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Originally Posted by Excaliber

Thanks for that link Doug. From that thread Tom Kirkham says:



I would consider Tom, certainly Nedsel, authorities on the question of which and how many Cobras came with top oilers. It is difficult to nail down the numbers, but one could be lead to believe it is more than 8 or 9. A number which has been stated on different forums for many years.

While the side oiler offers superior main bearing oiling Keith Craft himself has noted the potential failure for the top oiler block to crack at high rpm. Not all top oilers had the cross bolted mains. I'd bet most of them do not in fact. Granted 9000 rpm for a side oiler is lofty rpm indeed and subject to immediate failure at that rpm. The SOHC engine was capable of such rpm in drag racing, but certainly NOT a sustained rpm number!

The only non-crossbolted 427s I've seen was a couple odd ball irrigation motors that surfaced a few years ago over on fordFE.com. Has anyone else seen a non-crossbolted 427 FE??