I've read on a few forums, and in a few posts many pages ago on here, about making sure your machinist is familiar with FE motors when it comes time to machine one up, rebores, etc. So, what are these actual quirks or unusual things that need to be watched out for?

Rick Lake and others posted several suggestions on the Chris Craft 427 side oiler disaster thread.

John
Milner351@comcast.net

your machinist if he has one. If not it would pay to find one he can use. RW

Have the block crack checked. It is common for FE blocks to crack from the main saddle to the cam bearing bore.
Replace the oil gallery plugs with screw plugs.
Sonic check the cylinders. This is more important when large boring 428 blocks.
Make sure the core plug holes are super clean. Use the 1 49/64" plugs. There are two types. Cheap thin wall plugs with short walls. DO NOT use. Find the heavy wall long ones.
I do not believe in opening the oil passages on the main saddles. Ford put out a Tech sheet on this. I also think that drilling out all the holes on the oil pump pad and filter pad is NOT a good plan. The stock oil pump will only flow what is was intended to. If you open up all the passages and then put a stock pump on it it will always be low on pressure. Restiction to flow creates pressure.
My fresh 390 has stock oil passages and has 65 psi @ 3000 rpm. I would not change anything.
The rest is just good building.
Everything must be clean.
Use the best bolts you can.
Use a Torque Wrench.
Follow the Factory Service Manual. It has every spec you need.
The Torque plate is a good option, but not a must have. The factory never used one and all them 332 to 428's ran just fine.
Gasket prep is what makes a good engine GREAT. Well sealed will always run better than a leaky one.JMHO


67 Fairlane XL
68 Mustang Fastback

First a torque plate is not absolutely essential. I've only even had my 427 done on one once and never any problems before that.
I always enlarge the passage from the pump to filter pad and round the sharp edges in the direction of the flow(rearward and upward). Any bit helps 7/16" is fine. I just make a small bevel on the crank saddle oil holes to take away some of the misalignment to the bearings. I also enlarge and smooth the oil drainbacks from the heads.

Other than that it depends on the power level and RPM range. I have had very good luck running 6500rpm and 450 or so hp with all the bad stuff you are supposed to throw away like two piece retainers, stock rod bolts, oil pump pan and pickups, non adjustable rockers and cast pistons. I wouldn't use any of that stuff in my race engine but if i only needed to go 12's i sure would.

Granted the FE will get along ok without matching the oil holes to the main bearings, Ford engineers did this to force more oil to the lifters. And it will do ok with the small 3/8" passage between the pump and the filter adapter, and it will do just fine with a standard volume oil pump but what was done on passenger car engines was for people that griped about ticking lifters, didn't want to spend any more money than what 5 qts of oil would cost at extended oil change intervals and to cut production costs. But for some reason Ford engineers saw fit to match the oil holes to the bearings on truck and 427 engines. They also saw fit to enlarge the passage from the pump to the filter adapter on these engines and on truck engines thought a high volume oil pump was needed. Somewhere along the line they also made available a revised oil filter adapter that flowed better than the one that served for 10 years prior to the CJ adapter. Truck and 427 engines also have screw-in oil galley plugs so the engineers thought better than to use press-in galley plugs. They must have thought all these things were needed on engines that were in a harsher enviroment than what your Aunt Edna would require for her trips to the grocery store and church.

60 Starliner 460, 61 Starliner 427, 66 Galaxie 428, 67 Fairlane 427, 66 Fairlane 390, 69 F-250 390, 72 Lincoln 460 and 3 Ford powered Hotboats

My D4TE "Special" Block does not have all of these passages opened. They are the same as my reg 390 block.
Not all of the oil gallery plugs are screw in.
This is a very late casting ( 75 I think ) and is a Truck Block and has all the good stuff. Maybe even High Nickel. I can provide pics if required.
As I do not own a 427 block I can not say. Some day.

If I use my CJ block as a comparison.
When I built the CJ I did not open the passages, used a Melling HV oil pump, Canton T Pan and pickup, and a ARP drive shaft.
Oil pressure was 75 psi at speed.
Increasing the volume of oil in the pan will not increase oil pressure felt at the bearings.

The fact remains that I would rather have 65 psi on the bearings than 2 cubic inchs of extra oil in the galleries. The bearing gap is the same so putting more oil in the galleries does not make the pressure at bearings higher.
I have Studied Bernoulli's Principle for a long time and all the wifes tales are not going to change this Law.

I was reading a post recently and a Gent was complaining about low oil pressure. He said that he opened up all his passages and then said he had 26 psi at speed. Well what did you think was going to happen.
I also think it's your engine and money do what ever you want.

