Ford 460 Engine Build Part 3

Today in the horsepower shop, we're just a few performance parts away from turning our 460 big block into a big horse performer on the

dyno.

This is a Ford project motor of ours that's already had two different personalities in less than two months.

The first one was a basic power plant. We put together on a ridiculously low budget right at $2000. After a little hard work and a few easy on the pocket parts,

we made a respectable 378 horsepower

and 493 ft pounds of torque.

Well, last week, we tossed out the rule book and set out to see how much power we could put to that mostly stock bottom end.

After we beefed it up with the stud girdles,

we installed a hydraulic roller cam in place of the flat

tat budget cam

bolted on a set of trick flow power port heads

and upgraded the oiling system with a John Cassi bulletproof pump and a

Barosso high capacity pan.

The next pieces in our valve train are these comp cams hydraulic roller lifters that we went ahead and soaked in oil. Now, let's talk about push rods. Anytime you build a custom engine like this, it's almost impossible to predict the correct length of the push rod. And that's because there's so many different variables like block deck height, even camshaft base circle, and the list goes on and on. Now, before we show you how to get the right length for your motor. Here's a look at why it's so critical.

Stamp, steel rockers have a large flat where they make contact with the valve, stamp

a

load on the entire tip of the valve.

So correct length is not as critical because the flat on the rocker compensates for the air on a roller tip rocker. The area that meets the valve stem is very narrow.

If you miss the correct length by just a little, you'll get tremendous valve guide and seal wear

to find the correct push rod length. You're gonna need an adjustable push rod checker

and some dye chem machinist dye. Now this job is so easy. A monkey in a sack can do it

first mark the valve stem with the dye

chem.

Now drop the checking tool into place.

Install the rocker arm

followed by the adjustment

number.

Next extend the push rod so that the tip of the rocker is centered over the valve stem.

Finally rotate the crank shaft, three rotations.

This will wear a pattern into the dye on the valve stem. After that first round, it looks like our push rod was a little too short. The wear line into the dye camp is above the center of the valve stem. So we'll lengthen the push rod checking tool and bring it down the center.

Repeat the same steps as before until the wear mark

is centered on the valve

stem.

Of course, after measuring the checking tool, you have the correct link to order a set and get them on its way. Now, I went ahead and called Comp CAMS in order to set a high tech 38 push rods that measure in at 8 200

with the rocker arms in place. I'm gonna adjust the valves a half a turn

past zero. Lash.

Last time when we kicked off this project, we gave you a peek at this single plane high rise intake manifold that we're stepping up to.

It's a perfect match for the power port heads

and it's got a flange design that accepts the 4150 Holly that will drop on a little bit later.

And these valve covers definitely put the trick and trick flow with the ready to race design that easily clears roller rockers and stud girdles. Plus they come with hardware that uses O rings

and they pass from the top through these welded in tubes down to the gasket rail.

This will help ensure rail stiffness and of course promote better gasket ceiling.

Are you ready

if you want? Old style looks with new technology, Holly has taken the 4150 to the new level with the 4150 HP. Now, this thing has cast main bodies without any choke horns and down leg style boosters

on the bottom side, it's got stainless steel throttle plates and it even comes with screw and air bleeds. Now, one of the cool user friendly features are the dominator style fuel balls. You can plumb from either side. Now we got ours and 1000 CFM.

Well, these are some of the parts that came off the 460 for this next level of the project. And of course, we'll repurpose all of these including

the stock points type distributor that we upgraded. Now, that was great for the budget phase, but uh not for our power plants today. We're gonna need something like this MS D pro billet.

Now, this thing has seal ball bearings that guide the shaft to up to 10,000 RPM s and more now inside

the rotor is molded from Race ready Dupont Rite material.

It has a magnetic pickup to trigger the ignition

and a chrome moley mechanical advance assembly. Now have to get the cap on. I got one more little tweak and we'll be ready to put it in.

Anytime you use a roller cam, you should always remove the cast gear that comes on the shaft and replace it with a softer bronze gear.

It's much easier and cheaper to replace the gear than hurt the motor.

All right, man, we all primed up already. Prime time, baby. Ok.

