After months and months of research and talking with some very reliable engine builders, I am coming closer to beginning my turbo motor build. Through out the course of this thread you will find detailed pics, questions, and also witness what it takes precisely step by step to building a stout mod motor. Keep in mind I am still learning valuable things everyday however after seeing and hearing about one too many bad experiences with from a shop I am taking the "trust nobody" approach. I aim for precision and perfection throughout the course of this project...NOT SPEED and how fast I can have a motor in my car.
So far my motor consists of the following (All of which is brand new):
05-10 3v/Aluminator Block
03-04 Cobra Kellogg Crank (Stock Stroke)
Oliver Billet I-Beam Rods w/ ARP 2000 Rod Bolts (5.933')
Melling Billet Geared Oil Pump
Canton Street/Strip T Pan (CAN15-780)
Canton Windage Tray (CAN-20939)
Roush Revised 9 Thread 05 DC Castings (Heads were Fully Loaded with OEM valves, springs, followers, and cams)
Ferrea Comp Plus Intake and Exhaust Valves
Brian Tooley .525 Modular Valve Springs
Cloyes Hex-A-Just Primary Gears (9-3169A)
Cloyes Billet Steel Secondary Gears (9-3676X9)
ARP 12mm Cam Bolts
I still need to get my custom pistons from JE. I was fortunate enough to source BlownBlu97's Spec Sheet from him. I also need to get ARP Mainstuds, sidebolts, and headstuds.
Next on my agenda is measuring my bores (although it is brand new) so I can call JE and order my pistons. Keep in mind I am aiming for as close to stock bore as I can get. The block will need minimal machining more or less a touch hone of ~.002 to clean up the cylinder walls from sitting for so long. I will post pics of what it looks like. Pistons will be ordered .002 larger than my largest bore measurement.
Also to clarify so there is no confusion I got a once in a lifetime deal on a Ford Racing Aluminator shortblock, so if you see pics of me disassembling a brand new short block don't be alarmed lol. Lots of upgrading to be done in order to have a solid foundation for the turbo and the power I want to make (1000 on c16 through an auto)
Pics:
Here are some pics of the main areas I noticed need to be deburred. If anyone else wants to chime in and suggest other areas that I should duburr feel free! Basically anywhere I can draw blood will be gone. The last thing I need is some sort of casting slag/imperfection flaking off into my motor.
Stock Pistons and Rods are Removed leaving me a bare block and crank.
Last but not least the crank.
I decided it would be a good idea to practice removing the valvesprings, retainers, keepers, and valves on my old heads before I get ready to swap my stainless Ferrea and Brain Tooley springs in. The OTC spring compressor from summit worked like a dream. Very user friendly, especially for a first timer like me.
Just last night I ordered my Ferrea Comp Plus exhaust valves. Hopefully they will be here this week so by the weekend I can swap everything into the roush heads and start lapping the valves. One question I do have is should I upgrade the valve guides or leave them stock? I've heard mixed opinions on this but from what I understand I should keep stock guides in them considering it will be mainly a street car and not a dedicated all out race car.
Thanks guys, and stay tuned for regular updates, and lots more questions!!
Well its a street car with a race engine in it so i would go with the bronze guides, but that is your call-pics look great but the jerseys in the background distract from the engine-i would get rid of them!! j/k . good luck, should be a monster
Haha thanks man. So what's the scoop on the bronze guides? Don't they wear fast on a street car? Don't the guides have to be pressed in and out? Is this a job I can do?
What happened was I took the heads off the motor. Had them in the shop. It flooded upon heavy rain, and the heads got wet. Hence the rust on the valves.
Bronze guides have been a mainstay for performance engines for decades, Grant. Virtually every race only head comes from its manufacturer with bronze guides. For a street application bronze guides do not wear as well as cast iron guides but still give good results until they begin to wear.
In general cast iron guides give better results on the street. In recent years there has been a growing contingent of users that believe the cast iron guide is a superior guide even for race environments. Cast iron, because of its porosity can actually absorb oil which helps to lubricate the stem and guide in service.
The better lubricating qualities of cast iron would persuade me to use them for a street or street /race track engine. For a race only drag car that is brought to and from the track in a trailer I would use bronze guides. For a road race engine I would use cast iron guides. If I had the time I would experiment with cast iron for a drag race only engine — just to satisfy my curiosity so I knew how they might perform.
