Please help with FE parts info!
 

I am just starting a 390 FE build up and I am trying to locate all the parts I need, so I will be begging for a lot of help with information from you well educated FE people out there :) Anyway, my first question is concerning manual bell housing’s. I want to install a 4 or 5 speed manual transmission in my Cobra Project car and I have been looking around the salvage yards for a manual bell housing. I have found one that is supposed to be a Ford 390 FE F250 100 150 manual bell housing; it has the numbers of C5TA 7505 B cast into it. From a little research, the numbers would indicate that it is from a 1965 ford truck, am I correct? Also, can you tell me if this will work for me as a bell housing for my 390 Cobra build up? Or where there different bell housings for cars and trucks, meaning that a car manual transmission bell housing is different than a trucks? Will it fit in a Cobra kit car? Also, does it matter what bell housing I get if I want to install a 4 speed Top Loader or T-5 transmission? Will these transmissions bolt up to this bell housing? Sorry about all the questions, but I have allot to learn. Thanks for the quick response!

Brian you WILL want to get a steel bellhousing. On the FFR and others there is not much to stop and exploding flywheel from shearing off your legs. Some guys run the kevlar blankets but trust me you will want the steel bell. There is an adapter plate you can get to mount the tremec to either bellhousing. Can't say for sure if the truck bell will work or not sorry. There are some vendors on the FF cobra forum that have the whole setup you'll need from a to z in one nice package. There are choices for the clutch setup too. Some are using the stang cable setup and some a hyd setup. Either way all the parts can be found. Some will swear by the toploader but the TKO is an excellent option if you like the 5 speed. I do. G.

Oh and you won't want to use a stock T-5 tranny. It won't last long...........really! Use at least the 3550 Tremec or a much better TKO Tremec with the TKO the best way to go. From what I understand also the 3550 is being discontinued anyway so your options will be the TKO 500 or the TKO 600 sorry. G.

Brian,

I have the original (stripped & sandblasted) iron bellhousing off my 427 side-oiler if your interested. I have no use for it so give me a reasonable offer and it's yours! Best wishes.

Another thing, I also have the original 427 steel flywheel but don't know if a 390 is internally or externally balanced.

Thanks for the quick response. By a "Steel" bell housing, do you mean specifically not aluminum? This truck bell housing is steel or iron, it is not aluminum. Do you know if a Top Loader will bolt to it? I don't mind using a 4 or 5 speed, I would just like to use something easy to find and not to expensive. Thanks again.

The steel bellhousing is not iron or aluminum but steel. Sorry i was not clear. They are around $300. The toploader will bolt up to it also. To me it's more expensive but money well spent. Jegs and Summit sell them but they need some minor modifcation to adapt and run the cable setup with. A longer clutch fork and the fork hole in the bell opened a bit for the FFR. I think it's Fortes (who is a vendor here too) that sell the whole setup matched to go with either tranny or bellhousing. Good luck, G.

The truck belll is iron not steel. G.

Briankmagby:

If you are interested I have a set of Ford cast iron 390 heads in excellent shape that you could make me an offer for. I also have a steel flywheel that is in very good shape (just needs cleaning up). Also a Melling oil pump and a set of Ford rods that would fit. All in good shape. Make an offer. I also have a forged 390 crank in excellent shape, but it came out of my 427. That means that the front snout had been turned down from the truck size it was. Maybe someone here can tell you if you could use it as is.

Wow! The longer I'm part of this forum, the more I like seeing the help that pours out when somebody needs it.

I'll offer a little on the 391/427 crank offered above. Yes it will physically fit in the 390 block as long a the snout is turned to match the seal diameter of the timing cover for car engines and not trucks. Also, must obviously fit a harmonic balancer for a car engine.

Aside from that the biggie is balance. As manufactured, it will not work with car rods and pistons. That said, if it has already been balanced for a 427, it won't take much balancing to make it work for a 390. Depends on rod and piston combination. The only other thing is oiling. From the factory the truck cranks are not cross drilled. No biggie here as 390's didn't have cross drilled cranks anyway.

In short, with very little expense, it will work.

