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New Engine - July 2020 - One More Time!!
New Stainless Steel Headers and Sidepipes
Engine Shots
The first shot is some of the new parts I received followed by the new Cobra short block, ARP beefy oil pump shaft compared to the stock one, Canton Windage Tray parts, tray installed with modifications for the stock oil dip stick tube assembly and the March alternator and power steering brackets.
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Stud mounted rocker parts, shim adjustment method, rockers up close, rockers installed and adjusted, Centerforce Dual Friction clutch assembly, engine/transmission installation (done on Christmas Eve '99), the basic engine assembly installed in the chassis and new 155lph fuel pump.
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Here are the latest shots of the engine after it ran it's first time. All that's left is to fine tune after the exhaust gets fixed. The shot after the engine run is the oil filter adapter at the block. I had very low oil pressure and found it to be cracked. Most likely when I tightened it. New one is on the way. No damage done. The last picture is my lower radiator hose setup. They are secured to the lower "X" member. The last picture is of the lost oil galley plug that wasn't installed at the factory. Now it's in and there's 70#'s of pressure. Also is the billet adapter I installed at the block for the oil lines.
I had a dyno run done in August of 2004. I kept putting it off but I had to get this done just to see what I had. The engine specs are as follows:
302 stock shortblock
FMS X303 heads
FMS "B" cam
FMS 1.6 roller rockers
standard oil pump
Canton windage tray and Road Race oil pan (7qts.)
Cobra intake
24# injectors
65mm throttle body
70mm MAF
stock distributor
As you can see by the chart below on the left, the engine with Cobra intake has about 282 ft/lbs of torque at 3880rpm, and 251 HP at 5034rpm at the rear wheels. I wanted this because I was changing fuel systems and needed a good baseline to compare each system. My old system was the Cobra intake with 24# injectors as listed above. I will take another run with the new Victor Jr. and "Mass-Flo" system from Quality Roadsters and post it here. You can read about the upgrade here:Mass-Flo Injection.
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| Cobra Intake Dyno | Mass-Flo Dyno | Dyno Setup |
The chart on the right is the new "Mass-Flo" system from Quality Roadsters. Everything remained the same on my engine except: Cobra intake, fuel regulator, 65mm throttle body and 70mm MAF. Why, I didn't need them anymore. The "Mass-Flo" system looks just like a carburated setup, but isn't. The Victor Jr. setup gave me 258 ft/lbs of torque at 4391rpm, and 272 HP at 5961rpm at the rear wheels.
The Mass-Flo setup gave me 20.5 more peak HP at 927 more RPM. To me, that was more than I was hoping for. The torque dropped by 24.1 ft/lb, but also peaked at an additional 1051 RPM. So, the system is doing what I expected, carrying more torque and horsepower longer, as seen by the fact that torque peaks an additional 11mph and horsepower and additional 20mph. This should suit the stroker build just fine. I'll do another dyno test after that's completed and broken in, which should be next spring.
Although the Cobra intake was doing it's job, it was also choking my engine. The shorter runners on the Victor Jr. are giving up the low end torque but I should see an improvement after stroking. Am I happy, you bet I am!
The timing is set at 12° and fuel pressure is 40psi. It is set the same on each system so a comparison will be equal. Distributor cap, rotor, spark plugs and wires remained the same so there won't be any advantage to prove otherwise. I felt this way it would definately be a fair comparison.
The next step for this is a 331 stroker. I'll most likely go with some Trick Flow items.
Engine Upgrade!
December 2007A lot has happened to the engine over the past three years. The biggest improvement was to stroke the engine to 331. I did this because I wasn't that keen on the 347 for longevity, plus the fact that I wan't to have a good daily driver and be able to have fun on the track. I'm happy I chose the 331 stroker.
I had a shop locally (Santa Cruz, CA.) do the engine work. They had a fairly good record and had done a friends 331 stroker. I asked to assemble the engine but Grant at GMP said he would warranty his work but not mine, so I decided to have him do it all. I wanted a Scat crank and AFR 185 heads and when I picked up the engine, I had World heads. They are compatible so I decided to not make a big deal. Once the engine was installed (I did all the R&R work) it smoked like a crop duster.
