My 351W slow progress build...

[sick88tbird]

So I finally got around to tearing down the 351w...last weekend I installed the cam and degree'd it and checked PTV clearance and made sure the 1.7rr's had the proper geometry. Today, I came in and cleaned the V/C's and timing cover, painted them and the new water pump ford grey and painted my fuel rails black. I pulled the Crane valvesprings and went to check installed height with the new Comp retainers/locks to see which shims out of my bag of goodies that I needed....that's where the problem came...the valvespring seat has an ID of .990", almost looks like it's set up for dual springs(F3ZE heads)...nobody makes shims with a 1.440" OD and .990" ID so I've ordered a valvespring seat cutter/arbor so I can machine it down and my shims will fit. It's a PITA to do things right...lol.

I did get the exhaust ports on one head finish ported/polished and two intake ports finish ported...I'm hoping to have the cutter here tuesday and have things going again by next weekend....at least I'll have all this stuff for when I set up the 302 for my ranger. I also suspect that's why the 351 never wanted to run past 4600rpm in the old 'bird...the springs were installed .030"/int and .070"/exh taller than the recommended installed height.

Installed height on valvesprings will always be right on every motor I put together from now on...that's for damn sure.

-Don

[t65neon5]

sweet!.......keep us informed!!!!

[sick88tbird]

Will do...I'm pulling the other head tonight and stripping it down and I'll continue port work until my seat cutter comes in. Just sucks because it takes 15-20mins of prep and another 15-20 mins of clean-up when I'm doing all this at my work...and it's a super dusty environment...doors have to stay down and everything has to be cleaned and re-cleaned and meticulously bagged and put away so it's out of our day to day work. Could be worse I guess, I could not have access to the shop anytime I wanted.

-Don

[packman]

Packman

[sick88tbird]

So, I'm working on porting the heads further today....last night I got the spring seats machined down and have to order some spring i.d. locators being as fords don't actually have a spring pocket. Here is a pic of before and after side by side...this head is now ready.



I had to machine down the factory spring locators so I can shim the springs to get the correct installed height...otherwise I would have had seriously low spring pressure and ran into valve float between 5000-5400rpm...once these are all set up, I should be good for 6500rpm(not that it'll ever go there, but 5800-6000 isn't out of the question). Good incase I ever miss a shift or break something in the driveline.

-Don

[sick88tbird]

Update: Both heads are fully ported and mildly polished and I did minimal chamber work to unshroud the valves...I basically just made a compromise between not increasing the chamber size and max flow.....chambers have grown to, probably, 60-61cc's(were previously milled to 59.2cc's). I'm expecting a TRUE 9.0-9.2:1 C/R. I have to finish milling down 5 of the factory cast-in spring locators on one head, lap the valves in on that head, check spring installed height then thoroughly clean both heads and assemble them. Sounds easy enough, but probably going to take over 3hrs. These heads look serious...these are the first GT40 irons that I have gotten real serious with...I've done plenty of E7's, some of which(with 1.94"/1.60" valves) flow just about on par with GT40X heads...and these look even better. I'm excited...I need to spend a few more bucks on odds and ends so installation goes off without a hitch...but now with a few extra bucks in my pocket I'm debating on starting to stock-pile parts for my 5.0 ranger build or buy BBK 1 3/4" LT 351W headers and modifying them to fit.

Decisions, decisions

-Don

[sick88tbird]

Didn't get as far as I wanted last weekend as it proved to be very time consuming. I still have to assemble one head then I can work on assembling the long-block tomorrow. I wish I would have spent more time looking up valve spring shims as I believe I stumbled upon some from Trick Flow that fit factory heads...instead I got all rammy and just started ordering out of Comp's catalog...lol. I'll try to snap some pics tomorrow.

-Don

[t65neon5]

Didn't get as far as I wanted last weekend as it proved to be very time consuming. I still have to assemble one head then I can work on assembling the long-block tomorrow. I wish I would have spent more time looking up valve spring shims as I believe I stumbled upon some from Trick Flow that fit factory heads...instead I got all rammy and just started ordering out of Comp's catalog...lol. I'll try to snap some pics tomorrow.

-Don

sounds good...are you coming to scottfest?.......maybe bringing your 85 coupe so i can drool?......lol

[sick88tbird]

Probably not ready by Scottfest, but I'd definitely like to do it next time...interior is horrendible(horrendous+terrible) and I'm super limited on available time to work on it. But I made more progress today...got the other head completely assembled and both heads installed on the motor. Installed ARP intake studs and mocked up the lower intake...the bolt-hole boss on the driver front needed to be mowed down, I cut it down checked it again and put a coat of Ford Grey on it before leaving for the day. As promised...PICS!!!

