The FE engine has one of the most awesome life stories of any big block in the muscle car era. From its beginnings as a 352ci displacement mill to the wild high riser version that powered the Ford Thunderbolt to the ultimate example, the Cammer that was years ahead of its time, the FE was a romper stomper in many different forms through the 1960s. The 428 Cobra Jet engines were awesome and beat up on Chevrolets, Mopars, and other comers during the height of the horsepower crazy as well. What we found on eBay is a hardcore Ford guy’s dream. How about a set of seemingly perfect 427 tunnel port heads that have been stored at a machine shop since Reagan was in office. We’re not kidding, these things are great.
While it is certainly true that modern cylinder head technology trumps this old stuff by a country mile, that doesn’t really help when you are restoring a car that is supposed to have them on it or if you are building a period car that you don’t want to fill up with glaring modern “errors” on the mechanical side of things. These are hard to find pieces nowadays and they are priced accordingly. The seller is asking more than $8,000 for the pair. Oh, that does not include the even more insanely rare dual plane intake manifold that fits these heads designed for the likes of the GT40 program.
Tunnel port heads were not installed on any production cars. Instead they were developed as a race head for high RPM sustained applications like the endurance road racing program and the NASCAR teams competing at full throttle for hours at a time on the banked ovals of the country. You can make more power with the modern stuff but it’ll never be as cool as this!
Check out the images below and then hit the link at the bottom of the page for the ad –
$8K, huh? Seems fair… WAIT? Is that a CRACK in the close-up of the combustion chamber? How’s about $8.00?
Well spotted HotRodPop – maybe he’s selling these heads to fund his crack habit…….
LMFAO!!!
Just an FYI the FE was first introduced as a 332 cid V8…
Yes the 332 was first introduced in 58. Well, at least Lohnes didn’t call it a 283.
Neither the 427 nor the 302 Tunnel Port engines were a success for Ford. As a matter of fact, they were both failures due to the bottom end not being able to sustain the very high (8500 – 9500) RPMs that these engines ran at. Pontiac realized the same issue with their 303 TP engine – it kept blowing up which accelerated the demise of their TP engine program (AKA: Ram Air V)
Not exactly true. The 302 program was defiantly not a success and the Boss 302 totally replaced it for the small blocks. However, the 427 program was very successful and most if not all NASCAR wins by the 427 during those years were by the tunnel port equipped cars. In fact the 427 TP was used in the Talladega’s during the first few races because the Boss 429’s were not ready. The tunnel port heads/intakes were not sold as complete engines, but as a “package” to the racers with included the correct valve train components also. Ford called it the “7,000 rpm” package. Ford designed the package almost strictly for NASCAR and not for the street or the drag strip. And, the TP setup was really a fallback plan when NASCAR banned the Cammer. Final development of the TP engines approached Cammer horsepower figures.
One carb stud is missing – no deal
Cap screw rods, cross bolt mains, side oiling, hollow intake and sodium filled exhaust valves, sky high compression, cast long headers, forged bottom end, dual 652cfm hollies, dual point distributor, no warranty of any kind. And really crappy tires turned it all to smoke.