460 Windsor or move to a big block

[brainsboy]

Having just built a 460 Windsor, I can tell you its not a saving money idea, even if you already have heads. Its just one of those things that's its easier said than done. There are a lot of issues and problems that most people don't realize and they all cost boat loads of money to address. Very few people have even posted on some of these problems so let me give an example, first is that when you put a 4.250 stroke into a Windsor your rods are going to hit the cam lobes. This means you will never be able to run a typical off the shelf camshaft in your motor. If your building a chevy, this is not a problem because chevys always have this problem, so every cam company carries cam cores with smaller diameters. Fords however never have this type of issue, this is important because for this reason no one carries smaller diameter cam cores for the ford small blocks. This now means your only choice is to have a billet cam cut from a solid chunk of steel. Don't confuse this with having a custom cam cut from a core, your now getting a billet custom cam. Lets say you throw down 800$ plus, on a nice new billet cam, which will be around a .300" smaller diameter than stock ford cams just to start with. Life is great now, but you now have an interference motor between the cam and rods, this is because a ford stock cam is somewhere around 1.4" diameter, so now your going to end up with a billet custom ground cam say around a max of 1.100", this is just enough to clear lobes against the rods, this means you have interference points when the motor is not in perfect timing. If you jump a tooth or break a timing chain then your also breaking internal engine parts, rods, cam, block. Also how much smaller of a cam do you need to clear rods? 1.100"? 1.000" .900" How do you tell what you need?, how small can you go without cam deflection? Are you thinking about smaller rods yet? How much smaller than 2.1" chevy journals are you going to run? How much smaller on a crank journals can you grind before heat treating is gone? Do you get a billet crank with Honda journals? Are the Honda rods strong enough? Don't expect the cam company tell you what you need, or expect a refund when the new billet cam still doesn't clear. Im not saying all this cant be done, and Im not trying to say don't do it, I just want to get you to think about the problems and time that is spent on this type of project. The list go's on for other problems. You can have a builder do all the work for you, but these problems are still there, you just wont be the one choosing how to address the problems, in some cases you wont even be told about them until you go to change cams and the motor wont turn over. Just something to think about