347 Ford Build-Up

Hey, welcome to Horsepower where it's Ford Day here in the shop today. In case you didn't notice,

did you know that the Ford small blocks been part of a blue oval legacy for over 40 years now? Well, that's right. In fact, this Cobra R

and its GT cousin over there are both powered by the 302 push rod V8.

Now, this race ready R is one of 100 and nine built

four wheel disc brakes, factory frame stiffeners, rear seat delete

and a deep breathing 5 L with a special induction to help it make 235 horsepower, 280 ft pounds of torque.

Hey, that's not bad for a Ford. But what if we stroke that 5 L? Now us Chevy guys have been building 383 and larger small box for years.

So today we're gonna take a page right out of that book and we're gonna build a Stroker Ford that's gonna be affordable.

It's also gonna be easy to assemble and with a stroke of luck, hey, it might even make decent power.

Now, how much power is this thing gonna make?

Well, we'll have to wait till later when we strap it on the

dyno.

Yeah. Ultimately, this engine is going to find its home between the frame rails of a pretty radical project you'll find on our sister show Xtreme 4x4. Now, with any project like this, you need a good solid foundation. So we got this short block from Ford performance solutions that's been punched 60 over and uses a Ford steel 3 400 Stroker crank to get us those 347 cubic inches.

And of course, the whole rotating assembly has been balanced, that is one stout bottom end. Also check this out. They use one of the FPs main stud girdles here to tie everything together.

Plus this windage tray that's going to keep oil off the crank to prevent parasitic power losses. That's always a good idea. Let me help you put it on. Now, check out these rods, they're bulletproof eye beams that use a RP cap screws and bronze bushed small

for floating pins. Now, the pistons, well, they use a special coating on this short skirt to prevent friction.

And another special coating that's kind of like hard anodizing to promote even expansion of the piston and contain heat down in the combustion chamber for more horsepower.

And that's a lot of science in that piston there. And you know what else that coating becomes even more important if you decide to spray the motor.

Now let's get started installing this full roller valve train from comp cams that we'll be using

the cam specs out at 224 degrees on the intake to 32 degrees on the exhaust. Of course, both of those are measured at 50 thousand's lift. Now, speaking of that, those valves are gonna get lifted off their seats 556 on the intake and 566 on the exhaust.

Now, since this is a roller cam shaft, we're just using a little bit of engine oil here to lube things up before we slide our home.

Next, we install a cam retainer plate,

the timing set,

the lifters

and the spider,

then we can degree the cam

install the timing cover

and the TCI rattler balancer.

The oil pan we're using comes from or roso. Now it's an eight quart steel piece with side kick outs. Notice the special baffling they've engineered into it.

This is gonna keep oil in the sump and the pickup submerged. Now don't even think about using your stock pickup. The pan comes with the custom one we've already installed on the pump.

Looks like that takes care of the bottom end and we're almost ready to install these

rock performer RPM heads. These things use stainless steel swirl polished valves that measure 202 on the intake 160 on the exhaust combustion chambers spec out at 60 CCS and

that will give us a static compression ratio of about 10.5 to 1. Now, these springs here are designed to handle lifts up to 575 and that means they'll work perfectly with that cam shaft. We install,

hey, good job on the head studs there, Mike.

Now we're gonna seal those heads to the block using these perm

toque head gaskets from Fell Pro

on a small block for though, you need to pay a little bit of attention to gasket positioning because you see these passages right here. Well, you need to match up these coolant passages at the back of the block and plus

fro

makes it even easier for you by marking the gasket for the front of the engine.

Of course, they do that. So even a Chevy guy can figure it out

when you drop on the heads, make sure you clear these dials here on each end of the block and

here you're gonna give me a hand,

I guess you need a Chevy guy to help you put this forward head on

with the heads in place, lubricate the nuts with some engine oil

and Tom

to the recommended spec

uh with the push rods in place. We're ready for our roller rockers from comp cams. Now check this out. They use a fully roller

Trion here plus a roller I tip to help get rid of some of that valve train friction and free up a few more horses. Plus they're also available with a stud mount rather than a stock pedestal. So they work perfectly with our Edelbrock heads. If you guys were paying real close attention, you noticed we didn't install this fuel pump eccentric with our cam shaft. That's because this small blocks getting fuel injected. That's right. Now, if you're running a carburetor though,

you don't want to forget that. Very important step.

Let's say it's time for us to step back and take a break. We'll finish our 347 Stroker when we come back.

Hey, welcome back to the shop where we're putting the finishing touches on our small block Ford Stroker build up. Now, if you're just joining us, we're actually building this 347 for our new sister show extreme four. Before

of course, we started out with an assembled short block from Ford Performance Solutions.