We got a hold down for this thing. I'm not talking about a barn dance down south.

You know,

you

gotta get it in first though. I know it. There we go.

All right, we come back. We'll get the headers on

and see if this motor runs as wickedly as it looks. Stay with us.

You got that though.

Oh

cool.

Hey, we're just a few steps away from firing up our Ford 460 big block which has gone from strictly budget to strictly bad to the blue oval. Now, header clearance is often an issue when you put your motor on

a dyno cart and get it ready for a test. So we had the guys that cooks custom headers fab up this killer set for us.

They're stainless steel with two inch primaries that poke out like a metal octopus.

We're finally a new set of plug wires,

8.5 mil MS D superconductors in our case and we're popping them on some ere

spark plugs that

might add a few ponies to our horsepower tally.

The motors warmed up and hey, we're pumped up, but we're gonna walk before we run too hard first with a 5000 RPM pole

for 533 horsepower.

Yeah, we're definitely not close to Pete.

So after a few more runs and some more timing,

we're ready to see what happens at six grand

596.

Well,

it's pretty close

but this ain't horseshoes. Surely we can make 600.

Now, we're gonna see what happens with Lighter springs that came with our distributor

and another degree and a half of the time.

Oh,

good job.

Not just 600 but 607.

What we ought to do is get a, get a four door LTD, like the mid eighties model. The old granny one just order

around and put this thing in. It just do a sleeper

sleeper.

Oh,

man, I'm so stoked. We hit that 600 mark.

But you know, even though this is a cool old motor that makes great power, the 460 is old school when you compare it with. Well, something like this

since introduced in 1997 the LS one has been rightly called a modern day marvel lightweight aluminum heads, plenty of fuel injected power right from the factory.

So why would anybody in their right mind want to feed a high tech motor like this with something as low tech as this?

Well, maybe it offers them a chance to drop an affordable modern day powerful motor in through their vintage hot rod and not have to worry about fuel lines. Uh gas tank swaps, computers harnesses need, I say more. Let's face it. Young car guys may call them toilets or even controlled fuel leaks,

disrespectful pump.

It's better than being an old box of dust though.

But when it comes to tune in. There's still a comfort level in carbs. That's why we contacted Pace Performance to try out one of their carb conversion kits for the LS one. Now it comes with a front cover, a distributor drive gear kit, a

four barrel GM performance intake manifold, set of valve covers and all the hardware you need to get that side of the job done. Now, what it doesn't come with and you will need is a new dampener

distributor, wires and last, but not least a carburetor. Now, to get the thing started, Joe and I are gonna tear down our stock LS One.

Ok. First, the qual backs have to go

along with the valve covers.

Then we could pull the balancer and remove the front cover.

After loosening the oil pan, we can disconnect the oil pick up.

Now, the timing set can come off,

the bottom gear is a little more stubborn, but it's gotta go too.

Oh, right. Great. Use of a hose clam.

Where's that?

Pull

that

off?

Now, we'll spin the cam around, get those lifters stuck up in the board on the LS ones. The lifters actually get captured in the boards as you spin the cam over.

So it makes cam removing very easy

since we've got valve train changes in store. We're also removing the heads for now. Finally, the lifters can come out.

We're using a new dampener, so we have timing marks to go by, but it's not just as simple as sliding it into place. See up here on the crank snout, we have one key way, but that's for the oil pumpy centric and the timing chain gear. Now to keep the balancer from spinning on the crank snout and positioning it correctly. We got this drill pin fixture kit from A T I. Now this thing is gonna slide down to the crank snout

and then bolt into place

and we'll be able to drill in our pin

and align it correctly

with the fixture secured, insert the 1160 forts bushing and snug it with the holding screw.

Then using the supplied bit drill through the crank to the center board.

Now swap the bushing to the 3/16 1 and secure it in place as well.

Using the reamer from the kit, make one slow speed pass through the hole. Finally remove the fixture and insert the dow pin allowing it to protrude above the crank surface.

We're gonna use the template from the instruction sheet to drill two small holes into the cam retainer plate. Now, the two holes are there so we get adequate oiling to the camshaft and distributor gear.

