427 marine block

[fekbmax]

I have a good opportunity to pick up a 427 marine block, it looks to be in decent shape, water jackets look as good as a lot of the passenger blocks i have seen, bore looks like it will clean up at .030 easy, maybe even .020
Question s, is there anything i need to know about these blocks, do they have a lot of core shift and what not ? You guys know me, I'm wanting to build a stout race type engine like all the rest of my junk. Any thing i need to look at differently other than all the normal stuff of other bocks since it is a marine  center oiler block ??

[machoneman]

I do believe the 'marine' blocks were exactly the same as those built by Ford for passenger car use. Put another way, they were alleged to be no different than other CO blocks used in other applications. Now industrial engines ( water pumps, irrigation) sold to civil enterprises/farmers have been alleged to be lesser engine blocks rejected for thin wall thickness, various degrees of core shift, etc. as due to their low rpm, low load nature, they'd work just fine.

Chris Craft's shops merely added a lot of specialized parts to 427's like water-cooled exhausts, really heavy duty water pumps and pulleys, flame resistant carb shielding and more. But they started out with as-cast, as assembled long blocks as supplied by Ford.
 
Regardless, in today's world, a sonic check is cheap insurance.

[BruceS]

Keith, I agree with Bob.  I acquired a 1966 date-coded Marine 427 (LH rotation) center-oiler from a friend and also bought from him a 1968 side-oiler block.  The SO block was std. bore.  After sonic checks, the Marine block had thicker walls overall than the SO even though it was already 0.030 over!  So bottom line if the sonic check looks good and it holds water you should have yourself a solid foundation.

Bruce

[fekbmax]

Thanks fellas..

[wsu0702]

I do believe the 'marine' blocks were exactly the same as those built by Ford for passenger car use. Put another way, they were alleged to be no different than other CO blocks used in other applications. Now industrial engines ( water pumps, irrigation) sold to civil enterprises/farmers have been alleged to be lesser engine blocks rejected for thin wall thickness, various degrees of core shift, etc. as due to their low rpm, low load nature, they'd work just fine.

Chris Craft's shops merely added a lot of specialized parts to 427's like water-cooled exhausts, really heavy duty water pumps and pulleys, flame resistant carb shielding and more. But they started out with as-cast, as assembled long blocks as supplied by Ford.
 
Regardless, in today's world, a sonic check is cheap insurance.

machoneman here is some Ford documentation to back up your statement about the industrial 427s.  I have had a lot of industrial 428 blocks that mapped out fine but I don't think Ford "sorted" the 428 blocks like they did the 427s.