Introduction and SOHC questions.........

[Bart]

I just got accepted onto this forum (thanks Jay), and thought I would do a little introduction before I posted my questions. I work in a mechanical worksop in Melbourne, Australia. We mainly work on older vehicles and I work there part time while my dad is there full time. The owner of the shop owns a MkI Cortina drag car with and blown and injected SOHC:





At the moment we are in the process of building 4 SOHC engines for customers. One is an original Ford engine and the others are using Paul Munro's SOHC kit with one going to be fitted to a N.O.S service block and the other two are going on Pond blocks.

We are going to have a few questions for you blokes along the way, if you don't mind, and will thank all of you in advance for any help.

Today I trial fitted the camshafts into one set of the cyliner heads to make sure that it turned and to check cam end float. I got a reading of 0.006". Is this an acceptable amount of end float or should we be aiming for more or less? The cams are Comp Cams and the heads are going to be fitted to an aluminum Pond block.

I will try and take some photos of the builds along the way if anybody is interested and i'm sure I will have many more questions along the way.

Thanks again, Bart.

[jayb]

Good to see you here, Bart.  Most of the time when I measure the SOHC cam endplay on new heads I only get around .003", but I think that .006" is fine.  On some of my older heads, where the heads and the caps are worn, I've seen .010" and run them without any trouble.

Looking forward to hearing more about these engines - Jay

[machoneman]

Wow, that's one hell of a car! Saw a vid last year on the 'Net (Youtube?) and it really scoots.

Must though be a major pain in the rear to work on the engine with the tight tube frame upper rails and the engine 1/2 way under the cowl. Yikes!