Ed, was it just the fit and finish quality of Ford's assembly line that led to the poor concentricity of some of the valves in the later four valve Cobra engines leading to the dreaded "tick"
So that a properly fitted iron guide might actually be a superior choice for our street driven engines? Is it only the ease of honing a bronze guide to the perfect clearance that makes it the "better choice" as determined by generations of race engine builders?
How much longer, per hole, does it take to get the correct clearance for iron guides? And does it take any special tooling to get that perfect fit?
Ed, was it just the fit and finish quality of Ford's assembly line that led to the poor concentricity of some of the valves in the later four valve Cobra engines leading to the dreaded "tick"
To be fair Drew, I have heard so many different explanations as to what the tick was I don't really know. There is a general consensus it originated from a less than optimal cooling on early castings in the rear of the riverside head. I have never experienced the tick issue so I can't say that I have been able to discover the source of the tick.
One explanation I have heard is the guide becomes loose in the head and the sound we hear is the guide being slammed back and forth into position in the head. Another explanation I have heard is a valve seat is just starting to loosen up and the sound is that of the valve seat being slammed back into position. Yet another explanation has to do with the hydraulic lash adjuster getting heat damaged and ticking like an old worn out hydraulic lifter.
While there are more explanations they become increasingly less plausible. The one about the seat becoming loose is tough to reconcile. My expectations with a loose seat is an eventual hangup of a valve and the attendant carnage that ensues. The guide becoming loose may be easier to swallow although I have infrequently had guides loosen up and when they did they didn't make noise. The idea of a dead lash adjuster is easier to accept except if that were the case I would think Ford would just replace the lash adjuster(s) rather than a whole head.
Bottom line is I honestly don't know what the tick is and for that matter all the stuff in the preceding paragraph(s) could easily just be so much smoke.
So that a properly fitted iron guide might actually be a superior choice for our street driven engines? Is it only the ease of honing a bronze guide to the perfect clearance that makes it the "better choice" as determined by generations of race engine builders?
There is a real precision associated with a properly installed and fitted bronze valve guide. The precise alignment of the valve and seat contributes to both a long lasting valve job and a excellent seal at the valve. That said a comparably well fit cast iron guide should do the same. Maybe because of availability or maybe because of the semi finished bore the shop could fit to the valve stem, bronze guides have long been the darlings of performance builds.
There is a small but significant group of users/builders that are beginning to rethink the role of cast iron guides. Some of them are falling down on the cast iron side of the argument and saying the cast iron guide is the better choice. Only time will tell which is better and where it is better. I don't have a hard bottom line right now. My personal street engine is cast iron guides. Every pure race head I own uses bronze guides. The new found love affair with cast iron is interesting at the very least.
Whether you ream or hone the guide, the time required to do cast iron or bronze guides is basically a wash. The tooling required is a micrometer to confirm the guide diameter, a reamer of the correct target diameter or a valve guide hone of the right diameter and a valve guide / seat machine like a Winona or a similar newer machine.
Here's a couple pics of what the deck of my block looks like along with the cylinder walls. This happened from the previous owner not oiling it well enough while he was storing it.
Ed let me ask you this, what windage tray should I be using. I have the canton tray and I have the stock 3v Windage tray that came with my aluminator shortblock. Won't this dictate what mainstuds I will use?
The three valve tray is quite nice, Grant. It requires only a single oil pan gasket as opposed to the Canton tray which requires two gaskets. Both work very well. If you use the 3V tray you will have to get a set of 3V main studs to mount the tray to.
There is yet one more alternative you ought to consider. You can use a pan gasket for a GT500. GT500 pan gaskets are both a pan gasket and a windage tray all molded into one piece. The GT500 approach avoids the expense of buying new main studs, uses a single pan gasket, so leaks are minimized, and is an OEM part available thorough any dealer and potentially aftermarket gasket manufacturers.
Irregardless I will be running ARP mainstuds. So in the instance I run my canton windage tray which mainstuds will I need? Before that I need to varify if my canton tray can be used with my block. If I remember correctly I ordered it when I had planned on reusing my 03/04 iron block so I'm not sure if it's compatible with my aluminator.
On the flip side if I decide to run the gt500 pan/gasket will that yeild a different choice for ARP mainstuds?
