Lykins Motorsports 482FE Build, Chris Byrd

[blykins]

Been slowly chipping away at this one for a bit while Chris' ERA chassis is being completed.

It's a good thing we started ordering parts when we did. Chris' build is based on a Pond aluminum block, Pond cylinder heads, a Performer RPM intake, steel Scat crankshaft, Scat H-beam rods, and Mahle pistons/rings. As of right now, Robert is out of blocks for another month and Scat can't tell me when they will have steel FE cranks back in stock. Luckily, we ordered most of his parts several months ago.

As mentioned this is a 4.250" x 4.250" build. Tried and trued 482 cubic inches. Heads are Pond heads, fitted with SI stainless valves, 2.250/1.750, assembled with Comp Cams valve springs, retainers, locks, locators, and seals. At lift, the heads should flow in the mid 330 cfm range on the intake side and almost 260 cfm on the exhaust side. They perform very well and I like using them.

When going over Chris' build with him, he told me that he wanted a milder build: something with horsepower/torque where he would be driving the car the most, and something able to run on low/mid octane pump gas if necessary.

Compression ratio is right at 10:1.

The camshaft is a custom Comp Cams billet steel hydraulic roller, 243/249 @ .050" using individually picked Thumpr lobes. These lobes are quieter than the Xtreme Energy and XFI lobes and seem to do very well with the FE setups. Lift is .610" on the intake side and almost .590" on the exhaust side. Lobe centers are 110° apart, with the ICL being on a 104°. The advanced intake lobe centerline offers really nice throttle response and low rpm manners.

Topping the intake manifold is a Quick Fuel HR-780 and a set of T&D street rockers will be working the valves.

Chris' car has an expected finish date of around the beginning of June, and it's against my religion to finish and engine and let it sit for months, so we will be building this one at a slower pace.

Over the past few days, I have prepped the block (normal things you have to do with a Pond), installed the cam bearings, honed the lifter bores to fit the lifters, measured all the pistons, checked piston/cylinder clearances, measured all the main/rod journals on the crank, checked bearing clearances, washed the block, assembled the pistons on the rods, filed the piston rings, and currently have the crank in the block with one piston/rod/ring assembly so I can degree the camshaft. Heads are also assembled as well.

Some gratuitous FE pictures....

[Bernica]

As always, very nice! Looking forward to more build updates.

[Joe's Garage]

Sounds like a sweet build, it will be interesting to see how it all turns out. I've always been partial to square motors, bore = stroke just seems right.

[Bernica]

I "dare to be square" and love it!

[lippy]

Congratulations, sounds super nice. Pretty similar to my build. Many of the same parts, with differences in the cam, head porting, and lifters. What do you think this will put out, close to 600/600?

[blykins]

Same heads as yours. All the CNC Pond heads flow the same.

Major differences will be the camshaft, compression ratio, and carburetor size.

[Grubby]

When going over Chris' build with him, he told me that he wanted a milder build: something with horsepower/torque where he would be driving the car the most, and something able to run on low/mid octane pump gas if necessary.

Compression ratio is right at 10:1.

The camshaft is a custom Comp Cams billet steel hydraulic roller, 243/249 @ .050" using individually picked Thumpr lobes. These lobes are quieter than the Xtreme Energy and XFI lobes and seem to do very well with the FE setups. Lift is .610" on the intake side and almost .590" on the exhaust side. Lobe centers are 110° apart, with the ICL being on a 104°. The advanced intake lobe centerline offers really nice throttle response and low rpm manners.

Brent - What do you estimate the HP and torque and at what RPMs? That looks like a really sweet street build.

John

[blykins]

I'd say somewhere around the 560-570 hp mark. HP peak around 5400-5500.

[ACademic]

Originally Posted by blykins

I'd say somewhere around the 560-570 hp mark. HP peak around 5400-5500.

I enjoy reading about your builds. Given the same 10:1 compression ratio target, what additional mods would be required to bring this engine up to the 600hp mark without sacrificing torque and overall street driveability? It sounds like a terrific base build but just curious what other tweaks must be done to this set-up to get to that plateau? Thanks.

[blykins]

On the dyno I use, it would take a little more compression or a different camshaft to get to 600 hp.

However, every engine component is a give/take somewhere along the line. When you increase camshaft duration, you take away from the bottom end of the horsepower and torque curves. When you increase compression ratio, you take a chance of getting into some doo-doo if you run into some bad gas.

With all that being said, 600 is just a number anyway (and it's a relative number based on the dyno). I hardly doubt there's anyone with a Cobra on this forum that could tell the difference between 575 hp and 600 hp at WOT. However, they *can* tell the difference between how the engine runs while they're cruising at 2000 rpm.

[blykins]

Took time today and degreed in the camshaft for Chris' engine. A few rod bearing clearances were a half thou off, so I have some bearings on the way to correct it. Other than that, a short block is not too far away...

[blykins]

Camshaft endplay check and camshaft degreeing from the other day....







Few more pics and a status update. Rod bearings came in, so I adjusted the clearance on a few rods, then assembled the short block.



T&D rockers will be here Monday, then I can verify piston/valve clearance, get the heads on and torqued, and order pushrods.

Got the distributor gear swapped out and the distributor recurved this morning. The 8594 MSD distributor comes with a cast iron gear, which will not match up with a billet steel camshaft, so the gear has to be swapped to a steel gear. The old gear gets pressed off, then the new gear gets pressed on, making sure to hold to the MSD flange/gear distance spec of 3.045-3.050". This one came in at 3.047". Most of the gears come with a 3/16" roll pin. I always re-drill the shaft for the larger pin....I like the added security. Little dab of green Loctite on the pin and drive her home.

[Grubby]

Brent,

What are you using for lifters when you degree the cam? The two lifters seem to be different.

Thanks.
John

[blykins]

The lifter that's in the two pics is the same lifter. I use a solid roller lifter for degreeing so there's no chance of a lifter cup moving as there would be with a hydraulic lifter.

[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.

[RockBit]

I guess it's better that the VC rails on the intake are too tall, rather than too short!

[Ace23]

Brent,
Excellent build! Looking forward to seeing the results.

[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.

[redmt]

Brent, It's not that tough. Unless there's a mismatch in parts alignment, an intake that big seems to be very forgiving. I've had the rear china wall leak but only because I screwed up usually from trying to set one of the 100# cast iron intakes over a fender.