Edit- I use 10W40 in the 390 so I'm not cheating with some heavy syrup.

67 Fairlane XL
68 Mustang Fastback

It is all relative to where you are measuring your oil pressure. Pressure taken before a restriction will be higher than after. Remove the restriction and the sensed pressure will drop. You have to remember that you CAN'T measure oil pressure AT THE BEARINGS but only at points along the passages. Whenever fluid has to change direction there is a significant pressure drop (hence why in the refrigeration trade long radius 90's are used exclusively). When your pressure drops due to removing the restriction you are getting a more accurate reading to what is downstream. I have witnessed this many times while balancing air and water systems. The greater the flow, the more loss due to friction and directional change. Same logic applies to electricity. When two resistors are in series the voltage is dropped across both. Remove one resistor and the other resistor will recive the full amount of voltage (Voltage=Pressure to push electrons).


Duane B.
HVAC&R Instructor
Seattle Area Pipetrades

I was referring to medium and heavy duty 330-361-391" truck engines that was used in C, F, LN & LT series trucks, not the pick up truck engine. I also have a D4TE block in my F-250 and it is more like a passenger car engine than a HD truck engine. As to oil pressure it is bearing clearance that ultimatly determines oil pressure and I would rather have the pressure and volume get to all the bearings rather than have the oil back up at the small restricted passages. The last FE [390]I built I did the mods I cited above and my pressure is 40 lbs at hot/idle and 75lbs at freeway speed, this is using 10w-30 oil so your theory about enlarging the passages will reduce pressure is wrong. Give my regards to Bernoulli.

60 Starliner 460, 61 Starliner 427, 66 Galaxie 428, 67 Fairlane 427, 66 Fairlane 390, 69 F-250 390, 72 Lincoln 460 and 3 Ford powered Hotboats

You are both say that "Bernoulli's Principle" does not apply to FE engines or Fridges what can I say.
This is not some thing that I made up. This is fact and is the standard throught the world.

Bernoulli's Principle states that for an ideal fluid (low speed air is a good approximation), with no work being performed on the fluid, an increase in velocity occurs simultaneously with decrease in pressure or a change in the fluid's gravitational potential energy.

This principle is a simplification of Bernoulli's equation, which states that the sum of all forms of energy in a fluid flowing along an enclosed path (a streamline) is the same at any two points in that path.




67 Fairlane XL
68 Mustang Fastback

Link to Bernoulli's Principle http://home.earthlink.net/~mmc1919/venturi.html

Quote:
"The fluid can be either a liquid or a gas. For Bernoulli's Principle to apply, the fluid is assumed to have these qualities:

fluid flows smoothly
fluid flows without any swirls (which are called "eddies")
fluid flows everywhere through the pipe (which means there is no "flow separation")
fluid has the same density everywhere (it is "incompressible" like water)"

No flow separation means no other paths unlike oil passages where you have parallel paths. When you measure oil pressure you are only measuring STATIC NOT TOTAL PRESSURE. TP=SP+VP VP=velocity pressure. Static drops through a restriction but velocity increased as is what happens in a venturi but due to friction and directional change total pressure is lower downstream than upstream.
Main point that lots of others have picked up on is that an FE senses oil pressure after the filter. Best location would be at the end of the oil passages, not at the begining.
I am finished talking about this as if I am wrong every building I have ever worked on wouldn't be operating and every design engineer that I know should get their money back from their schooling.

at SIR in Seattle,he canned-up his
Mustang to go stage & make pass
during elimin's and I saw 80psi.
@ idle, (1,200 rpm's or so.)
After he made pass & returned,
he was kind enough to answer a
a few questions. When asked about
oil pressure he said; "80psi.@
idle & 100 + thru the lights.
Too much crank mass for 65 psi.
like small block Chev." He asked
what my clearances were, told
him .0025 on rods & mains and
he rec'd .003 at least all
around for race engine.Took his
advice on oil pressure as
well as other things,used
hi-press. pump and engine lived
and ran well a loong time.
Got lotsa free advice/experience
that day. Nice guy.

On an FE the oil pressure READING increases compared to other types of engines since the pressure is being read before it gets to the first passage. If you block the hole that leads from the filter to the main gallery you would still have a good oil pressure reading with absolutely zero oil flowing to the bearings.
The best place to take the oil pressure reading from would be towards the back of the main gallery after it has supplied the crank bearings. I'm sure you wouldn't restrict the rocker passages in the heads if you took a reading off the far end of the rocker shafts.

I believe in letting the oil pump volume and bearing clearances make the pressure.

