Ford got it right with this engine although it has been overlooked for over 40 years. I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a mint 1970 Cyclone GT with this engine, early on. To contardict myself a little on this issue, I can state that in stock form this motor was not a match for the 428Cj that it replaced as medium street performance engine. BUT, it is structurally a MUCH stronger engine and no matter how hard I drove it, it never caused any problems and it would run well past 6000 rpms on mediocre gas with the ignition highly advanced WITHOUT detonation. That was the missing point from my previous message. The other issue on the excellent breathing this engine has, it will not start to protest taller cams until you go past circa 225-228° @ ,050 valve lift. I know of no other engine that can match that.
The combustion chambers are "closed" (72cc) for lack of a better term, with a large squish area, taking up almost 45% of the bore area. That is pretty darn good thinking for its design time frame, around 1965, which according to some in the know, over on the 460 forum, was the time Ford did serious pre-production testing on these engines.
This is really a subject for a new post on this forum. I did not intend to hijack this post for an off topic issue. Still,
There are several people running this type of 385 engine WITH these cylinder heads, fully ported, with flat top pistons and otherwise 1970-ish tecnhology, deliveriing in excess of 700 horsepower with a single carburetor. The only drawbacks these engines have are due to two issues:
1. Everyone in Detroit KNEW in 1966 what was going to come from Washington in the next few years. That is why Ford designed higher emissions efficiency into this engine than some would have liked.
2. The exhaust ports on all of the 385 series engines were bent downwards at an angle so severe that after they reach ,300 on the lift scale, they start to suffer reverse flow. This was done for one reason only. Without this change, this engine would never have been installed by the factory into Cyclones, Torinos and most importantly the 1971 Mach 1.
When they win as they do often, the Chevy crowd reportedly gathers in the pit area to explain this novelty away, saying: "Yeah, but you have spread bore ports"
As for the combustion chamber design efficiency, this engine speaks for itself. It delivers excellent hp in stock form. The reason you can advance the ignition to up to 42° total is because you have no heat spots in the chambers or on the pistons. It has no valve shrouding problems because of its
huge bore and piston speed is relatively low because of its small blockish stroke.
(See this and other superior discussion on this and other fabulous Ford stuff, by the top Ford people in the country at
www.460ford.com and on this fine forum CLUB COBRA)
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