lb-ft

- The engine still peaks in power around 6500 RPM.  A new cam is coming, hopefully to change that...


I had started getting the SE heads ready to install earlier this week, but various issues took me away from the project, and I wasn't ready to test until today.  After getting all the valves and springs swapped from the RE heads to the SE heads, I finally got the SE heads bolted on Wednesday afternoon.  One thing that made this easier was the ability to re-use the SCE MLS head gaskets.  When I had pulled the RE heads off the engine and cleaned up those gaskets, they still looked brand new.  I contacted SCE and asked if there was any reason to spray them with Copper Coat or something like that to ensure sealing, but Ryan at SCE told me to just go ahead and install them again if they looked good.  So I did, and again they sealed perfectly.  My experience with Cometic MLS gaskets has not been as good; usually the black coating on the Cometics comes off around the cylinder bore after the first installation, and so I end up spraying those with Copper Coat in order to re-use them.  Doesn't appear to be necessary with SCE's gaskets.

I'd also had SCE make up some intake gaskets for me, which made the cylinder head and intake change a lot easier.  I hate cutting out gaskets    A picture of the head to intake adapter gaskets, and intake adapter to intake manifold gaskets, along with the shims to adjust the height of the rocker arm system, is shown below:




It actually took me until this morning to get the rest of the engine put together and ready to run.  Once again today I had help from my pal Royce on the dyno, and also from my pal Kevin (thatdarncat on this forum), helping me work through the issues on the dyno.  The day started a little slowly because one of the batteries used to power the dyno basically just gave up, so we had to replace that battery and reconfigure some of the wiring to match the new battery post configuration.  After that, it was pretty smooth sailing.  As mentioned the engine was equipped with my SE cylinder heads this time, and the headers were Hooker adjustable race headers for a 67-70 Mustang chassis, with 2-1/8" primaries, and a 3-1/2" outlet collector.  They were not equipped with any of the primary extension pipes; they were set at the shortest possible length.

Other than those two changes, the engine was identical to the configuration shown in the previous thread.  It is noteworthy that the SE cylinder heads have an exhaust port that flows about 25 cfm less at peak than the RE cylinder heads, so I figured it would be down significantly on power.  However, the SE heads look on casual inspection to have a better spark plug location.  The chambers between the two head types are actually identical, but the angle of the spark plug, and it's position as it enters the chamber, are different between the two heads.  As a result, the first few pulls on the dyno were done to determine the best timing for the SE cylinder heads.

Here's a picture, taken by Kevin, of Royce and I working on the engine with the 8V intake installed:




The 8V induction system was the one we started off with because it had already been set up during the last test session.  We just basically bolted it on, with the same jetting, and started the engine.  We ran it up to temp, then pulled the valve covers to lash the valves, and then began the pulls.  Our first few pulls were 3000-5000 RPM, in order to dial in the timing.  We started at 28, then went to 30, and then 32.  At 32 degrees total, the engine was actually down on power compared to the 30 degree test, so for the remaining tests we dialed the timing back to 30 degrees.  On the RE heads, best results were obtained at 32 degrees, so it was cool to see an actual effect from the different spark plug locations between the two heads, and it seems it would definitely be a good thing to move the plug location in the RE heads. 

After getting the timing dialed in we quickly ran up the RPM range, finally arriving at the 5000-7000 RPM pull.  Again, as in the previous tests, the engine made power up to 6500 or so, but then quit climbing higher.  I had figured that we would be down 20-25 HP due to the less efficient exhaust on the SE heads, but was surprised to find that they were nearly as good as the RE heads.  The data below shows a comparison of the SE and RE heads with the 8V  intake manifold and carb setup.  Note that the best pull we got with the RE heads was up to 6500 RPM, so that is the one that is shown:




This is really not that big of a difference, and I think it shows that the intake port is far more important than the exhaust port.