The restriction in the oiling system needs to be the bearing clearances, not the convoluted passages and turns the oil has to make to get to the bearings.
Like someone said the place FE's read oil pressure in the worst possible place because it is before the 3 feet of passage leading to the rear main bearing.
Just because the oil pressure reads a good level does not mean the bearing 3 feet away is getting adequeate amounts of oil.
Open the passages, smooth them, match the bearings please, if you have low oil pressure then you know the bearings are too loose somewhere or the oil pump is not pumping enough oil.

I am 30 psi in the pits, 80+ going thru the traps, just perfect.

I appear to be in rant mode again, oh well.

but I don't think so.
The garden hose. Everyone has put there thumb over the end of the hose. The volocity of the water increases. The volume of water did not increase. Now poke a hole in the hose 2 ft from the end and see what happens. Now poke 8 holes in the hose and see what happens. With out increasing the volume of the pump the water will be a trickle at the end of the hose. The end of the line for the FE oil feed is the rear main bearing. You must have good volocity to reach the bearing. The restrictions are used to keep the volocity up.
If it is so important why would all the engineers at Ford not FIX this when they were doing all the other oil system changes to the Super Cobra Jet.

If you have a better explanation I'm more than willing to here it.



67 Fairlane XL
68 Mustang Fastback

I have had 2 SCJ blocks and they still had the stupid restriction in the lifter valley galley just be fore the rear main feed.
You have to think of high veleocity in terms of friction, every restriction in a line causes higher velocity therefore more friction or resistance to flow. Every place there is resistance to flow there will be a pressure drop.
I am well aware that stock FE's went millions of miles with all the restrictions and worked fine.
But my converter stalls 4700 and my motor nevers sees less than that in the burnout or during the pass and I put 150 to 200 passes on a year. Get 2-3 years out of my bearings and change them because I feel I should. Every passage drilled & massaged.

Your garden hose theory is flawed, the idea is to get enough oil in the main galley so the pressure can be the same at the last bearing.
Think about the garden hose with kinks in it and hose clamps choking off flow before your series of holes. Also the flow at the end of the hose only has to be equal to the flow at any of your holes since bearing clearances are the same the length of the crank. Think of the hoes capped off with 5 equal size holes in it. If there is enough volume of oil the pressure/volume out of each hole will be the same.

If you did you would not be running a high volume oil pump in your FE. What good is the high volume pump with 3/8" passage from the pump to the filter adapter? Where the pressure reading is taken from on FEs is at the filter, the highest possible reading. I would guess this is a throw-back to the days where some engines did not use a pressure system [Chevy 216" I-6] and engineers of the time only sought to "move" oil thruout the engine with little or no regard to a full pressure lube system. [Akin to squirting oil at a bearing with a squirt gun.] The 385 series Ford engine takes oil pressure reading at the #5 main bearing where is should be taken from and has a much better flowing system than the FE, which btw has 1/2" galleys. IMO you do not fully understand fluid dynamics, better crack the books again and re-read what Bernoulli has to say but I would guess Mr. Bernoulli never worked on an FE.

60 Starliner 460, 61 Starliner 427, 66 Galaxie 428, 67 Fairlane 427, 66 Fairlane 390, 69 F-250 390, 72 Lincoln 460 and 3 Ford powered Hotboats

Your FE example is more like kinking the hose as it comes out of the tap than putting your finger over the end.
I have never measured it but i'd bet 60psi at the stock FE oil pressure port nets less than 40psi at the #5 main bearing gallery.

At 7500 rpms it is still hanging at 87 PSI with an HV pump and 8 qts in the rear sump pan with no fluctuation whatsover. It idles at 25 hot. Now, do you think that the wide range of pressure here points to a proper place to measure it? It really needs to measured at the furthest end of the line. The bearings, and the rocker clearance determine your oil's real pressure. The speed that it passes through these bearings via clearance and proper crush must be matched to the heat that your oil is getting up to, hot oil getting out is a good thing because it is carrying away heat the way it should. The passages can't be big enough or straight enough. I enlarge them to as much the meat will allow and smooth every corner, chamfer out to bearing size the main passages and clean all of the machining shit out of the crank. That's what the clean outs are for. I have done ones that half a rod passage was blocked by an "almost drilled" intersection.

The devil is in the details, and they add up to power and reliability. Engineering principles are truth but transfer to common sense easily. Free feed through the entire system, matched heat via proper bearing crush and sufficient volume are absolutes. All an oil pressure gauge does placed where it is will tell you when you are about to experience a catastrophic failure on the pump. Unless you are at the end of the line it doesn't yield much more.