What it looked like this morning...


Shims and locators installed, next is complete....


Pistons cleaned up and fresh Fel-Pro 1011-2 head gaskets...I swear by the 1011-1 and -2 gaskets depending on application.


Heads on, ready for rockers and intake...maybe tomorrow...otherwise a few weeknights...at the latest by next Saturday.


After the rockers, intake and valve covers are on, then I'll flip her over take the pan off and install the timing cover and re-install the pan.

...my back hurts...lol, need a taller engine stand!

-Don

[sick88tbird]

Intake, injectors, fuel rails, roller rockers are all on. I'm missing valve cover bolts for one side so I installed the gaskets and covers and just loosely put three bolts in each cover. Took pics but probably won't be able to get them up until next weekend. I need to pick up some odds & ends and install the timing cover/water pump and oil pan gasket. Maybe I can get around to modifying my t/b spacer next weekend....using a fox-body 75mm spacer that I had milled .770". Doing so removed the water passage inlets and outlets like I wanted and keeps the spacer the same thickness as the factory box spacer. I already have an EGR block-off plate fabbed out of aluminum and I already swapped the box throttle arm onto the 75mm trick flow throttle body.

-Don

[packman]

Nice!!! I was planning the same thing with my Ranger. When the donor engine goes into the CV, the lopo will go into my Ranger. Waste not, want not.



Packman

[sick88tbird]

Nice!!! I was planning the same thing with my Ranger. When the donor engine goes into the CV, the lopo will go into my Ranger. Waste not, want not.



Packman

Exactly, I didn't care about the junky old LOPO until I got the ranger and needed a 5.0 for it...now I drive the car a little nicer...lol. Different heads, hotter cam and seriously modded HO intake for that thing....basically all parts I have laying around!
I have more pics that I need to get up here tomorrow or sunday...I may wait til sunday because I'll be doing some more work on it tomorrow and will have even more pics.

-Don

[sick88tbird]

More pics...basically no progress this weekend...got side-tracked and ended up riding dirt-bikes all day yesterday...lol.







ARP intake studs, Fel-Pro 1250 intake gaskets, Crane 1.7rr's installed. I had to pull the distributor back out because the clip holding the cap adapter on the backside was interfering(read: gouging) with the fuel cross-over hose. I removed the back clip and epoxied the cap adapter to the distributor and re-installed today with a new fuel cross-over hose and high press. clamps. I took some measurements of the stock box throttle body and egr spacer to reference the mounting hole location for the throttle cable bracket...looks like it should be pretty easy to fab up something with some adjustability to make it work all proper...I'm not there yet, but getting closer. Need to pick up some stainless studs and nuts for valve covers and throttle body/egr spacer sometime this week. The Professional Products upper intake had some goofy thread holes for the throttle body studs and they didn't look like clean threads either, so I went ahead and tapped them to 8mm x 1.25...nice common thread.

-Don

[sick88tbird]

EGR spacer mods, throttle cable bracket mount and lightly modded intake. 75mm fox to box conversion...



I took all my measurements from a stock box throttle body and egr spacer using the centerline method(only real accurate way) to figure where the cable bracket mount would need to be, the top hole was in the spacer, so I drilled & tapped for 8x1.25 and installed that stud with a little JB Weld on the threads and a healthy dose on the inside cavity(bottom of stud). During mock-up, I found that my bracket mount contacted the intake and needed the angle cut seen in the pics above for clearance...this should be a non-issue for Ford intakes...notice the EGR spacer has been milled and flipped?...that was strictly a matter of personal preference.





The throttle cable bracket mount is roughly 1/8" steel...I threaded a nut on an 8x1.25 bolt and welded the whole deal to the bracket to provide for the lower stud location...the mount goes over the upper stud and will be held in place with a lock-washer and flanged nut.





The cable bracket will be attached to the mount with better hardware...most likely stainless flanged nuts...this arrangement allows for quite a bit of adjustment once installed on the car...so once everything is installed I can set it up right where I want, crank it down and hit the road.

So there you have it...no more reason to limit yourself to 65mm throttle bodies and lightning EGR spacers.

Milling was performed on the EGR spacer to eliminate the water jackets I had no use for(milled by .770", that may not be the case on other brand EGR spacers.

Installing the spacer in this manner was done because I didn't want to see those two useless nubs of aluminum sticking up for no reason, plus I like the way it looks with the EGR block-off plate this way also.

-Don

[packman]

Packman