Last note. Please get a steel
bellhousing. I don't care what anyone says about steel flywheels being bullet proof or "Oh gee why waste your money." You are building a performance car, designed with one purpose in mind......goin' fast! That means you are going to do things that stress parts....sometimes to the breaking point. Don't take a chance on your legs OR your life. $300 is damned cheap insurance my friend.

Have fun building your car! :):) .....and keep us posted on your progress.

Al

Thanks everyone for all the great advice. I will go with the steel bell housing.

Next question, in order to get around emissions laws in my state; I have to put a 67 or older 390 in my kit. So, are there any special 390's 1967 or older that I should be looking for? I wan to buy a rebuild able engine, but I am only interested in the short block portion as I am going to buy Edelbrock Aluminum heads and intake. SO when I am looking for blocks, 1967 and older, is there any particular model/ number that I should try to find?

Thanks

Brian,

For the most part, other than the service block, the 390's are pretty much the same. They will differ more in cylinder heads and intake design than in the block.

I'm not sure how many different heads there are, but taking off a valve cover and looking for a part# is the way to start. There have been many threads about casting numbers for FE parts, but the simplest way to remember is:

C-7 xxxx is this: C= 1960 decade. 7= 1967.

If you buy parts from anyone, have them write you a receipt for parts from 1967 or earlier. It is highly unlikely your motor vehicles department is going to ask you to tear down the engine to somehow prove it's age. It is better if the receipt is from a dealer or business rather than from a private party. Less likely to make them ask questions.

With the aluminum heads, the age gets tossed out the window anyway. DMV people are highly unlikey to know about that aspect and frankly, they probably really don't care. All they want is documentation. Here in Oregon, all I did was take my receipts in and show the counter man at DMV. Once he looked at them it was a done deal and I left with a 1966 title in my hands and my receipts went back in my pocket. I don't know if Nevada is like that or not, but why wouldn't they be?

If you're worried, go to a small town DMV, instead of one in Vegas. They are usually less picky.....at least that's true up here.

By the way don't let this correct vintage thing bother your conscience. Any FE is a smog maker, so no matter what you put together, it's going to pollute the air.......and that's exactly what Cobras are supposed to do......be noisey and smell bad (good?) at the end of the pipes. :):)

Al

Thanks A Snake, I hear you about the emissions, I'm not worried about the air, I'm just worried about getting my Cobra registered. I spoke with the people at the DMV about it and they told me that the deciding factor on weather the car has to pass emissions or not was based on the year of the engine. I told them that I was going to build my own engine and that I would be using different heads and intake. They said that all I need to do is make sure that the engine block was a 1967 or earlier and I would not have to worry about it. They said that I need a document on Ford Dealership Letter-Head that showed the engine code and verified that the engine block was a 1967 or earlier. If I provide that, then I don't have to worry about emissions, I just show that document each year that I register it. That should be easy enough as there should be plenty of 1967 or earlier blocks to be found. So I just wanted to check to see if there were any real differences between the blocks between 1961, and 1967 that I should look for. Ideally, I would like to find a 1965 block since I am putting it into a Factory Five 65 Roadster. Anyway, are there any real difference between a car 390 block, and a truck 390 block? What's the difference between the 390 and the 391? At least I think I’ve heard of a 391 FE. Thanks for all the help.

Some of the 391 blocks are known to have really thick cyl walls. Not all but some. They also have the triple webs at the crank saddle. The best way to check is sonc the block for thickness. So be careful what you buy. If you find a nice block try to get it local so you can have it checked. Be sure the seller is willing to do so too. this will give you a idea if he's FOS or not! G.

Yea, I'm going to try to find a block with a Mustang, or Fairlane code on it if I can, that way I will no what I have. I will definitely make sure that if the block turns out to be cracked or otherwise unusable that I can exchange it for another. If they won't do that, then I will not buy from them. I also want to make sure that the block is indeed a 390 and not a 352 or something like that. I know that the code on the block specifies what year and what car it came from, but does it specify the cubic inch size? I was just planning on pulling a head and measuring the bore and stroke, and calculate the engine size.