Billet SOHC engine and parts, posted From old FE Forum

[428kidd]

Guy posted this over on the old FE forum. Says he knows Jay so I hope it is ok to post. I copied the ad text from his post. Thanks Lance

I am working with a company to build a completely billet aluminum 427 sohc cammer engine. The company doing this is no stranger to billet engines and have motors in drag week that hold the world record and also in the racing industry.. So daily driving a billet engine will be no problem cooling wise or anything else wise that one might be concerned about and the car i'm building it for will be driven daily also. 

 Billet aluminum Fe block with water passages, will have options for any bell housing pattern you want from old small ford to big block to current 2020 ford transmissions. We can do anything from raised cam tunnel  and bigger bore spacing for 600+ inch cammer.  Comes with sleeves also.
 Billet aluminum wet heads 430cfm intake and 290 exhaust
 Billet valve covers
 Billet timing cover
 Billet intake manifold. 2 options. Twin 4bl throttle body efi or carb or 3 twin 71mm throttle bodies with fuel rails for efi.

 This stuff will support large amounts of hp with out the weight of an iron block. Imo will support north of 2500hp with ease.
 So anyone looking to build a gasser or blown alcohol motor this would also be a great platform to start with. Block and heads can also be built as a solid block and heads.
 Both Kurt Neighbor and Jay brown know i'm doing this. Jay is local to me and I will also offer or suggest some of his stuff for building one of these billet cammer motors.

 I'm am pretty positive I will have billet parts this year yet.  I will post pics once some of this stuff starts getting done.

 Dan Schoneck

[428kidd]

Link with some pictures
https://www.fordfe.com/billet-aluminum-427-sohc-engine-t163923.html

[cjshaker]

I'm gonna go way out on a limb here and say that customers will probably be limited.

I'm also not aware of any "world records" in Drag Week, unless he's referring to Bailey's 5.99 run, which I think may be the fastest run for a "street legal" car? He also has a billet block.

[jayb]

I've been talking to Dan about this for a few weeks.  The discussions started off centering around a billet FE block, and grew to a complete billet SOHC engine.  Given how expensive cast aluminum SOHC parts are, it is not a huge step up to go billet, which is kind of surprising.  Dan is working on getting registered on the forum now, so I'm sure we will hear more details soon...

[Dumpling]

Not sure I understand what the benefit of a raised cam tunnel might be in an OHC engine.  Is it just more clearance for large stroke cranks?  Would eliminating the cam tunnel entirely result in a stronger block?

and then there's this:

Block will be 13500
heads will be 12500
intake will be 10000
timing cover 2500
valve covers 2000
carbon valve covers 2000
So roughly about 40k for the hard parts.

[428kidd]

Jay is this the same bunch that did the billet FE heads awhile back or a different group? Again not for everyone for sure , but is there a market yes. As we discussed on the old forum , a guy building a 2500 HP engine is not budget oriented.

[dan schoneck]

I'm gonna go way out on a limb here and say that customers will probably be limited.

I'm also not aware of any "world records" in Drag Week, unless he's referring to Bailey's 5.99 run, which I think may be the fastest run for a "street legal" car? He also has a billet block.

Same company that does the blocks for baileys motor is doing this deal. It going to be limited customers yes and really doesn't bother me if anyone else does one or not but I do have interest and people in the cammer world are willing to help sell this stuff. I'm building a rather expensive and unique 62 galaxie pro touring car for my composite business and I have been in love with cammers since I was a kid. My main reason for the billet stuff started out with the billet wet block cause i want to run a 2020 Gt500 7 speed dct transmission behind my cammer and I didn't want to have stupid adapters from the fe block to the modular trans. So with the billet block I can put what ever bell housing pattern I want on it. A one off billet block these days is only 20k. That's for them to just build me one from scratch. That's pretty cheap IMO when a shelby cast block is what 8k? So I wont make any of my money back on this stuff for a while as you can see I priced the blocks much cheaper than 20k.

Also this allows me to build a 700 inch billet cammer v10 for the boat world. Can you imagine twin v10 cammers singing in a boat at a fraction of the cost of some of the other motors out there..

[dan schoneck]

Not sure I understand what the benefit of a raised cam tunnel might be in an OHC engine.  Is it just more clearance for large stroke cranks?  Would eliminating the cam tunnel entirely result in a stronger block?

and then there's this:

Block will be 13500
heads will be 12500
intake will be 10000
timing cover 2500
valve covers 2000
carbon valve covers 2000
So roughly about 40k for the hard parts.

mainly large 4 3/4 stroker crank clearance and 600+'' like what jay is doing.

[cjshaker]

Not sure I understand what the benefit of a raised cam tunnel might be in an OHC engine.  Is it just more clearance for large stroke cranks?  Would eliminating the cam tunnel entirely result in a stronger block?

