Eldebrock Heads

[flipscobra]

has anyone had trouble with the helicoils pulling out, mine did I had to have an insert put in it, it pulled out of the stand on number 1 cyclinder, an it hell getting head off in the car when it has studs.

[FWB]

Originally Posted by flipscobra

has anyone had trouble with the helicoils pulling out, mine did I had to have an insert put in it, it pulled out of the stand on number 1 cyclinder, an it hell getting head off in the car when it has studs.

yes and yes, also the intake threads. pull the heads and put inserts in all the threads. don't trust the edeldork locations either mine were off up to .025.
i had to skim the heads on the intake surface also to get them square to the dowel holes. what a pain, next set of heads will be blue thunder or pond.
our machine shop can fix them up for you if you don't have anyone to do it.


fred


info@origincorp.net

[lovehamr]

One of my VC holes wasn't even drilled. Then I had a stainless bolt gall while test fitting the bolt with my fingers, wound up breaking it off and having to drill it.

Steve

[FWB]

broken.......oh hi there breasts...........oh yeah the post....

now i forgot what i was going to say......hehehe

[flipscobra]

I called Eldebroke an they acted like it never happens to there heads. I have it fixed already thanks, will buy Blue Thunder or something else if I have anymore trouble, I knew I was not the only one with this problem.

[FWB]

yep, sounds like them, when i told them i had a problem, their heads were out of square i was told thats impossible because we are edelbrock. i knew then i was done. they can suck on the gas pipe....
now the blue thunder manifold i bought is flawless....i will buy their products without thinking twice.

[RodgerH]

Something to remember is the flange on an aluminum intake is thicker than a stock cast iron manifold, and the threaded holes in the Edelbrock heads are deeper than stock cast iron heads. If you use a standard intake manifold bolt kit, such as from ARP, they are intended for the stock installtion. You will have minimal thread engagement into the heads. In other words, the bolts are too short.

With the manifold installed, measure the depth of the hole to the bottom of the threads. Then buy 3/8-16 bolts that are the correct length. I had to buy some that were too long and cut them to the proper length to get full thread engagement. Be extremely careful to not make the bolts too long and bottom out the bolts.

Some builders use studs (screwed into the heads after the intake is set in place) and nuts to make sure all available threads in the head are used.

Rodger

[dcdoug]

Funny that you mostly hear positive things about Edelbrock on this forum and that they are nearly as good as Blue Thunder, just cost more, etc.

[FWB]

roger, the blue thunder intake is cast just as the factory ford. i am currently using factory ford intake bolts. this gives over .750 of thread engagement. according to my calibrated 3/8-16 2B thread gauge that we use in manufacturing at my facility, the edelbrock intake threads were non-conforming and the no-go gauge screwed all the way in on more than 3 places. this would fail quality control at my shop. but in mexico maybe not....

note the blue thunder head has thread inserts already installed in the intake holes

[undy]

Originally Posted by FWB

yep, sounds like them, when i told them i had a problem, their heads were out of square i was told thats impossible because we are edelbrock. i knew then i was done. they can suck on the gas pipe....
now the blue thunder manifold i bought is flawless....i will buy their products without thinking twice.

Don't be too sure on the Blue Blunder stuff. I got one of their 427 MR 1x4 manifolds (brand new) and the dizzy hole was drilled 1/4" out, not 0.050" but 0.250"! Art was a real A-Hole about it and did the same as Ebok, swore it wasn't his manifold 'cause Blue Blunder stuff is never F'd up... I would have to say, for the FE stuff, Ebok is the BEST bet (generally).

[FWB]

Undy,
honestly that is the first time i ever heard of a blue thunder manifold problem.
where did you buy it? if from a dealer i can't imagine they didn't stand behind it. with my edeldork debacle the dealer i bought from did step up to the plate and paid for the repair and offered to replace at no charge. i opted for the repair, as i was the one doing it and felt more in control.

[undy]

Originally Posted by FWB

Undy,
honestly that is the first time i ever heard of a blue thunder manifold problem.
where did you buy it? if from a dealer i can't imagine they didn't stand behind it. with my edeldork debacle the dealer i bought from did step up to the plate and paid for the repair and offered to replace at no charge. i opted for the repair, as i was the one doing it and felt more in control.

At the time there were quite a few instances of Blue Thunder quality problems. I bought it from Dennis Carrico w/ DSC. He was a bigger jerk than Art was. Nobody wanted to back squat and I ended up paying to have it fixed myself. I talked about it over on FordFE and was thrown under the bus several times by board member. The whole mess almost soured me for good on FEs.

[FWB]

i never had the pleasure or lack of, dealing with dsc, their proximity to me wasn't good for shipping stuff. sometimes the posting at the FE forum can be less than open minded.(and i'm trying to be nice) . i would imagine any manufacturer has had their fair share of quality problems, its the repeated ones and the failure to make good on them separates the good from the bad.
i must say a distributor hole that far off would get my panties in a real bunch.
i'm a get it done kinda guy and if i was close to a dealer that did that to me i might show an all new mounting method for a FE manifold.

[PANAVIA]

Other than having to play shimmy shimmy cocopuff with my roller rockers and shafts as edelstock moved their valve locations without any documentation stating so, I have no complaints .

[Keithc8]

I have had very few problems with the edelbrock heads but you will see problems with any of this stuff. I have done about 200 set of Edelbrock heads for engine builds and out the door and have not heard about this but maybe a couple of times. We have not had this problem on any we have built in house.
I can tell you that if you buy enough of this stuff whether it is from Edelbrock or Blue Thunder you will have problems. This is the great thing about engine building and using new parts as well as using used parts. Have to deal with it every day.

Good luck, Keith Craft