Since we're going old school with the car, we're installing a comp thumper cam to deliver that vintage hot rod sound.

Plus we should get more serious performance to back it up with higher max lift and duration numbers than stock.

Next. A new double roller timing set goes into place

along with the adapter from our distributor cam drive kit

followed by the fuel pump, distributor drive gear.

Now, we can install this oil pump drive centric

and reinstall the oil pump using spacers from the kit to clear the new double roller chain.

Well, now we can cover all that business up with this special front cover from the kit. Now,

this thing comes with an adjustable timing pointer

and it's got holes machined in for the distributor and a mechanical fuel pump.

But if the uh hot roder in you has to have more, you can always block that thing off and use a remote electric pump.

It goes on using the factory bolts from the original cover.

Now, the oil pan can go back in place

and we can install the new balancer to finish our work up front

whenever we put a new cam in a motor, we always like to use a new set of lifters. And that's because we don't want any irregular wear patterns. Now, we're using a set of high energy comp rollers and the easiest way to put them in an LS one is first into the retainer

and then just slide them into the hole.

All right, with new gaskets laid down, we can reinstall the stock heads

and guide plates for our Comp Pro Magna roller rockers with a ratio of 1.75.

Now, we can bolt up the aluminum valve covers from our pace kit

and finally, the GM performance parts, single plane intake manifold also from the K.

And now

we're just a couple of steps away from my first ever run on a carbureted LS one

and we're back. And as we told you earlier, you gotta come up with your own distributor for this conversion, which needs to be, believe it or not one for a small block 302 Ford like this one we got from MS D. Now, this time we swapped out this cast gear for one of comp's composite gears that unlike bronze are designed to virtually never wear out.

Well,

had to come up with our own carb. So we went with a polished Haley 750 double pumper that will feed with premium fuel. Now, since our dyno already has a fuel system built in, we went ahead and blocked off the provision for the mechanical fuel pump on the front cover. Now, if you're gonna install this set up in a later model LS equipped vehicle, you need to remember that you'll have to come up with a fuel system for your ride because the in tank pump puts out too much pressure for a carburetor

to clear our timing cover. We're using 2.5 inch spacers from Wagner

along with our old trusty electric Mazure

pump.

Now, as a point of reference, these later model L Ss one motors were rated at the factory 350 horsepower,

365 ft pounds of torque.

Now, that's the number we gotta be, but we're gonna take it easy on this 1st 1, 4000 RPM s

then we'll step it up.

We're already close to the baseline on horsepower and already over the factory torque number 334 and 438. All right. Let's try one at 5500,

453 ft pounds of torque. And the horsepower is still climbing at 470.

All right, one more run this time, 6000 RPM,

490 horsepower, 457 ft pounds of torque. Now, in all fairness, this motor would have been run at the factory with all the front accessory drive and the emissions equipment, which would have held it back a little bit. Yeah, but not 100 and 40 horsepower. Once again, this project's probably best suited to somebody who needs to drop a motor into, let's say a street rod. What's some of the advantages of the LS motor without the accessories you need for ef I however, old school, new school, a class of their own. Don't you

like our class right here?

Check out that power curve. Look at it. Oh, that's sweet. He climbs. Nice.

Power tools are the ticket for working fast and efficiently in your shop. But dragging this holes around.

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Now, I like the way they come off too.

Now, when it's time to charge,

stick it in this universal charger for a charge up to

19.2 volts.

Now they come separately or in sets of tools that are designed to fit your needs. Individual tools start at only 70 bucks. And again, they're from Power toolbox.net.

We're going to close the show today with something totally bizarre. Now, it's something that just kind of happened when we took some old movies, some crazy power block moments, some music and we'll just take a look at it. Call it what you will. We'll see you next time.

Last night I dreamed I took a ride way back to 1965 drag racing at George Ray's wildcat strip

muscle cars on every side of

deer heads from back in history.

What a rev up blown out on rock trip.

Let's stay.

And this go

got a race and spirit

in my soul.

Wear gearhead.

We're true.

Hard writers who love cars. All

men.

Yes,

we build them

and

like those gear heads from.