I'm guessing they'll retain the cam bore just so it can be used in non-cammer engines also. No sense in limiting your customer base. Any time you remove mass, you're going to remove strength, so I would think removing the cam bore entirely would make the block weaker. By how much would probably depend on the design of the rest of the block. Since it's billet, it could easily be designed around to retain the strength, and probably make it even stronger by adding material to the center area where the bores would typically be, which supports the crank bulkheads.

[dan schoneck]

Not sure I understand what the benefit of a raised cam tunnel might be in an OHC engine.  Is it just more clearance for large stroke cranks?  Would eliminating the cam tunnel entirely result in a stronger block?

I'm guessing they'll retain the cam bore just so it can be used in non-cammer engines also. No sense in limiting your customer base. Any time you remove mass, you're going to remove strength, so I would think removing the cam bore entirely would make the block weaker. By how much would probably depend on the design of the rest of the block. Since it's billet, it could easily be designed around to retain the strength, and probably make it even stronger by adding material to the center area where the bores would typically be, which supports the crank bulkheads.

yes def not deleting cam bore, but we have to option to raise it for large stroker cranks. I want to be able to sell the blocks to any fe guys also. Even Jon Mihovetz from accufab on the new billet coyote block put a large cam bore through it for strength. 

[Dumpling]

I still don't understand how removing a large amount of block material, in the very center of the block, makes it stronger.

In this day and age of CNC machining, just how hard would it be to simply skip the cam tunnel entirely, leaving billet material filling the space? 

You say you're doing this in order to mount a modern DCT without adapters? That's just a CNC program change, because you want to leave the option available for other customers to opt for a standard trans mount. So why not have a 'cam-tunnel-delete option?

Seriously, how does a cam tunnel strengthen a block?

[dan schoneck]

I still don't understand how removing a large amount of block material, in the very center of the block, makes it stronger.

In this day and age of CNC machining, just how hard would it be to simply skip the cam tunnel entirely, leaving billet material filling the space? 

You say you're doing this in order to mount a modern DCT without adapters? That's just a CNC program change, because you want to leave the option available for other customers to opt for a standard trans mount. So why not have a 'cam-tunnel-delete option?

Seriously, how does a cam tunnel strengthen a block?

It will be able to have any ford bell housing pattern a person wants. and no matter what you can not delete the cam tunnel on a cammer unless you come up with a badass bearing support and shaft that bolts onto the front of the block for the top timing gear. The stub shaft still runs two cam journals. So it would be silly to remove the rest of them for no reason cause besides a little weight there would be no benefit. Also I have to pay for every option that is done to the block. you have to realize every time something is deleted or added that is an additional cost for cad and then programming. It can be done but anything custom like that will be at the person who wants those changes expense.

[Dumpling]

For someone marketing to the 2500HP/Cost-is-no-object microniche you seem to be pinching pennies. Is this one of those deals where you guarantee Bailey's 10 blocks ordered in order to get your 1 block with the DCT trans mount?  What if I wanted to run coil packs, a multi-stage drysump system, and adapt the cam drive from a modern Hurricane SOHC? Wouldn't need a stub shaft at all. Or maybe go totally oldschool, just a frontend plate to mount the geardrive for the cams.

And how flexible is the machining options, sounds like "not very".  What if I wanted the heads' exhaust ports to feed into the valley area to make packaging turbos easier?

Of course, how exactly is this an FE anymore?

[Barry_R]

The all billet stuff is getting fairly common in the hard core race engine world (Moran is local to me and has one, the guys from ET did a set of heads a decade ago already, and a couple guys have done FE wedge stuff).  A solid head for guys wanting to do a nostalgia fuel deal could be fun - I had somebody ask several years ago but the project never really went anywhere.  The folks at Kirkham had started in on a billet block a few years ago - never saw it in a completed state - project may have been stillborn or gone to somebody who does not want to promote.  They might have some machining data that could be useful.

[cjshaker]

For someone marketing to the 2500HP/Cost-is-no-object microniche you seem to be pinching pennies. Is this one of those deals where you guarantee Bailey's 10 blocks ordered in order to get your 1 block with the DCT trans mount?  What if I wanted to run coil packs, a multi-stage drysump system, and adapt the cam drive from a modern Hurricane SOHC? Wouldn't need a stub shaft at all. Or maybe go totally oldschool, just a frontend plate to mount the geardrive for the cams.

And how flexible is the machining options, sounds like "not very".  What if I wanted the heads' exhaust ports to feed into the valley area to make packaging turbos easier?

Of course, how exactly is this an FE anymore?

What if you designed your own instead of complaining about everything you don't like about his project? And by the way, the "old school" gear drive still used a stub shaft to drive the upper gears.

Dan, I think it sounds like a really interesting project, and I hope you keep us posted on your progress.