Next we pulled the 8V intake off and installed the "Rasputin" (Tall and Terrible) 4V intake.  Royce gets credit for naming that one.  Here's a picture of the engine at this point:




We re-jetted the 1150 Dominator carb to match the jets that we ran with the RE heads, and started the testing.  Everything was fine until we got to the 4500-6500 RPM pull; suddenly before started the pull we heard a loud knocking from the engine.  Ruh-Roh...  We looked for some issue that would cause that, but it sounded just like a connecting rod to me; it appeared to be coming right from the side of the engine block.  Finally though, after changing and restarting the engine briefly a couple times, and listening and watching, I saw that one of the header pipes had come loose from the head, and it was knocking against the head as the engine vibrated while running.  What a relief LOL!

After tightening the header bolts we started the engine and ran the 4500-6500 pull, but it had a big flat spot in the middle of the pull.  We were scratching our head about this, but then it dawned on me to look in the gas tank.  Barely anything left there, we had basically run out of gas.  Duh...

I added gas and then the next two pulls, 4500-6500 and 5000-7000 RPM, were uneventful.  It was interesting that with the 4V intake the SE heads made the identical torque number to the RE heads, but were down more on power at the top end than the 8V intake was.  Here's a graph of the SE vs RE heads, with the 4V intake:




After that pull we called it a day.  I have a new cam coming, hopefully sometime this week, with less intake duration and less lift, but a bigger split for duration between intake and exhaust, and less overlap than this cam.  I'll install that as soon as I get it and test the SE heads again, then change valve springs to something less radical and test again.  I'm really looking forward to dialing in this combination.

In addition, I need to get the crossram intake set up and tested on here with EFI, that will also be coming in the next weeks.

Finally, a few notes from the testing today.  Ross had asked about lift at the retainer with this cam, and I was surprised to see it was only 0.786".  Without any valvetrain flex it should be 0.850", but with these big springs I'm obviously losing a lot.  I'm guessing that backing down on the spring pressure will help HP in more ways than one.

Also, again today the 8V intake showed zero manifold vacuum all through the pull.  At idle however, it was showing significant vacuum, around 9" or so, so I know for a fact that it was working properly.  The 4V intake only showed about 1.1 inches of vacuum with these heads, at 7000 RPM, compared to 1.6 inches at the same engine speed with the RE heads.  So, obviously those heads are pulling harder on the intake than the SE heads.  Certainly an indication that the better exhaust port on the RE heads is having an effect.

Finally, with todays weather conditions the correction factor for the dyno was 4.0%.

I will post another update after the cam change - Jay

My pal Steve the bodywork expert has been looking for a winter project this year, so I've struck a deal with him to do the bodywork on my 69 Cobra.  He just took it to his shop on Monday, and it will probably be ready for paint in the spring.  So now I'm looking at the exterior appearance of the car, and whatever options there may have been for that.  The car was originally Ford's Candy Apple Red, and it will be repainted in that color.  However, the car also has black on the center of the hood, the hood scoop is black, and the taillight panel is black.  After carefully scraping some paint, it appears that the taillight panel was originally red.  But I can't find any evidence of prior red paint on the hood, where it was painted black.  Also, the underside of the scoop appears to have been red, but the top was painted black, and again there is no evidence of red paint under the black on the scoop.  Pictures of the car as I received it are on the second page of this thread:

http://fepower.net/simplemachinesforum/index.php?topic=2795.0


Looking online I see lots of different black and body color combinations, and also some that have no black at all.  I also see a lot of cars with the tape stripe on them; I like that stripe, and am inclined to put it on this car.  But if they never came with that then I'm not sure I'd want to do it.  So, my questions are as follows:

- Was the tape stripe an option for the Cobras?

- Did the factory ever put black paint on any portion of the cars?  If so, where?  I see black on the hood, hood scoop, taillight panel, and also the grille of some of the cars pictured online...

- I also see a lot of the cars with the "Cobra Jet" script on the hood scoop, in addition to the 428.  Was that ever done by the factory, or are those instances owner-installed?


