Can we start a Ford vs Chevy thread?

[user 4402]

Bigger issue was when one of the throttle shafts got caught in the wire wheel on the bench grinder and turned into a pretzel.

 

[user 4402]

Other odd thing I had on the bench grinder today was a scythe.

 

[Magus]

Always fun! you could drop 10" of belly fat in two seconds if it whipped on you!

 

[user 4402]

Always fun! you could drop 10" of belly fat in two seconds if it whipped on you!

Aye.

 

[Magus]

I use a valve grinder for curved concave edges like that.

 

[user 4402]

I use a valve grinder for curved concave edges like that.

If I had access to one I would too. BTW, those heads are costing me about a grand in machine work/parts. It'll be worth it though.

 

[user 4402]

Oh, maybe I wrote about the heads somewhere else. Just finished porting them.

 

[Biggkidd]

That seems cheap in todays times. What do they fit? I was a huge fan of Brodix Track 1's on SBC's back in the 90's.

 

[user 4402]

That seems cheap in todays times. What do they fit? I was a huge fan of Brodix Track 1's on SBC's back in the 90's.

Big block Ford 460.

 

[hashbrown]

In my early years I was a Chevy/Pontiac guy but as I got older I went to the dark side Mopar! The current one is a 200 mph plus car. I wish I had pictures of all of them over the years. The brown Camero was my first car.

 

[Spikedriver]

I wouldnt touch anything Dodge/Chrysler/Mopar/Jeep with somebody else's hand. I've owned them, everybody else in my family has owned them. Nobody owns one now, and there's a reason for that. They're junk. My Ram's interior fell apart. The truck was 7 years old and had 100k on it so it should've been fine. But all the knobs and latches started breaking, the cruise only worked half the time, only one radio speaker still worked, the door trim fell off the driver's door, and the rear view mirror fell right the hell off the windshield. And it used a quart of oil every 1500 miles for the whole 3 1/2 years I owned it. Never again will I own anything Dodge...

Ford and Chevy are the same to me. I wouldn't buy anything that's a brand new design from Ford, it always seems like they have trouble for one or two years and then Ford gets the problems figured out. But overall I think they're OK. Chevy had electrical problems and the interior build quality isn't that good, but I've owned a bunch of GM cars and had pretty good luck with most.

I think, if you want total reliability, either Toyota or Mazda is the best bet. I own 2 Toyotas and I love them, other than they're both a little underpowered. I loved my Mazda too, but it wasn't comfortable for long drives. The seats were made to feel sporty instead of soft and comfortable. But it never gave any trouble and the motor was tremendous. It was a 6 speed manual and I never had to take it out of 6th on the interstate, even climbing 5 and 6 percent grades. I only had to gear down when I was descending.

 

[viking]

Oh, maybe I wrote about the heads somewhere else. Just finished porting them.

The thing that always amazed me is how much more power a stock engine could get with just grinding ports to match the intake and exhaust gaskets, then there is the biggest problem with the 429/460 engines, the air injection castings in the exhaust ports, they are highly restrictive and you have to be very careful in grinding the ports as you may open them to the air passages, even a 429 with no air pump had these bumps. This is why I like the big Lincoln block, the ports were huge to begin with as were the valves, the only issue with the 430 Lincoln was that it was close to 200 pounds heavier than the 429, but it more than made up for that weight with it's hp and torque, they looked a lot like the FE engines and took the same bell housing and flywheels, very convenient for putting a stick shift in instead of the automatics Lincoln came with. A couple of other unusual things about them, they had angled block decks to allow the combustion chamber to be in the block, so if they ever needed to be bored they had to have an angle plate bolted to the top of the cylinders and another unusual thing about these engines was that some of them had a power steering/windshield wiper pump mounted just behind the crank vibration damper, I didn't need the pump so I machined a 1/2" thick aluminum plate with a seal installed in place of the pump. I used to have ask the Ford parts guys to turn their manuals around for me to show them the parts I needed, they didn't think FE bell housings and flywheels would fit the Lincoln engine. I kind of miss working on those engines, now days a person probably would have a hard time finding parts for them, I'm pretty sure that the Ford parts department would not be able to help, the books are probably long gone, those engines are probably just history other than what some collector has in a Lincoln, T-Bird, Mercury, or Edsel. Edsel had a 410 and 383 version of the 430, the 410 had a tri-power option, never saw one but I knew they were around.

 

[Biggkidd]

Every brand has lemons! Sounds like Spikedriver bought a Dodge made after a long weekend of union parties. The 90's fords were terrible with wiring issues. From what I've learned it was mostly caused by ford using the minimum wire size and crappy connectors.

Small block V8's literally built this country. I never was much of a big block fan because you can get the same performance out of a small block minus 200lbs give or take.

Don't even get me started on the 7.3L diesel in pickups. Yes they could last a million miles but they would also sink sitting still on asphalt in mid july sun down south and were even worse in the mud.