I tried to seat the rings and was in contact with the shop and did a lot of diagnosing by compression and leak down tests. The leak down was over 30% on a new engine. Damn! I took the car to his shop and when the oil filler cap was removed it smoked all the way above the open hood like a chimney. He tried to tell me that was normal and I said don't B.S. me, I've been in this business longer than you've been alive!
Needless to say, I pulled the engine and he went through it again. Once back in it was better but not right. I tried again to seat the rings and put about 3k miles on it and then a trip to MA. It burned a quart every 500 miles! Upon my return home in 2009 I decided to pull the engine and go through it again. No!, the old shop did not get the work.
December 2009
A friend of mine turned me on to a guy in San Jose, CA that did top notch work. I took the complete engine to him because he wanted to inspect as he tore it down. I agreed and let him get to it. I got a few calls and then took a look. Oh my god! The engine looked like it had 250,000 miles on it. The cylinders were like mirrors. No cross hatch at all for an engine with less than 8k miles on it.
Along with needing new pistons (we bored another .005 over), everything was replaced except the crank, rods, and valves. The valve springs were wrong and short, roller rockers were worn, rocker studs too short and I replaced the cam with a better breather for my needs along with new roller lifters becasue the old ones were just stock. Needless to say, it was a total do over.
Once the engine was done, it was put on the dyno for it's run-in. I installed my Powerjection III system on the engine and did some tuning for about 20mins before we opened it up. After the first run we had 389 HP. Not bad for a first pull. The next few pulls kept increasing and I did a little more tuning and our final output was 403 HP! Wow!
I isntalled the engine in the car over the winter and finall got it running in March 2010. I did a lot of wiring rework and was going to install my new TKO500 in along with a custom backbone system, but ran into issues I didn't want to tackle before our driving season, so, I opted to wait until winter of 2010 when the body comes off to fit the new transmission.
The initial drive was good and the engine feels real strong. Best thing is it doesn't smoke like a chimney anymore. I'll be easing in the driving along with letting the new Powerjection III system learn more before letting it loose and doing a dyno run later this summer. For now, we're ready to enjoy our season. You can read about the new Powerjection III system here: Fuel System.
Engine Upgrade #2 ... Boss Block!
July 2020
Well all good things come to an end and after 10 years on the 331 stroker, countless mileage, long trips to the Rockies and Southwest and many track days, it finally found a weak spot...a lifter!
Coming home from a dental appointment, I was about 5 miles from home when it started running crappy at low speeds. At a stop sign it nearly died. I then heard this funny clinking noise but if I revved the engine a bit it would dissipate somewhat. After getting home it was time to diagnose the problem. It was definitely rotational but not consistent which had me baffled a bit. I began by taking the belt off to eliminate rotating mass. Noise definitely coming from the back end of the engine. Next was doing a compression and leak down test. Both were good, but #8 was a little lower on leak down. It had 10% leakage comparred to the rest at 3%. Not bad for a "driven" engine.
Valve covers came off next and then it was louder when cranking the engine. I isolated it to #8 exhaust valve. I swapped springs with #8 intake and no change. This verified the exhaust valve. Next was valve travel and the exhaust was .125 less travel than comparable ones, so, time to take it out. Now, taking the heads off was a thought, but if there was more damage the engine would need to come out anyway. Also, taking the heads off in this car means removing the 4-into-4 headers and after that it's just a few bolts and the engine can be removed. So, that's what I did. Smart move on my part.
Out came the engine and onto the stand. Pulling the lifters has to be done with the head removed so this makes things easier. I decided to see if I could remove the #8 exhaust lifter and low and behold, it came out. Oh my! Yep, broken and that's why I could remove it. The roller pin axle support had broken off on both sides. I looked into the lifter bore and saw the roller and thought maybe it was all there. Used my magnet and pulled just the roller out. Took a look at the cam and saw the nice groove the roller left and said, "time for a new engine". This engine has been gone through several times and I said I'm not doing that again with this block.
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After some conversations with my engine builder (now 2.5hrs away) and figuring out what I wanted, I decided to go with a 347 using the Ford Boss Big Bore block. This will allow me to have the 4.125 bore with a 3.250 stroke. Meaning I keep more piston inside the cylinder and still get some more ponies to play with. I've always said having 500+ HP in these cars is not a good idea so I'm taking my own advice. I could probably handle it, but keeping me sane is a better idea. Goal is somewhere in the 480 HP range which is about 70HP more than my 331 put out. However, at this time it's just a guess.