Bear in mind that my car is an early car, built right at the end of 1968.  It is a factory 428SCJ car, with the 4 speed and 3.91 Traction Lok, but it was built before Ford started calling them Drag Pack cars.  Any info on this is appreciated.  Here are a couple of pictures of my car, as I received it five years ago:

I have a customer looking for ones of these intake manifolds; they were originally for a 351C.  They work really well with my 13006 intake adapter.  If you have one please let me know, and I will forward you my customer's contact info.  Thanks, Jay

As time has permitted over the last couple of weeks I've been getting some dyno time in on my cylinder head package.  I have some dyno results, which at this point are not quite as good as I was hoping for, but close.  I think I've identified the horsepower issues and am working to get those fixed.  I have also found a valvetrain issue, which is in the process of being corrected, but the valvetrain issue caused a bent valve, so I need to get that fixed before I can continue testing.  The good news is that the heads appear to be solid, with no issues that I can see at this point.  The intake manifolds need some development work, which I'm hoping won't take too long; I'd like to be back testing on the dyno in 3-4 weeks.

I apologize in advance for this very long post, but I wanted to get this documented while it was still fresh in my mind.  Lots of things have been happening on this project over the last couple weeks.

Here are some details on the dyno mule, which is a 511" engine:
 - Pond block, 4.310" bore
 - RPM forged crank, 4.375" stroke
 - Crower billet rods, 6.700"
 - CP Pistons, with .039" steel top ring, .039" Napier second ring, 11 lb 3mm oil ring, 13.0:1 static compression.
 - Milodon 8 quart pan and pickup
 - Moroso windage tray
 - Precision Oil Pumps high volume pump
 - Bullet solid roller cam, 285/292 @ .050", 0.880" gross valve lift
 - FE Power RE (Raised Exhaust) heads, 2.300" intakes, 1.675" exhausts, unported
 - PAC 1356 springs set up with 340 pounds on the seat and about 1000 pounds over the nose
 - FE Power intake adapter for the cylinder heads, port matched to the intake and the heads
 - FE Power 4V or 8V intake, unported
 - FE Power rocker arm system
 - Smith Brothers 7/16" pushrods, with 0.040" restrictors built in
 - FE Power valve covers, first the clear top version, then the standard pentroof version after initial warm up
 - GZ Motorsports vacuum pump
 - DIY Autotune EFI system, used for ignition only at this point.  Crank trigger, cam sensor, and individual coil packs.


Here's what the engine looked like during most of the dyno testing:




So far I have only tested the RE version of the cylinder heads.  Most of the testing has been done with the 4V intake manifold, but I did make a few pulls with the 8V intake also.  I was hoping for 850 HP out of the 4V intake and Dominator carb, and 900 HP out of the 8V intake and two 850 carbs.  Testing has been interrupted numerous times with valve train problems, which I will try to describe in detail below.  For now, this was the only pull to 7000 RPM with the 4V intake and Dominator carb:




I guess 820 HP isn't too bad as a starting point.  One notable thing about this dyno pull was that the manifold vacuum at 7000 RPM was 2 inches; that's a whole lot, and indicated that the carb could be too small.  But that turned out not to be the case, from some later test results.

Backing up, I got the engine on the dyno in the middle of August, built the headers, and double and triple checked everything before starting to test.  Starting it up was a real thrill; every cast aluminum part, and almost all the billet parts on this engine, started life on my computer screen.  It was great to see all that work suddenly running an engine.  I started it with the clear top valve covers so that I could watch the oil flow in the valvetrain area, and it looked just fine.  Warm up was uneventful, and after running for about 15 minutes I shut the engine down to lash the valves, then installed the regular valve covers, which seal better when using the vacuum pump.

The next day Royce B came by to help with the testing.  Kevin R was also there, and a few others.  We started with a cruise test just to see how the air/fuel looked under load, and it seemed at the lower engine speeds it was OK, so we ran a dyno pull from 3000 to 4500, changed jets, ran from 3000 to 5000, jetted up again, and with the A/F looking good we started running higher.  But, at the start of one of the pulls, while the engine was still warming up, we heard a noise that sounded like a bolt had dropped into the sheet metal pan on the dyno, under the engine.  We went out and looked, but didn't see anything.  On the next pull, we were down 75 horsepower from where we had been.  I pulled the valve covers and discovered this broken intake rocker:




Just for reference, here are a couple of pictures of the intact valvetrain:






With the big valvesprings there are a lot of torsional stresses on that intake rocker.  Bill Conley had helped me with an FEA analysis of the design, and it appeared that the design would hold, but it seemed that we were looking at a fatigue failure, rather than a strength issue.  Looking at the broken rocker, you can see it is pretty thin over by the adjuster.  Larry Tores at T&D Machine had mentioned to me at the PRI show last year that most fatigue failures start right in this area, so I figured that's what was happening. 

