[Michael C Henry]

All these engine combination started with the original 1958 full sized Fairlanes 332 cuin . That didn't last long and that 4' bore was stroked to 3.5 "= 352 cuin. Then in 1960 they bored it .050"over=4.050" and stroked it to 3.78"= 390 cuin. 1962 they bored it out another .075" making it 4.125" and called it a 406 cuin. 1963 they came up witha larger bore 4.230" to make 427 cuin. That became the Fords high performance motor. They made a nother csat ing for this larger bore where cylinder wall thichness had to be critical and the four bolt mains. They later drew on this lineof castings to get other four bolt engine castings like the 428 Super Cobra Jet four bolt main blocks. In 1966 they made a slightly lower performance option by taking the 406s - 4.125 bore and stroking it to 3.98" =428 cuin. (mostly for hualing full bodied cars and trucks around.) The problem is that before the 428 a lot of the outside stuff interchanged. Now comes the 428 It takes a 428 off set weighted flywheels (stick or auto matic) and harmonic balancers to externally balance the engine rotating assembly So the rotating assembly of a 428 is different from the rest of the FEs. the longer stroke gets leverage (torque )at the expense of RPM. There is a indefinet limit in feet per second that the pistons and rods will travel (back and forth)
Heads and manifolds are interchangeable except the realy large intake valved 427 heads valves may hit the block deck ouside the bore on a 428. The 427 head and intake manifold choices are low riser , medium riser , high riser, and tunnelport . These were the high performance options from Ford for the 427s . There is also a SOCH or Cammer which was a whole bunch od mods to a block with heads, intake ,timing cover ,and so on but that is a real stretch. The SOCH has a single overhead cam on each head. No pushrods and wide open intake runners Oh! Hemispherical combustion chambers. It came about as an all out against Dodge for NASCAR. But cars were starting to fly and NASCAR said whoo boys we are going way too fast ans out lawed the SOCHs and put rstrictions on everything else. The SOCH's potentials were never fully developed. When talking 427 FE stuff Low riser, medium riser,and high riser are atlking about the location of the intake port in the head to intake manifold mating surface. The carb arrangements are another subject. Low Riser were the earlier heads folowing the FE lines development Low riser ports are large rectangular ports low in the head as the earlier FE engines. Then they made the High riser s. Its ports are tall and narrow ports making for a uniquely tall intake gasket and mating surface. It was attept to get more flow and some bottom end torque. Later they came up with the Medium riser which was an all around performance setup. Its ports are slightly smaller rectangles raised slightly from the low rise position in the head to intake manifold mating surfaces Then they came with THE SOCH or CAMMER but it was outlawed so they took the large round ports of the cammer and ran the pushrods through the ports inside tubes and called it a Tunnel Port. These ports were routed the straight way carb to valve. They have large round intake runners but have tube in the passages with the push rods inside. They still flow like crazy. Then for the low riser head guys they came up with a compromise manifold. It looks a lot like the tunnel port manifold but has the runners routed to the original low riser locations and around the push rods. Dove and Blue Thunder have created manifolds for every design combination Low riser ,Canadian Super Cobra Jet, Medium riser, High Riser ,and Tunnel Port . Raised runners or not single 4 dual 4s ,3 x 2s, webbers ,suprer charger, etc. Heck they still make everything to make a SOCH.
The 428s best head option were the (good)Cobra Jet , (bet6ter) Super Cobra Jet ,and the (best) Canadian Super Cobra Jet. The Super Cobra Jet heads were basically low riser versions. The Canadian Super Cobra Jet were A head sthat Ford supplied to its factory sponsered drag cars. They had the ports that were raised in the head to straighten out the air flow a little. They were a secret for a while. The Factory cars wer just a little bit stronger than the privatiers.
Each Head series has intake manifolds that can be used with .Some involve modification. All heads and manifolds come with certain original demensions . If the heads were shaved that would require the manifold to be milled also. which kind of made them a set. If you changed or replaced either some changes would be nessecary. But who ever left things like they came out of the box? Original heads and intakes were supposed to fit together out of the box . If you were using an block with an original deck height pretty much everything was supposed to be a drop on deal.
The low riser heads with not so large valves can fit a 428. The medium riser heads are an all around head good at everyrpm range. The high riser and tunnel port are even higer performance with low end tradeoffs. The tunnel port has large round intake runners that were aranged for flow . Their runner placement required the pushrods (which had to stay in their original position) running through the passage inside a tube inside the runner passage.
Most of the exotic 427 stuff is above the rpm and flow ranges of a 428. I learned years ago that it was important to consider the performance ranges desired and put togethr parts as a system that will all worked in that range. Other wise you will never realalize the performance potential of the parts.
What is it in particular you are thinking about?