Irregardless I will be running ARP mainstuds. So in the instance I run my canton windage tray which mainstuds will I need? Before that I need to varify if my canton tray can be used with my block. If I remember correctly I ordered it when I had planned on reusing my 03/04 iron block so I'm not sure if it's compatible with my aluminator.
On the flip side if I decide to run the gt500 pan/gasket will that yeild a different choice for ARP mainstuds?
Both the Canton and GT500 solutions will work with any main studs so whatever you already have from ARP is good to go. The Canton solution will cause you to buy two oil pan gaskets. The GT500 solution is a single gasket that is both gasket and windage tray. The short way home is the GT500 gasket/windage tray.
All blocks aluminum or iron use the same gasket, Grant. The first change in gasket came with the Coyote engine block derivative. Coyote pan gaskets are slightly longer in the front to accommodate the TiVCT hardware and will not fit our engines.
I don't have mainstuds yet. Do they make our mains in arp 2000?
Also hypothetically speaking if I were to run the gt500 pan and I needed to change the basket does that mean I have to get a whole new pan since the gasket is incorporated in it hence the all in one design? Or do they make replacement gaskets?
As stated I already have the canton pan and Windage tray along with the 3v tray off the shortblock. At this point in time unless there's some extreme reason why I should ditch the canton stuff and get the gt500 stuff I might as well just use it!
For the complete motor.....where should I be sourcing my gaskets? Should I get Felpro? Or all oem stuff? If oem is the answer where is the best priced place to get it.
ARP does not, although they should. The more guys who call ARP asking for 2000 steel main studs the more likely they are to make them. The 8740 studs just barely get the job done. 2000 steel would be a much better choice. Call and ask for it. They don't have it, you won't get it but they will get the message about people wanting it.
Also hypothetically speaking if I were to run the gt500 pan and I needed to change the basket does that mean I have to get a whole new pan since the gasket is incorporated in it hence the all in one design? Or do they make replacement gaskets?
Oil pans and gaskets are different items. Each time you change a pan gasket you do not have to get a new pan. The oil pan is not incorporated into the gasket. The windage tray is incorporated into the GT500 pan gasket.
As stated I already have the canton pan and Windage tray along with the 3v tray off the shortblock. At this point in time unless there's some extreme reason why I should ditch the canton stuff and get the gt500 stuff I might as well just use it!
If you use the canton tray you will have to buy a second oil pan gasket. Oil pans with two gaskets do not seal as well as oil pans with one gasket. The two gaskets required for the Canton deal cost more than one GT500 gasket.
For the complete motor.....where should I be sourcing my gaskets? Should I get Felpro? Or all oem stuff? If oem is the answer where is the best priced place to get it.
Make sure you powdercoat the oil pan because Mofasta hates gold oil pans-i didnt hear the end of it until i powdercoated it. I have the same pan and it holds 9-10 qts with the oil filter relocation assembly-that is a good thing
Im running the Canton windage tray but the motor has about 10 mins of run time on it so i cant tell about any leaks yet. Mofasta prefers either hot pink or a mixture of red and brown-lol
I did. That was a shame. The good news is the cleanup will be relatively small but probably require new pistons. My guess, and it is only a guess, is that a 0.002" overbore ought to do the trick. If you have badly rusted locations inside the bores you might have to shoot for 0.003 or more for clean up.
I would try a 0.001 increase in size and see what the bores look like. If they clean up at 0.001" then order the pistons 0.002" oversize and finish fit each one to its own cylinder bore.
Hey Ed where's the best place to get the gt500 Windage tray from? Tousley ford? It's just the Windage tray I need because I'm going to run the canton pan.
I would use Steve @ Tasca Ford. Steve used to be at Tousley but moved to Tasca. He prices at cost +10% for ModFords guys. His 800 number is (800) 598-1484.
I'll give him a shout next week. Working on getting the rear end setup in the car tonight very excited for it. It's been almost a year since she's been on her legs. I see progress!
Im getting ready to order some ARP hardware and a gt500 windage tray. I want to confirm that the ARP156-5802 main studs will work with my 3v block, gt500 tray, and canton pan.
Also does anyone have a PN for the gt500 windage tray?
As far as side bolts are concerned I will use ARP as well.
Im getting ready to order some ARP hardware and a gt500 windage tray. I want to confirm that the ARP156-5802 main studs will work with my 3v block, gt500 tray, and canton pan.
Also does anyone have a PN for the gt500 windage tray?
As far as side bolts are concerned I will use ARP as well.
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