The reason that the rocker is thin there is that it is counterbored in that area for a thrust bearing.  During the FEA analysis it became clear that the side loads on the intake rocker were going to be pretty large, due to the angled pushrod. So, I designed the intake rocker with a thrust bearing that bears against the exhaust rocker, and of course since the force is transmitted through the exhaust rocker, it needs a thrust bearing on the other side too.  Here's a picture of a rocker pair assembly taken apart, showing the thrust bearings and the steel washers they ride against:




Well, it was possible that this was just a bad rocker, and I had a few spares, so we replaced that one and continued running.  We had no further issues for the remaining dyno tests, and made the one pull from 5000 to 7000 RPM.  I was very happy that the valvetrain seemed to hold together with no problem up to that engine speed.  But it was, and still is, a mystery to me why the engine peaked in power at about 6500 RPM.  I've got to believe that the cam wants to go higher than that. 

Next, we pulled off the 4V intake and 1150 Dominator, and installed the 8V intake and two 850 center squirter carbs.  I had really high hopes for this one, but unfortunately our testing was cut short by more rocker arm problems.  The first pull with the 8V intake, and really the only good pull, was 3000 to 5000 RPM.  The motor was pig rich, even showing some A/F numbers in the 9s, which you never see.  Nevertheless, it still showed a lot of promise.  The graph below shows the best 3000-5000 RPM pull with the 4V intake, and the first pull with the 8V intake:




At 5000 RPM, despite being very rich, the 8V intake looks to be pulling away from the 4V intake, up by 20 HP to 660 HP at that point.  But that was as good as it got.  We jetted down, and for some unknown reason, A/F started looking better but power was down substantially.  We tried another pull, and then the motor just didn't sound right.  Pulled the valve covers, and found two more broken intake rockers.  Crap    Done for the day.

The conclusions from the first round of testing were twofold:  The intake rocker needed to be redesigned to add material around the adjuster, and the 4V intake needed to be tested with a bigger carb, to try to reduce vacuum at wide open throttle.  On the intake rocker, I didn't have room to move the adjuster towards the thicker side, because then the pushrod would hit the intake adapter.  But the exhaust rocker was thicker on both sides of the adjuster than the intake rocker was on it's thin side, and since the pushrod comes straight up for the exhaust rocker, it wouldn't be subject to the kind of torsional stresses that the intake rocker was.  So, I moved the counterbore that had been in the intake rocker over to the exhaust rocker, to leave the intake rocker as thick as possible around the adjuster. 

For the next few days I revised my CNC programming for the rocker arms and machined a new set of intake rockers, and modified the existing set of exhaust rockers.  Along the way, Royce talked to Jon Kaase about the issues we were seeing (Royce knows Jon from his Engine Masters engines, and I've met Jon at the PRI show).  Jon steered Royce to a guy who makes Kaase's top end rockers, and there was an online article about his parts.  One of the things I found interesting in his article was that he shot peens his aluminum rocker arms.  I thought this might be a good thing for me to do also, because machining aluminum creates tensile stresses on the outside of the material, and can lead to fatigue problems.  Shot peening changes those to compressive stresses, which are more resistant to fatigue.  I found a local company who could shot peen my rockers, so I dropped them off for the work.  They were able to get it done in a couple days, and I got them back last Friday.  Here's a couple pictures of the shot peened rockers:





In the meantime, Royce had found a guy with one of those billet body 1400 cfm Dominator carbs, who was willing to lend it to us for testing.  He brought it up last Friday, but it took most of the afternoon to re-assemble the valvetrain.  Installing it, we encountered a strange problem with the rockers; even with the adjusters backed all the way off, there was no lash.  I found out later that shot peening can deform aluminum, and the shot peening operation had actually changed the dimensions of the rockers, leading to the problem.  I shimmed up the stands to get some lash, but then when the rockers started getting cycled with the engine running, the lash started backing out; apparently the rockers were relaxing into the original machined shape.  I won't go into all the details, but this led to some weird noises from the valvetrain, that we finally figured out were broken adjusters; continually adjusting the lash had left them sticking too far out of the rocker arms. 

