Being in the engine building business has to be a trip. Like in any other industry, your main job is to serve the customer and give the guy or the girl exactly what they are looking for, whether you necessarily agree with it or not. When you go to a restaurant and you ask to hold the sauce, the chef does not come out and berate you. When you hire a house painter, that guy is not in charge of picking the color of your home, he’s in charge of applying it, right? We bring these scenarios up because the engine build you are going to see below is likely one that made the builder himself squirm a little because in some ways it is just wrong but in many more it is right as rain.
This is an outwardly stock appearing 427 FE top oiler engine. The thing actually displaces 498ci now and in spite of that wears a factory unaltered intake manifold and even more wild, factory unaltered heads. The owner of the engine wanted the ability to someday put it all back to completely stock if he needed to so the heads were not so much as even ported!
As one would imagine, there’s power left on the table here because of this but there’s also plenty of power being made to propel whatever this engine is powering down the road. The mill makes more than 470hp and it makes 500+ lb/ft of torque until well over 4,000 RPM. There’s tire frying twist available whenever the driver wants to stand on it.
We dig this engine because it is “wrong” in the traditional sense. Yes, head work or even just plopping on a set of aluminum, modern designed FE heads would free up scads of power but that is not what the customer wanted. Agree or disagree, this engine has to be fun to operate!
It works, an extra 50hp without it looking like anything is done is quite a decent gain. Not too many engines can do that with the original heads, intake,carbs and exhaust manifolds.
Not everyone wants to have their RPM range elevated to a level that won’t ever be seen in street car usage. We are all brainwashed.
I street drive a \’69 Camaro with a .060\” 427 that makes 700 hp @6900 rpm,drive it a couple of times a week, along with a few friends who have similar cars, seems like you\’re the one who\’s been brainwashed.
You will be bringing that on Power Tour this year right?
You guys arent as sharp on FE’s as you think if you believe you cant run a hydraulic cam in an early 427. You just drill out the plug in the oil galley that feeds the lifters. Done it with over 30,000 street miles on one
Did you miss the part about the owner wanting to have the ability to put it back to 100% stock after he was done with the bigger inch engine?
I don’t think he meant “100% stock but with a hydraulic lifter cam”.
If you have to pull the crank to put it back stock anyway,why would changing a plug and the cam be a big deal?Im sure I’m missing something.
With the exception of a 68 hydraulic block or similar service block, 427 Fords are solid lifter only on both top and sideoilers. This means the vertical tie to the oil galley to the lifter feed and the lifter bores themselves are not drilled. There is no magic plug unless you have one of the blocks I mentioned or the operation of gun drilling the block and tieing in the galley was preformed at a later date. In such a case another owner could then decide to then plug the system blocking it. This is not the way they were factory but this is only way removing a plug instantly makes a 427 hydraulic.
I sort of wish he had gone after more power by porting the heads and more cam but what I like about this is it\’s a mild street engine that looks factory with a lot of bottom end. Sure you can make more power many different ways but the customer got what he was after and that\’s all that matters.
So have I, and am currently running one in one of my other 427 powered cars.
No need to run a hydraulic cam with this build. Part of the 427 allure is the ticking of the solids…although the solid roller does sound slightly different than the old school solid cam & lifter set.
This engine is the numbers matching engine in my 64 427 R code Galaxie. The car had just turned 32K original miles when I acquired it. Everything is numbers matching, which is remarkable considering the car spent much of its life as a drag car.
The previous owner had the engine rebuilt by an experienced FE engine builder who has been around a very long time. When I received the car and started to drive it the way I do, even though it had less than 100 miles, it was burning oil, which prompted the refresh.
I found that the block had some grit left in it due to poor cleaning, I need a hone job and new pistons. At that point I decided to spend a couple extra bucks and add stroke, as much as possible.
The car is heavy, has a 3:50 gear with a 4 speed and is driven on back roads averaging 2500 to 3500 rpm all day long. If you look at the dyno chart the engine did exactly what was intended. This thing was a pure pleasure to drive through the Appalachian Mountains pulling without downshifting anytime I wanted. I did not need to drive at 6900 rpm to get where I was going. It has run on 87 octane with no issues.
The engine bay was completely resorted back to 100% original, including he distributor, plug wires, fuel lines, clamps, hoses etc. The car looks 100% stock but has 520 pound feet at less than 3000 rpm.
This was not a max HP effort with the intend of bragging how much power my junk makes. This was an effort to have a very comfortable street driven engine with no bad habits. It accomplished exactly that.
As some of you know, I have other FE powered stuff that makes decent power and gets used as such.
I think you did great, ”useable” power. And will last a life time buzzing around under 500 rpms. I’m considering stroking a 428 for my 65 XL. Won’t have the power yours has, but should be enough.
Bones