 

[Spikedriver]

Every brand has lemons! Sounds like Spikedriver bought a Dodge made after a long weekend of union parties. The 90's fords were terrible with wiring issues. From what I've learned it was mostly caused by ford using the minimum wire size and crappy connectors.

Small block V8's literally built this country. I never was much of a big block fan because you can get the same performance out of a small block minus 200lbs give or take.

Don't even get me started on the 7.3L diesel in pickups. Yes they could last a million miles but they would also sink sitting still on asphalt in mid july sun down south and were even worse in the mud.

Pretty much every Chrysler product I've ever had any association with has been junk. We blow Hemis up at work all the time. Some of them have close to $100k in repairs by the time they're replaced, but corporate keeps sending them to us because they can get a better fleet discount. Our Fords and Chevys don't have near the problems that Ram does.

In my family, between my brothers, my parents, my sister and myself, there have been 10 or 11 Chrysler products. All but one have been garbage. My sister had a minivan that did very well, but her husband had the transmission flushed every 20k miles. The interior held up and the wiring was good too and it made it to 200k. All the rest were totally shot by 150k or less. My brother's wife had one burn up on the road with just over 100k on it. She got the kids out about 2 minutes before it went up in flames. Chrysler builds lemons. Even Jeep has gone downhill.

 

[user 4402]

The thing that always amazed me is how much more power a stock engine could get with just grinding ports to match the intake and exhaust gaskets, then there is the biggest problem with the 429/460 engines, the air injection castings in the exhaust ports, they are highly restrictive and you have to be very careful in grinding the ports as you may open them to the air passages, even a 429 with no air pump had these bumps. This is why I like the big Lincoln block, the ports were huge to begin with as were the valves, the only issue with the 430 Lincoln was that it was close to 200 pounds heavier than the 429, but it more than made up for that weight with it's hp and torque, they looked a lot like the FE engines and took the same bell housing and flywheels, very convenient for putting a stick shift in instead of the automatics Lincoln came with. A couple of other unusual things about them, they had angled block decks to allow the combustion chamber to be in the block, so if they ever needed to be bored they had to have an angle plate bolted to the top of the cylinders and another unusual thing about these engines was that some of them had a power steering/windshield wiper pump mounted just behind the crank vibration damper, I didn't need the pump so I machined a 1/2" thick aluminum plate with a seal installed in place of the pump. I used to have ask the Ford parts guys to turn their manuals around for me to show them the parts I needed, they didn't think FE bell housings and flywheels would fit the Lincoln engine. I kind of miss working on those engines, now days a person probably would have a hard time finding parts for them, I'm pretty sure that the Ford parts department would not be able to help, the books are probably long gone, those engines are probably just history other than what some collector has in a Lincoln, T-Bird, Mercury, or Edsel. Edsel had a 410 and 383 version of the 430, the 410 had a tri-power option, never saw one but I knew they were around.

A machinist I know has a complete Lincoln 462.

The thing that always amazed me is how much more power a stock engine could get with just grinding ports to match the intake and exhaust gaskets, then there is the biggest problem with the 429/460 engines, the air injection castings in the exhaust ports, they are highly restrictive and you have to be very careful in grinding the ports as you may open them to the air passages, even a 429 with no air pump had these bumps. This is why I like the big Lincoln block, the ports were huge to begin with as were the valves, the only issue with the 430 Lincoln was that it was close to 200 pounds heavier than the 429, but it more than made up for that weight with it's hp and torque, they looked a lot like the FE engines and took the same bell housing and flywheels, very convenient for putting a stick shift in instead of the automatics Lincoln came with. A couple of other unusual things about them, they had angled block decks to allow the combustion chamber to be in the block, so if they ever needed to be bored they had to have an angle plate bolted to the top of the cylinders and another unusual thing about these engines was that some of them had a power steering/windshield wiper pump mounted just behind the crank vibration damper, I didn't need the pump so I machined a 1/2" thick aluminum plate with a seal installed in place of the pump. I used to have ask the Ford parts guys to turn their manuals around for me to show them the parts I needed, they didn't think FE bell housings and flywheels would fit the Lincoln engine. I kind of miss working on those engines, now days a person probably would have a hard time finding parts for them, I'm pretty sure that the Ford parts department would not be able to help, the books are probably long gone, those engines are probably just history other than what some collector has in a Lincoln, T-Bird, Mercury, or Edsel. Edsel had a 410 and 383 version of the 430, the 410 had a tri-power option, never saw one but I knew they were around.

A machinist I know has a complete Lincoln 462. I haven't seen it as his shop is the worst mess I have ever seen in my life bar none.

 

[user 4402]

The thing that always amazed me is how much more power a stock engine could get with just grinding ports to match the intake and exhaust gaskets, then there is the biggest problem with the 429/460 engines, the air injection castings in the exhaust ports, they are highly restrictive and you have to be very careful in grinding the ports as you may open them to the air passages, even a 429 with no air pump had these bumps.

This is exactly what i just dealt with on my heads. Hoping to be about in the 400hp range when all said and done.