Oil pressure 'should' be created by your clearances not your galleries. If you open a gallery and it lowers oil pressure then you have done a good thing as it means the gallery was a restriction and the area in the motor can now get the oil it was demanding.

JMO.

Exactly right Andy

Being totally anal, I bolt the motor mount plates to the block before boring/honing. I made a plate that bolts to the rear of the block to simulate the transmission. I bolt the water pump on! May be overkill but I figger it can't hurt. And, of course I use torque plates. I also "stake" the core plugs into position using little rivets. Again, probably an anal thing to do, but I saw a friend of mine crash at the drags when he popped a core plug and water got under the tires. I use the CJ oil filter adapter and open up the galleries a bit, blending and smoothing to not restrict oil flow. I use a hi volume pump which requires a bigger capacity oil pan. Use a HD aftermarket pump shaft. I used to, but don't anymore, correct the "mismatch" on the main saddles. Like Howie said, they are there for a reason. He made some great points as well.

I copy and paste all this good stuff to a document I've made, listing all the tips and tricks and part numbers and stuff I find in the threads. Then I have all the info in one place and don't need to go running about all over the web when I need to know something. There's several hundred pages of questions in this forum and I'm meandering slowly through 'em looking at anything that sounds interesting.

to some extent, based on WHAT ELSE is to be done. With a stock oil pump, the volume of oil is very likely to be based on what the pump will do. But if you put on a high volume pump or even more with a HV-HP pump, the passages and orifices become restrictions. As a general rule, the more oil the better, up to a certain point. And that point is based on having all the components working together. I have all my passages opened up to 1/2 inch, but the build will include a dry sump. I also have all the main holes matched (drill the bearing shells) and oil shut off to the cam by re-boring the cam tunnel and putting in needle bearings. I've done everything I can think of to have all components work together.
KS

Never heard of that before, on an old style car engine. Is it a common FE trick? Do they run straight onto the cam journal or do you have to press a sleeve on?

Motorsport for the 460. You must re-groove the new holes. Press them in place and put a SMALL amount of green Loctite where it can wick in and help hold the shells in place. The cam journals are the same size on the 460 and an FE. You must use a steel roller lifter camshaft to withstand the needle contact; iron won't 'get it'. The needles are lubed by splash and you have now forced all the oil to go to the mains instead of being bled off at the cam.
KS

could someone run that on the street or not?

'no' but I believe it'll work just fine as long as most of the engine running is above an idle. Run it at 600 for a few dozen hours and you'd probably have trouble due to the splash oiling. Probably isn't enough splash at 600. Mine idles at 1000. Cam is 242-248 at .050 .658-.666 lift Comp solid roller.
KS

Look at a lot of the older metric offshore two stroke motorcycle engines, where the only lubrication for the cranks roller main and big end bearings came from a hint of oil that was mixed in with the gasoline. Needle rollers need minimal lubrication to operate happily. I'm guessing that there will always be a certain amount of oil spray off the crank, even at idle.

As I am putting our 511 FE back together after loosing rod bearings again, my son purchased a flow meter which we installed between the oil pump outlet (drysump pump) and the oil filter adapter fitting that was smaller than it should be. Also, we went to a # 16 oil line from the tank to the pump.We spin the oil pump with a 5hp electric motor at 3000rpm pump speed. We were told by the pump manufacturer that we should see between 12to13 gpms of flow. We found that we were only getting 3to4 gallons of flow. We pulled the main oil gallery on the block( Shelby) and found that the pump put 14to15 gpms of oil to the gallery. We increased the oil pressure to 130 psi ( measurered at the end of the main oil gallery) and found not difference in flow. We took the engine apart and found we lacked .001 of inch clearance on the rods and mains.( stupid me I didn't check all of the measurements) We increased the clearance. I going to finish putting the engine togther today and will post results. Conclusion: Pressure is one thing, flow is another.

Thing is, when you open up the bearing clearances, you'll be getting better lubrication, more flow, but probably less pressure showing on the gauge. Which just shows that more pressure doesn't mean more flow.

As long as the bearings are the biggest restriction in the oil system you'll do fine with a pressure gauge back near the pump, but if the slippery stuff has to follow some tortous route through tiny oil passages to get to the bearings then you'd get a whole different scenario again.

I don't have an exact idea where these oil passages are than some people say need opening up, (never looked inside an FE yet) but it can't do any harm, as no matter how big they are, the oil will still only flow as fast as the smallest restriction in the oil system will let it.

...I wouldn't listen to a thing he said. He was just a loudmouth pot-head. His sister was a w***e, too!