Then we added a comp cams roller set up,

buttoned up the bottom end with a moroso pan

and topped it all off with a pair of Edelbrock heads.

You might remember Joe saying this was gonna be a fuel injected engine.

So we went ahead and ordered this Excel DF I set up that comes with this single plane aluminum intake and 1000 CFM billet throttle body that ought to be more than plenty to feed our 347.

The system also comes with this adjustable fuel regulator so we can really tune the system in.

Now, it looks like you've got the gaskets in place. So we're going to go ahead and drop this thing on using more A RP studs

pretty impressive hardware. Now, check out the brains of the system, which is this computer

that controls fuel delivery and ignition timing. Plus it's programmable on the run using a laptop and their cal map software. Now use this with either batch fire or sequential fuel injection with, of course, the correct distributor.

And I'm glad that you mentioned that because we're just about ready to install our distributor. Now, what we're using is an AX L dual sync distributor that not only sends the spark to the appropriate cylinder at the appropriate time, but

this sync also does double duty as a crank position sensor. Now, what that does for us is it allows us to fire these injectors sequentially.

Of course, it uses these weather pack connectors here for plug and play operation and well, it all works in conjunction with this DF I six A box.

Now we're gonna install the distributor right now the box though and the ECU well, they don't get bolted up till the motor gets bolted in the vehicle.

We will put these plug wires to work when we get to the

dyno.

These are excels eight millimeter 9000 wires with a double silicone construction and a spiral wound core. Of course, that translates to max spark transfer without worrying about radio interference. Oh Check out these boots here. They've got a protective coating that reduces the possibility of a meltdown

ever have that one of your Chevys? Oh, yeah. Now, let me tell you what happens when that occurs. That spark is going to jump from the boot over to your header and while you're going to drop a cylinder, you're gonna be down on power by about an eighth. Now, just to keep the math simple, let's say this engine produces 400 horsepower. You're going to be down by 50 horsepower

when you're trying to keep a motor cool. You've got to have a high capacity water pump like this Victor series from Edelbrock. Now, it has a computer designed impeller to help pump as much as 20% more coolant through the motor.

It's also been designed to help pump water equally through both sides. That'll help prevent hot spots

while we had our noses in the

rock catalog, we also ordered a set of these elite valve covers. These things are made from polished cast aluminum which makes them plenty rigid for good gasket ceiling on our heads.

And

you can probably tell they're designed to give us plenty of room to clear those roller rockers and you know what else? I like the looks of them too.

Now, we're gonna go ahead and top off our induction set up with one of these cool blue air cleaner assemblies from Excel. Now, not only are they reusable but they also have a high flow capacity and they'll filter down to 2.8 microns.

Now, if you remember? We also told you we're gonna top off this engine build up with a trip to the

dyno.

So we're gonna see just what this 347 will do right after the break.

Hey, welcome back to horsepower. Now, I've already got the 347 strapped down to an engine

dyno that belongs to a friend of ours. I've also got the Excel D

computer harness and all the sensors connected. Last thing to do, set the distributor, check this out.

The red light is for the current,

the blue light is for the cam shaft, just rotate the distributor until both lights go out

and that'll send a signal to the computer telling it that it's fully sequential.

All we have to do now is install the adjustable rotor and the cap and we'll be ready to go set some computer parameters

using Excel's modeling software. We went ahead and set the parameters already. Now, this thing's gonna ask you for a number of cylinders, displacement injector size, even what kind of distributor and ignition you're using. Now, the coolest thing about this is you don't need an engine

dyno or a chassis dyno to tune it.

You need this right in the front seat of your car. Now, it looks like we're about ready to go fire it up Frank

with a lot of run time for break in and some additional tuning. We're ready to run this Stroker wide open

looks like we made 306 horsepower and 304 ft pounds. Now, I know the 347 will do a lot better than that. It was running fat before. So I'm gonna go ahead and lean it out a little bit and then we'll try it again.

Looks like we got 372 horsepower and 364 ft pounds of torque.

Not too bad for a Stroker small block. Now, the next time you see this thing, it'll be going into an extreme off road truck on our sister show Xtreme 4x4. We've got more horsepower coming for you. Stay tuned.

Horsepower T V's Quick Tech is brought to you by

Wyotech,

but those are the brakes literally.

But let's say you've got a later model street machine that's just begging for a brake upgrade.

There's one factory feature you want to keep intact and

it's as simple as A BS.

But do you know exactly how your A BS system works? Well, we all will after our crash course with Eric rising here who's brought some pretty cool cutaways? What you got? Well, we have a will speed sensor here. It will speed

sensor. There are four in each vehicle, one at each wheel.

This will speed sensor is what tells the

computer how fast that wheel is turning

works through the process of magnetism.

This magnetism creates a voltage inside this wire sends a voltage out this wire through this connector up through the vehicle's harness

and

it sends it up through the vehicle's harness.