Finally by Saturday afternoon we had this all ironed out, engine was running fine, no more lash issues, etc., and were ready to make a pull with the 4V intake and the big Dominator carb.  But I think we only made one pull, when Royce noticed some smoke coming out of the vacuum pump catch can when the engine was running.  We pulled the valve covers again, and on the left side I noticed that we had water in the oil.  Ugh 

So, one of the nightmare scenarios with these heads was that they wouldn't hold up to punishment under running conditions, despite the thick walls I had put into the casting design.  However, the problem turned out to be the intake gasket, which was leaking water at the rear water opening of the right head.  Sunday I pressurized the cooling system to find the leak, and then pulled the intake adapter off.  When I looked at it in detail it became plain that I had machined the intake adapter incorrectly, and not left enough material to completely cover the gasket over the hole in the rear of the head.  If I had installed the intake adapter without a gasket, I'd have seen about a .040" slot of the rear water opening in the head exposed.  The gasket held there for a while, but finally gave up on Saturday afternoon.  Another simple issue, that will be easy to fix with a correction to the machining program, but it stopped us in our tracks on Saturday.

By the end of the day Monday I had made up some thin brass plates to block off the rear water jacket holes in the heads, and re-installed the intake adapter and valvetrain.  Tuesday I ran the engine again, with the 4V intake and the big carb, but encountered another problem with the #8 exhaust rocker.  During operation, it was jamming the adjuster back into the body of the rocker arm, opening the lash way up.  #8 had been one of the cylinders where one of the intake rockers had failed during a pull, and I'd been wondering if I'd done some damage in one of those cylinders. This morning I fabricated a tool to remove the valve springs with the heads on the engine, and did a leakdown check on #8, and sure enough the exhaust valve is bent.  I'm thinking the bent valve contacted the piston and jammed the adjuster up into the rocker arm.

I did get some good data up to 6000 RPM with the big carb, and much to my surprise, the engine was pulling the same amount of vacuum that the 1150 Dominator was at the same speeds.  I don't think there's any way that carb is too small, so now I'm suspecting the 4V intake manifold is a restriction, and probably limiting power production.  I've been talking to Joe Craine, and he has agreed to flow both the 4V and 8V intakes, on the intake adapter, and make some modifications to improve them.  Anyone who has been following this project probably remembers that my first go around with the RE heads showed exhaust flow that was not that great; I sent part of a head down to Joe and he modified the port to work better.  Then I took the modifications and incorporated them into the casting patterns, and the exhaust ports as cast picked up about 40 cfm.  I'm hoping that Joe can find some improvements in the intake manifolds, that I can also incorporate into revised castings.

I remain surprised by the relatively low RPM where this engine wants to peak in power.  I supposed it could be related to the intakes, but with a 285/292 @ .050 cam, I was figuring it would peak well over 7000 RPM.  I suppose it could be intake related, so we'll find out if that's the case when I dyno again with Joe's improvements.

Also, I've been thinking that I need to go to steel rocker arms on this setup.  Even though I haven't broken any more intake rockers since the design change, I've lost some confidence in them as a result, and would like a more bulletproof part.  I think while I am waiting for valves, and for Joe to flow the intakes, I will work on getting a revised design for a steel rocker arm finished and machined.  I'm also looking at an investment casting option for the steel rockers.

I will be back on the dyno with this engine as soon as possible, hopefully by the end of the month.  I'm not sure if I've fleshed out all the problems yet, but I've certainly identified the most obvious ones, so next time around the testing should go quite a bit smoother. 

One of our members sent me this photo of a critter that was dying to get in and see the old iron   Literally...

I'm getting ready to order another run of SOHC gasket sets.  These are sets that are specific to the SOHC, and include intake and exhaust gaskets, block end rail corks, all the front cover gaskets, but no head gaskets.  They are $190 + shipping for the set.  If you'd like a set, respond here, message me on the forum, email me at jayb@fepower.net, or give me a call at 952-428-9035.  I will be ordering them sometime in the next week or two, so time is limited.  Thanks, Jay


Update June 29, 2020:  Orders are closed, thanks to all who responded!

