Lykins Motorsports 482FE Build, Chris Byrd

[blykins]

Measured for pushrod length, checked the rocker arm pattern on the valve stem (no changes were necessary), and torqued the heads down......then retorqued the next day.

Oil pump and pickup were bolted on.

Bead blasted a C3 factory timing cover and found a crack. Figures.

Intake manifold gaskets were glued to the head with TA-31 around the ports and water jackets. Intake manifold was test fitted....

Here's the fun part. I'd like to sit down with the engineer who designed the FE intake setup....maybe put my arm around him....tightly....and explain a few things to him.

I first put the intake on without gaskets and check the angles. Chris' intake is a Performer RPM and the angles look great: the intake fits nice and flush against the cylinder head.

Checked port alignment with a borescope:



Everything looks great there, the roof of the intake runner is maybe .010" below the roof of the head port and the sides line up great.

Once that is established and it's decided that the flanges don't need to be cut, I look at the valve cover rails:





Can't have that....

So, the valve cover flanges on the intake will need to be milled: about .020" on the passenger side and about .050" on the driver's side. That will insure the valve cover flange is flat, even, and the seal will be tight.

[DanEC]

Originally Posted by blykins

Here's the fun part. I'd like to sit down with the engineer who designed the FE intake setup....maybe put my arm around him....tightly....and explain a few things to him.

It's always made me wonder how Ford ever got these things assembled and out the factory in the first place - to where they reasonably wouldn't leak oil and would hold vacuum for the warranty period.

[lippy]

Not that hard. They made all the parts themselves, and the compression ratio and therefore head thickness was largely constant. It's like any other production tolerance stack. The problems arise when different suppliers make the parts and each build has a different compression ratio, etc.

[ACademic]

Originally Posted by blykins

Here's the fun part. I'd like to sit down with the engineer who designed the FE intake setup....maybe put my arm around him....tightly....and explain a few things to him.

Get in line. You could also add to that skull session Ford using a separate eccentric to drive the mechanical fuel pump (vs. the more stout and reliable Chevy arrangement with a push rod off an extra cam lobe). What a PITA to fix (i.e. ripping apart the entire front end of the motor and dropping the pan). Or the timing cover that requires additional seals for coolant passage to/from the water pump (vs. directly to the block). Having worked on both Fords and Chevys, I give Ford a thumbs-up on the front-mounted distributor though. But not much beyond that.

Enjoying the build (as always). Keep at it!

[Bernica]

Originally Posted by ACademic

Get in line. You could also add to that skull session Ford using a separate eccentric to drive the mechanical fuel pump (vs. the more stout and reliable Chevy arrangement with a push rod off an extra cam lobe). What a PITA to fix (i.e. ripping apart the entire front end of the motor and dropping the pan). Or the timing cover that requires additional seals for coolant passage to/from the water pump (vs. directly to the block). Having worked on both Fords and Chevys, I give Ford a thumbs-up on the front-mounted distributor though. But not much beyond that.

Enjoying the build (as always). Keep at it!

Don't forget that pesky "7-8" firing order too!