WhitsEnd Transformation

[DuckRyder]

This is shaping up nicely...

Interested to hear how the Sniper works...

[Manny]

Man thats going to be a fantastic fe roller cam too.... Man just need roller rockers for the whole deal. But those can be added later of course looks fantastic.

[WhitsEnd]

Man thats going to be a fantastic fe roller cam too.... Man just need roller rockers for the whole deal. But those can be added later of course looks fantastic.

This cam is very mild with only 1/2" lift at the valve. Stock rockers get overlooked, but are very good when new. I have rockers from Precision Oil Pumps on my 428 and they are very nice. However, that cam is a healthy solid with .620" lift and the bottom end of that motor is built much looser with more restriction to the top end.

Many of the roller rockers out there are real junk, in my opinion. There are only about three that I would put in my motors, and they're about twice the price of the crap you see advertised.

[WhitsEnd]

I started looking the heads over one last time while they were on the bench and noticed one had the sharp edges within the chambers deburred and the other did not.
Had to get the cartridge roll out and clean them up.

Here's a picture of the sharp edges around the spark plug hole from within the chamber. May have never been a problem, but this motor is 10.5 compression and I'd like to take advantage of all the power I can get with a timing curve that doesn't detonate.

[WhitsEnd]

Before measuring for final pushrod length, I removed an outer spring so I could actuate the rocker through the 1/2" travel of lift and get a good trace on the valve tip. I happen to have a valve spring tool for FE rockers. A simple dry erase marker works good for marking the valve tip.



Initially, the rocker's initial contact point was very close to the inner edge and only traced a little beyond center. After adding a 0.060" shim under each shaft pedestal, it looked a lot better. Not quite centered, but if I ever increase the lift with a different cam, it would be. With these light spring pressures, I'm good with it. This picture shows the initial contact point now, with valves closed.

[WhitsEnd]

Heads bolts arrived, so heads were cleaned one last time and bolted down with 1020 gaskets. I never thought I'd use the whole jar of ARP assembly lube I bought years ago, buts it's starting to run low...

Oh, the timing chain arrived in that package as well. Fits nice and snug. New seal in the front cover and a new dampener spacer as well. An old spacer will almost always have a groove worn in it.

Bolted on the water pump and the dampener while I was at it. One note on Professional Products dampeners: This is the second one I've used in ten years and the second one that arrived with the pulley bolts loose. Unfortunately, I didn't find that out on the first one until one day I shut off my Cyclone and it sounded like a gunshot and then a bell ring. It was one of the bolts that had come out. This one got a three groove pulley, so all the bolts came out anyway...and went back in with Loctite 242.

Paint was falling off the pointer that came with the dampener, so I prepped and painted it solver to contrast with the dampener and added red to the pointer.

Morel 5325 hydraulic roller lifters were oiled and dropped in per Morel's instructions. They appear to be very nice components.

Next up will be to measure the custom pushrods.

[hfdco4]

Nice attention to detail Whits! For my motor I switched to Ford Adjustable rockers and did the setup like you did. Came out well, but I am also using a smallish lift cam as this is a 4x4 not a race truck.

[Manny]

Nice attention to detail Whits! For my motor I switched to Ford Adjustable rockers and did the setup like you did. Came out well, but I am also using a smallish lift cam as this is a 4x4 not a race truck.

100% agree nice to see proper details checked and monitored while building an engine!! Looks good makes me want to tear into my 429....

[WhitsEnd]

Pushrod checking tool arrived. I've always run solids, so never needed one of these. I got this Comp Cams unit from Summit. Comp offers various length ranges. This one measures 7.80" totally closed and .050" longer for each revolution it's opened up.

[WhitsEnd]

So, I got busy measuring pushrod length. I put the crank on TDC for #1 firing (putting both lifters on the base circle of the lobes) and measured both for that cylinder. I recorded the number of turns on the checker to get to zero lash and moved on.

Then, I rotated the crank 90 degrees and measured the next cylinder in the firing order, and so on.

After all 16 were measured, I converted the turns to dimensions and added that to the base length of the checker.



I'm hoping a total variation of .065" can be covered with a single pushrod length with stock valve springs. Should have that answer soon.

