Club Cobra - Can Am 501

> the FMC "cammers" were aimed at drag racing (?!)---maybe an "answer"
> to the Hemi...

The 427 SOHC cammers were Ford's answer to the Chrysler hemis on the
NASCAR superspeedways. NASCAR decided to no allow Ford to run the
cammers (in 1965 at Daytona) so Ford sold or provided the engines to
drag racers (they were installed in several A/FX Factory Experimental
Mustangs, for instance). Ford's response to the NASCAR ban was the
tunnel port 427's which were an attempt to duplicate the SOHC style
porting with a pushrod head. The tunnel port 427's were also developed
for the Can Am GT40's and Mickey Thompson made hemi drag race heads for
427's. The biggest displacement FE that Ford fooled with was the
483 cubic inch Starlifter NASCAR development engines (427 blocks with
4.3" stroke cranks before displacement was limited to 7 liters).

There was also the pushrod 3 valve per cylinder 427 Calliope. Before
the displacement ban killed the LeMans 427 engines, Ford was working
on a 3 valve 427 engine dubbed the "calliope" but it was apparently
not an FE-based engine. It had an aluminum block with cast iron
liners, dual camshafts and twin waterpumps (to minimize overall length).
One camshaft drove the intake valves and the other drove the exhaust
valves. Both cams were in the block in an over-under arrangement.
The intake camshaft was positioned 6" above the crankshaft centerline.
Pushrods from the intake cam ran parallel to the cylinder bores. The
exhaust camshaft was placed 4.5" above the intake cam. Its pushrods
were in the horizontal plane. The aluminum cylinder heads had 3 valves
per cylinder, two intakes and a single exhaust, in a pent-roof combustion
chamber. The heads were sealed with copper O-rings. The camshafts were
driven by chains as were the pressure and scavenge pumps for the dry-sump
oiling system. No intake manifold was used. Instead Hilborn style
injection stacks were cast integrally with the cylinder head. There were
also no coolant passes between the block and heads. External water lines
were used instead. Bore was 4.34", stroke was 3.60", and the all up weight
was 577 pounds. The design goal was 800 HP and a max RPM of 8000. I'm
told the calliope had more in common with the yet-to-be released 385-series
big blocks than the FE's.

> Found a 501 DOHC engine that appears to be all aluminum. Does anyone
> have any history on this engine. Its still in the crate. Thanks

What engine family are you referring to? If it's an FE, I think
you are confused. The Cammer was a 427 with single overhead cams.

Besides the current modular V8's, Ford made a few other DOHC V8 engines.
Ford had the Indy 255 but that was a DOHC based upon an aluminum
Winsor block. Then there was the WWII GAA tank engine:

http://www.bacomatic.org/~dw/yore/gaa.htm

Ford had two Can Am programs. As mentioned above the first used
tunnel port 427's. The second used an all-alumnum version of the
Boss 429 and displaced 494 cubic inches.

So just what is it that you've found?

Dan Jones