I put some "blem" FE Power valve covers up for sale in the Vendor Classifieds yesterday, and had a guy contact me about the sales tax issue.  He wanted to know if he had to pay sales tax on purchases from FE Power.  Back when the Supreme Court decision made collecting sales tax on online purchases required, I had to do a bunch of research on that, so just for general information I thought I'd post what I found out about this.

The key point is that nearly all states in the US have reporting minimums for collecting sales tax, when the products are shipped from outside the state.  For example, California requires that if a business makes 100 sales into their state over the course of the calendar year, or sells at least $100,000 in products into the state, then it is required to report those sales and collect sales tax on them, then forward those taxes to the state.  If the sales are fewer than 100, or less than $100,000, then no reporting or collection of sales taxes is required.  Most other states have very similar requirements.  Illinois is 200/$100,000, Connecticut is 200/$250,000, South Dakota is 200/$100,000, Ohio has no minimum quantity but has $500,000 in minimum dollar value, etc. 

FE Power doesn't come close to these minimums for any state, so unless the purchase is going into Minnesota, I don't need to collect sales tax on any purchases.  It aggravates me to no end that I have to pay tax on purchases from Summit, Amazon, ebay, and any other large online retailers, but at least my customers who buy direct don't have to do that.  Just thought I'd put this up here for general information - Jay

Updated 7/13/20:  Just finished all the machining on all the remaining valve covers.  I will not have any more for a while after these are gone.  I have updated the list below with the 8 7 pairs I have left.  Any questions, please let me know.  Thanks, Jay

Normally I take "blems" like these parts to the FE Reunion and sell them there, but since there hasn't been one this year (yet), I'm putting these up for sale on the site.  The pictures below are representative of the parts that I'm selling.  I'm offering a substantial discount on all these parts, in most cases $100 off the normal price, because I'm trying to clear out space for the coming cylinder head and intake manifold castings. 

The valve cover caps shown in most of the photos are for use with a screw-in breather; I like the ones by S&B, shown at this link on the Summit Racing web site:

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sbf-26-1524

However, I can substitute plain caps, a cap machined for a PCV grommet (grommet included), or a cap machined for a #12 AN fitting if you would prefer.  All valve covers come with the bolts required to install them.

I still offer machining for master cylinder and power booster clearance at no extra charge for these valve covers.  I have yet to find a car that these will not fit, with the proper clearancing.  Also, I can still offer custom engraving on the plain (not finned) valve covers, such as block letters with your cubic inches, "FE", "FE Power", a Cobra Jet script, a Fairlane script, whatever.  Clearancing or custom engraving will add 3-4 weeks to delivery time.  Any custom engraving will add a charge of $60 to $125 (depending on what needs to be engraved), and the valve covers must be paid for in advance, but it's no problem for me to engrave most things on these covers.

Shipping for any of these valve covers to the continental US is $29; outside of the US, contact me and I can quote a shipping cost.  I can accept payment via Paypal, credit cards, or personal checks.  I will not accept returns on these covers.  Any questions, please let me know.

The valve covers shown below are my part number 17004, fitted with two caps for breathers.  I have one pair available; Sorry, sold out.  Normal price for these is $359 for the pair; scratch and dent sale $259 each pair:








The valve covers shown below are my part number 17006, fitted with two caps for breathers.  I have four three one Sorry, sold out.  Personally I prefer these covers, because it gets the breathers up at the front of the engine, rather than at the rear, where oil mist from the breather could be a bigger problem.  Normal price for these is $359 for the pair; scratch and dent sale $259 each pair:








The valve covers shown below are my part number 17006F, fitted with two caps for breathers.  I have one pair available, Sorry, this pair is sold.   normal price is $409 for the pair, scratch and dent sale $309 for the pair.  Also, I do have one plain pair, finned with no holes, still available.    Looks just like the pictures below, but no holes for breathers.  Normal price for those is $339 for the pair; scratch and dent sale $239 for the pair:
  Sorry, this pair is sold.