We send it into these cys.

Whenever it sends the signal from the wheel speed sensor up to the

control module, it will activate one of these valves.

As these valves activate, they will

either apply or take off the brake pressure from that specific wheel.

Whenever they take the brake pressure off, it lets it bleed back into the master cylinder as it bleeds off, it's going to allow that wheel to unlock and begin to rotate again.

Yeah, a lot of us

like to upgrade our brakes and

add bigger rotors and such maybe even fool with our axles

is that kind of work going to affect our A BS system negatively.

Stuff like that. Not really if you're changing calipers, rotors, stuff like that. It's not really going to hurt much as long as you stay with the same

design. If you change hatch size caliper mounting,

it's going to stay the same.

The big thing you can run into problems is if you are changing out the axle, some axles actually have the tone ring

connected right on to that axle. Whenever you're changing that axle out, you may need to change that tone ring. Also.

What about these sensors here are pretty delicate. These sensors here are extremely delicate, especially if you are beating on them with a

er

this uh

wire right here can be pulled out of the very easily we can smash this connector while we're down there working on these brake systems. So we don't wanna do that.

Now that light comes on, Eric, does that mean your whole system is pretty much shut down when that light comes on, the system is detected a problem and it detects a problem. It's going to stop itself from activating

the control module knows that there's something wrong in there. It's not quite sure what it is.

It doesn't want to take the chance of activating at the incorrect time.

How do you find out what it is exactly? Well, you can use a scan tool such as this, the control module itself is going to tell us the specific part that may have went bad.

We can

use the codes we pull from the scan tool

to begin our diagnosis. All right. Well, let's just hope the lights stay off and the streets stay dry, but glad we got these right.

This week's hot parts is really all about hot tools. As you can see, the horsepower shop has a lot of new Matco tool boxes around

each one of them filled with their quality tools. Now, we've got all the wrenches, ratchets, air tools and well, anything and everything you need to outfit a shop with the boxes themselves, by the way, are a unibody design with double wall construction and durable powder coat finish that's available in 30

two colors. So you're bound to find the look you like. Now, I really like these drawers where the roller bearing slides that are good for long life and smooth action even when they're loaded down with tools. Oh, and

just to make sure your tools don't grow legs and walk away. Well, each case comes with one of Matco two bar locking systems. Now that features a case hardened rotating collar that's bulletproof, even air tool proof.

But since

to has a ton of different tools to fill these boxes with, we're gonna show you a few that'll help make your special projects and challenges especially easy to handle.

For example, have you ever ran into a problem when a socket wouldn't fit over a lug nut because the hole in the wheel was too small.

Well, this five piece thick and thin wall socket set will help take care of that problem. On one end, you have a six point standard wall, flip it over and you have a thin wall, six point that'll allow you to get into those tight areas.

Hey, those things are pretty handy. Now, when was the last time that you had to make a special trip to the parts store to pick up a tool to help you remove a pulley.

Well, here's a multi-purpose puller set

that works on balancers, bearings, timing sets and even pulleys. Now, the set includes these forcing screws and cross bars,

three sets of jaws and enough hardware to put this thing into countless combinations.

Of course, you can't pull an engine with that set, but you can, with this cool tool, even when the load is uneven,

it's an adjustable engine sling that'll handle up to 1500 pounds that comes with a close link. So it works with any standard hoist hook. Now, the threaded bar here is what gives you the adjust ability and strength. Plus you get four chains and angle brackets for quick and easy mounting to your engine.

There's nothing easy about removing a broken screw or bolt, but this is gonna make the job a whole lot smoother. It's a 35 piece master extractor set that features both multi

line and fluted extractors. In addition to 11 left handed drill bits. So you get all the most popular extractors used today, plus the drill bits in this handy storage container. So the next time you break off a bolt, you won't feel screwed if you have one of these, you know, bleeding breaks, the old fashioned way can be a dirty and time consuming job. But with this new compressed air brake bleeder system, well, it instantly becomes easier, cleaner and a lot more efficient.

Now, it's got a flexible hose with a universal bleeder adapter here, a swivel air hose connector and a large storage container for your old brake fluid. Now, you're also gonna get more universal adapters here. And hey, here's the coolest part. You see these plates. Well, they actually attach to a new bottle of brake fluid, then sit on top of your master cylinder to automatically refill it

while you're bleeding the brakes.

Almost unbelievable.

You know,

I can't count the times we could have used a kit like this in our shop. Well, knowing you, you probably got to count on all your fingers and toes.

Now, these are just a few of the cool specialty tools that Matco

makes to help you make better use of your time in the shop. Well, we hope your time has been well spent with us today in the horsepower shop. We'll be back again next week with more horsepower.