[WhitsEnd]

Well, a single length pushrod isn't going to work. Well, it might, but the option I'm going with eliminates the need to do so: custom, individual length pushrods.

Blair Patrick (FE God) suggested the idea and mentioned Smith Bothers will even laser etch the size directly on the pushrod. That will take any additional futzing out of the picture. All I'll need to do is bolt them in and "fahget abaht it".

So, a deeper review of the spreadsheet is next, to find out how many different actual lengths I need to order.

[WhitsEnd]

The #2 measurements drew focus to the possibility that the rocker shaft pedestals may be contributing to the variation. I measured the pedestals, from the base to the bottom of the shafts and found the #2 pedestal was indeed lower than the others and quite an outlier.

Overlaying the pedestal dimensions on top of the pushrod measurements within the appropriate range shows a very strong relationship.



So, at this point I'm going to shim that pedestal and see what I get. Maybe focus on getting all the pedestals exactly the same (which you would think new pedestals would be anyway). #6 exhaust was measured a second time and the number was verified. Looks like that one needs to be swapped around.

All of this for the sake of being too cheap to buy adjustable rockers.

[DuckRyder]

This is good stuff.

Impressive attention to detail!.

[WhitsEnd]

ANOTHER CHANGE OF PLANS!!!

Lykins Motorsports offered to take the rocker setup back, considering I was not happy with the variance. Since they are essentially untouched, I wrapped them back up and will be sending them back.

I measured an old set of stands that I have (original to my '66 Cyclone) and they are nearly identical across the board. Five of them came in at .995 height, two at .996 and one at .992. I scuffed the two taller ones with a flat file and they came right in at .995 (likely a small edge burr). I'll just swap out the slightly shorter one for another from the pile so all 8 stands will be exactly .995".



Since I'm sending back the complete rocker assemblies, I'm going to use my old set of adjustable rockers. These will require new shafts to tighten up the oil tolerances as well as an upgrade to modern adjusters and locks. Bores on these rockers measure .843" on almost all, so that's fine for new shafts at .840"

The swap to adjustables will make the pushrod selection easier and the installation and operation less frustrating. Once the lash is taken up, a single turn of the adjuster will preload the hydraulic lifters the desired .050" (20 threads per inch). It should be a set it and forget it deal from there.

I ordered new adjusters and locks from Smith Brothers Pushrods and new CrMo heavy duty shafts from Precision Oil Pumps. These shafts have a smaller oiling hole down the middle, leaving a thicker wall for strength. In addition, the ends have threaded plugs instead of pressed plugs and a C clip instead of a cotter pin. These are the same shafts I have in my 428 and are very nice. These shafts will make me feel better about not having end support stands as well and will be able to transition into a higher spring pressure build in the future, when my daughter is done with the truck as a daily driver.

[WhitsEnd]

This simple engine build has been a series of fumbles.

The rocker adjusters that I needed by Friday got delivered...to Tacoma, WA. For the record, I don't live in Tacoma, I live in Richmond, VA.

I decided to salvage the weekend by bolting up the transmission to the motor and get them between the frame rails. With the front clip off, I thought the valve train could be finished just as easily in the frame as on the engine stand. Then I realized the bolts from the flywheel are too long for a flexplate

With the motor staying on the stand for a few more days, I decided to clean a few things up and bolt on a few doo dads. I may regret this later, but I bolted down the intake. I can still take accurate pushrod measurements once the new rockers are installed, so why not?

With the intake on, it allowed me to add the water pump bypass, thermostat and housing, carburetor and distributor. I threw new gaskets in the float bowls for good measure. Since I'm running a billet roller cam, I had ordered a steel gear for the distributor and I swapped it with the iron gear that it cam with.

I had ordered a passenger car oil filter adapter because the thought of changing the oil with a horizontal filter does not excite me. That came in on Friday, so that got mounted, along with a new filter with a quart of 10W-40 in it. While I was in the area, I mounted the new Carter fuel pump. Since I had the oil out, another 5 quarts went in.

The starter is in good shape, but the tired 360 was leaking all over it. I cleaned it up and threw a little paint on it.

As soon as the flexplate bolts arrive, I'll be mating the tranny to the motor and introducing them to their new home. I'll post some more pictures with that update.