I'm going with Crane valve parts this time. My engine builder tells me the lifters can handle about 1k-RPM more than others, but we'll see. I don't really care that much, just want a solid build. His previous build lasted 10 hard years of trips and open track events so I can't complain. The good part is my old World heads and rotating assembly/block/pistons/crank (sans cam) is still good so it'll go up for sale (which it did quickly by a friend of mine).
The FMS Boss block and AFR185 heads arrived at his shop. The heads didn't fair well on assembly from AFR with up to 7% leakage so they are getting freshened up along with 7/16" rocker studs.
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December 2020
Well here we are at Christmas time 2020. What a crazy year this has been. On the bright side is my engine is done! I got a text message and short clip of it doing the initial startup. Yes, phone video's aren't the greatest, but at least I got to see it fire up. Robert says it is awesome, smooth, responsive, etc. and all that with a carburator. I'm putting my Holley Terminator EFI back on and with the Dual Sync distributor I can fine tune to my hearts delight. Only thing now is waiting for the weather to allow me a clear/dry day to pick it up and get it home. Hoping the first of the year is good. After checking weahter, I'm going up on the 5th to bring the baby home! Side note: old engine had 60k on it and I'm putting the new one in at 81431 chassis miles. This will be my starting point for the 347 Big Bore Build.
Starting the installation I decided to put on a new water pump and along with that a good adjustable timing pointer. The stock one showed 2 degrees after TDC due to the new damper/keyway or just plain stock pointer, but TDC was verified by my builder. Robert had told me about it when I picked it up so this was a good time to install it. Now it's a true TDC pointer. I found several out there, but the ATI 918948 B-Key (11'oclock pointer) was the BEST! I don't think their 918946 would work, even though it has 3/8" USS bolts. It's a four piece unit. Two spacers, a base and the pointer unit. Because the FMS Boss block is now 3/8" USS threads on the front cover area, I had to purchase two allen head bolts to secure it. It actually turned out well becasue they fit perfect without having to enlarge the hole/slot in the pointer. Plus, the pointer covers the entire width of the damper.
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Next steps were getting the engine on the hoist, installing the flywheel and clutch assembly and then into the car. I use a chain hoist from the rafters and then pull the car back on the rack with a winch then lower the engine in the chassis and mate it to the transmission. Not too bad, but easier than on the floor.
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March 2021
Engine has been in for a few months now and between rainy days I've been able to start fine tuning the Holley system for this engine. I don't have to do a lot due to having a fairly decent tune in my 331 engine, but taking some extra time to get it better. So far, the engine is much more responsive in the lower end and it doesn't want to "slow down" when I'm at the top of my comfort RPM range. I'm planning on taking it for a track weekend this summer to see how it does and can work out any bugs at that time, if any.
Stainless Steel Exhaust!
February 2011After a few years of waiting to get some new stainless steel sidepipes made for my car, a vendor on FFcars forum, Performanceautomotivecustoms, aka: Racer 28; came up with some new polished SS Headers! Wow! I thought those would go perfect with my new polished SS sidepipes I plan on installing. So, phone call was made in October of 2010 and the order was in. Oh, did I not mention, these would be 1 3/4" primaries and not the 1 5/8" primaries that most people install.
There were a few snags along the way and I had to wait until the end of January 2011 before I actually had the headers in my hands. They were very well packaged and looked absolutely gorgeous!
I called my buddie Mike (Big Iron) to let him know I had some new headers on the way. My original plan was to put the Factory Five headers on the car and make the new sidepipes match to them. Now with the new headers, the polished stainless steel look will go from the heads to the exhaust tips!
As you can see below, the headers bolt up fine to my MKI Cobra from Factory Five. I plan on making the passenger footbox bigger and having the exhaust in place will definately allow me to utilize all the available space to increase footroom for the passenger.
Polished SS Headers
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Mike is as anal as I am when it comes to cars. Both of us take pride in the work we do and the finished product always speaks for us. One thing for sure is these will fit this car like a glove. I was able to purchase a couple of extra flanges from Performanceautomotivecustoms, which made the fitment to his headers that much easier. Everything is tacked in place before it all gets tig welded and then sent back to the polisher for touch up.