FordSix Performance Forum

MechRick

I went through the same thing with my Bronco. The cam was a Comp 268H. With an Offy DP and a manual transmission, it was tough to crawl around off road. It would surge, lunge, buck and stall under 1000 RPM. Same engine with a carefully tuned multiport injection (Megasquirt) did the same thing. I tri...

MechRick

Don't forget that the pickup moves inside the distributor every time the vacuum signal changes. the two wires that connect the pickup to the housing can work harden and break inside the insulation.

Tell me how you like those tires. Specifically how much noise they make...

MechRick

The one I have is off an FE-powered dump truck. It's the big version, and I think it's rated 500 cfm. Not sure whether they are rated at 1.5" or 3". I can't remember the cfm of the smaller version off the top of my head. One of the things that confused me about that carb is the air cleaner...

MechRick

I have one in a box somewhere that I've run on various Fords through the years. Like most things that deviate from the norm, they are maligned because they are misunderstood. There were several different versions of the Ford VV. Early ones had a cold start enrichment solenoid screwed into the base. ...

MechRick

Edelbrock and Trickflow are both making Clevor intakes. Trick Flow makes an EFI intake. A 408 EFI Clevor would make a great truck engine. If you do go that route, replace the two-piece valves. They are known to come apart under higher than stock spring pressures. I've got a 351C with the open-chambe...

MechRick

the "EFI" cover came out in 85 when they went to pedestal rockers Correct. The pedestal bolt-down rockers are stamped steel and taller than the earlier cast iron units. You can remove the pcv baffles on the older valve cover to clear stamped steel rockers. I did that years ago to retain t...

MechRick

Checking resistance of the battery cables is not reliable due to the voltage/current involved. The average starter consumes 150 amps. Voltage at the battery while cranking is 10-11 volts. Ohms law gives you a starter resistance while cranking of about .07 ohms. If you had a cable resistance of .07 o...

MechRick

For my Bronco II, overall length of the transfer case is an issue. Wheelbase is ~94" (same as Jeep CJ7, YJ, TJ). The BW 1350 that is in there is a fixed yoke output. The Rubi case would probably be the best option for me. I would have to deal with the oddball 25 spline output of the transmissio...

MechRick

For a rock crawler, you really need two things. A super low 1st gear (or a 4:1 box or a doubler), and if you intend to drive the thing on the highway, overdrive. Wide ratio transmissions work best. And for those who like math, there is a simple formula to calculate just how wide ratio a given transm...

MechRick

Think of stall speed as the fastest the converter will let the engine spin without the vehicle moving. That's when the most torque multiplication happens. Torque multiplication is due to the stator. Driving over rocks is easier in an auto, but the downside is heat. Most of the heat generated in an a...

MechRick

that 5.72 to 1 granny ratio is so nice Yes it is. I miss my Bronco once in a while. It's crawl ratio was 5.72 x 2.69 x 3.55 = 54.62. Not too shabby. With 5.13's it would have been 78.93. Typical torque converter multiplication is somewhere between 1.8-2.5:1 at stall. The math isn't precise, but a 2...

MechRick

The '73 2.3L should have an oval port head. I would ditch that in favor of a 'D' port head and matching intake. A Ranger round port head and matching intake would be a good choice also. The Weber carbs don't get as good fuel economy as the one barrel setups of the eighties Mustangs. I've had the bes...

MechRick

Any transmission that came behind the Ford small blocks (302, 351, 5.0, 5.8 ) will work. A 2wd transmission can be converted to 4wd with an output shaft and extension housing swap. Be aware that one of the reasons Ford went to a divorced transfer case on the Highboys was to alleviate driveshaft/cros...

MechRick

But an e4od would require a new computer or standalone controller I did quite a bit of research on manually-shifting an E4OD. You can get 1st, 2nd, drive and reverse from the shifter. Overdrive and lockup are electronic and can be accomplished with switches. Line pressure is reduced when applying i...

MechRick

You can install a wider gearset that gives you a 2.71 first gear (and beefier planetaries) in the C6. It helps, but you still would need a doubler or a 4:1 transfer case to go rock crawling...

MechRick

You can: Stick a camera in the spark plug hole and look for damage Remove the rocker arms for that cylinder and blow air in. The air will go one of four places; the radiator, the intake manifold, the exhaust, or up through the oil returns in the head. If I had to take a stab at it, I'd say if that c...

MechRick

One other thought, did you rule out a plugged exhaust?

MechRick

1987 was the first year for EFI for the six. Some of those older trucks didn't have a check engine light. You could probably unplug the O2 sensor and it just wouldn't care. Those older Fords would substitute a base fuel map with a dead O2 sensor that was very close. It might fail an emission test, o...

MechRick

See if you can get it through a self test. Or hopefully a running test.

The older Ford stuff had some fairly good self diagnostic capability.

MechRick

It is holding about 53 psi on the fuel rail when it is running it holds 18 to 21 on vacuum 18 to 21 psi fuel, or engine vacuum? You should be seeing close to 60 psi without vacuum connected to the regulator, and over 45 psi idling with the vacuum hose connected. The '87 fuel system has a rail pump ...

MechRick

EV1 is the old school Bosch-style connector, EV6 is the new style. You can buy adapters to mate EV1 connectors to EV6 injectors (or vise versa). I find it cleaner (and cheaper) to visit a junk yard and whack the connectors off the correct harness. The Ford EV6 injector connectors are made of plastic...

MechRick

The older trucks used a vacuum servo with a control box under the dash. I think '93 and newer trucks ditched the vacuum servo for all electronic. The electronic servos are an easy swap. The control unit is built into the servo. Swap the steering wheel to one with speed control switches. The switches...

MechRick

The 5.8L trucks used upper/lower intakes with inline oval ports. They were torque intakes so the cross sectional area is small. The 5.0L car intakes used ports very similar to the 5.8 truck intake. The 5.0L truck intakes used rectangular ports with a much larger cross sectional area. Back when perfo...

MechRick

The difference in shortie vs full length power with a very good dual exhaust system with a crossover pipe was about FIVE hp on a 235 net horsepower engine And that's on a short stroke engine that loves to rev. it's for my 65 Ford falcon wagon with the 300 with the Paxton supercharger Forced inducti...

MechRick

What else has been done to the engine? The biggest gains of a header installation are to maximize/enhance other performance modifications. The scavenging benefit of a header is most noticeable when: a) The engine is blueprinted to build peak torque near the tuned RPM band of the header b) The camsha...

MechRick

Hi Pete. In the beginning, I set up the engine for use in a carbed Bronco. I used duraspark distributor and module. If you switch to an Offy intake, be careful there is no interference between the exhaust manifolds and intake. I didn't, and broke one of the ears on the intake and had to have it tig ...

MechRick

8.7" ring gear, I believe.

https://www.diyford.com/ford-axle-histo ... erentials/

MechRick

30 grams difference from the lightest to the heaviest. Has anyone else seen this much variation ? I've never seen that much from Ford stock rods. Have seen that much on discount parts store crate engines where all the rods go in a bin. Measuring the rods can be tricky. Indexing in the same point on...

MechRick

To balance, you need a fixture to hold the rod horizontal and a gram scale. I always remove the balance pad on the pin end. Start with the heaviest one first, set the rest to match.

MechRick

I’ll be doing the arp rod bolts The rod big end bore specifications are: 2.2750"-2.2758". The allowable out of round is .0006". After replacing the rod bolts, assemble and torque the caps. You can check dimensions with snap gauges but it's a pain in the a$$. A better tool for checkin...

MechRick

You have to weight match rod big end, small end and total weight. Inline engines don't have to be balanced dynamically. It's generally a good idea to neutral balance the crank, flywheel and balancer. Crankshafts in 'V' engines that employ counterweights must be dynamically balanced with weights deri...

MechRick

The crank journal looks clean.

Anything that can impede rod motion on the crank journal or piston can cause a beam fracture.

Since you are running pressed pins, pin galling in the piston is a possibility.

MechRick

I'm curious if you were using stock rod bolts. I worked at Ford dealers from 1985 to 1999 and saw a few dozen catastrophic bottom end failures. No connecting rod failures (well, aside from a few hydrolocks), one crankshaft failure in a 1.6L Escort. All the rest were rod bolt failures. Ford has alway...

MechRick

Here's a couple pics of his 67 Mustang with the Bosch injection That's Bosch CIS (constant injection system). It's fully mechanical injection. There's a diaphragm that measures airflow and varies the amount of fuel flow to suit. Tuning them (and remanufacturing the units) has become somewhat of a b...

MechRick

https://www.sparkplugadapters.com/products-1

18mm tapered seat to 14mm tapered seat about halfway down the page.

I ran AGSF32PM Motorcraft Platinums in my turbos. They seemed to misfire less than coppers.

MechRick

THE FRENCHTOWN FLYER wrote:Adapter bushings are available to allow the use of 14 mm plugs in 18 mm heads.

There you go. Buy the adapters and 6 iridium or platinum plugs spec'd for a 1988 Thunderbird Turbo Coupe.

MechRick

Nice to back up our assumptions with hard numbers. Thank you for taking the time.

MechRick

Evidence of bore distortion: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1GXTVwX9N-l3BuJsw-CW1i9rSu6g0jIaJ You can see where the crosshatch has been worn away by the rings. Obviously the deck and bore distorts a bit. Notice it's away from the thrust side of the cylinder wall, where you expect to see the most w...

MechRick

do you think that with the cylinder compression compromised, even though all of them are still above 100, that some getting higher compression than others, or more seeping past the rings, could cause a distribution issue? Not with a TBI or a carburetor. If it were a multiport-injected setup or a di...

MechRick

I suppose anything's possible, but I would think the EFI setup I have would provide a pretty even mixture. More so than a carb Sometimes throttle body injection can behave very strangely. Airflow around the partially open throttle blades can move fuel and air around in very unpredictable ways. It c...

MechRick

It could be uneven mixture distribution.

Does the detonation sound like it moves around different cylinders or is it repetitive on one cylinder?

MechRick

Honda journal size is 1.88".

I'm not sure I would want to take a straight six down that far. The torsional loads on the #6 rod journal at that size would scare me.

It's not a good idea on an engine that's capable of 300 ft lbs at 2000 RPM either, strictly from a bearing speed standpoint.

MechRick

Concerning the Silv-o-lite hypereutectic flat top pistons..... will they expand more or less than the cast dished pistons? The KB performance pistons I've installed had piston to wall clearances that were more or less stock. Tells me the expansion rates are similar. The KB piston used a larger than...

MechRick

They have an odd pin size (.940"). Probably helps if honing up to a .975" pin, less meat to remove. They are powdered metal, but have a good reputation.

MechRick

Turbocharged 460? I've already done the math. Something around a 96 mm with exhaust AR around 1.3 would net 1000 ft-lbs and 800 HP. :hmmm: It would probably get better fuel economy too. my ears love the idea of hearing how u might go about assembling a 300. I'm guessing sequentially, with MS, edis ...

MechRick

I bought it for the 8 lug axles and low miles (114,000). The heavier truck deals with the Greyhound-bus-passing-the-bumper-tow-travel-trailer-white-knuckle-experience better than the half ton chassis. the 88 460 is a pathetic engine... Hey, I resemble that remark! :D Alas, you are correct. '88 was t...

MechRick

Sold the truck a few months ago. Still see it running around town.

I needed a truck with a bit more tow capacity. Ended up with an '88 460/ZF5 F250.

MechRick

The temperature variations thing is real. once pulled a cast iron part out of the shed early in the morning on an unusually humid (for the Mohave) day. Looked like someone doused it with a garden hose. I slather the bearing journals with wheel bearing grease on the crankshafts I want to save. Better...

MechRick

The first step is to do a KOEO (key on engine off) KOER (key on engine running) test. All you need to do this is a jumper wire. With the pointy part of the diagnostic connector (located on the left side of the engine compartment close to the PCM and fuel pump relays) facing up, signal return is the ...

MechRick

Awesome!

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