Ford Racing 460 ''Cobra Jet'' - 535 HP Crate Engine

[agro1]

I am considering this motor for a Superformance application but am worried that it isn't a good motor. I would only be using the car for the track, maybe once a month. It seems to be the best "bang for the buck", but some of the custom motors I have been looking at are 3 times the price (the crate motor is $5500). I understand that custom built motors exactly that - custom - using higher quality internal componets and higher attention to detail during construction.
BUT IS THAT REALLY WORTH AN EXTRA 10 GRAND ?!?!?
I guess my question is this, will the crate motor be suffecient for a weekend warrior, and hold up under hard driving ??
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Back in Black]

Take yer pick:

Good news: Price is great, and the new 460 and 514 (600 horse, my choice for my new turnkey) have the Eagle forged rods, ARP bolts, aluminum cobrajet heads, etc.....

Bad news: They are externally balanced. To my knowledge, they are not blueprinted per se (someone correct me if I am wrong) But you can have yours disassembled, inspected, balanced if you wish, before install (I did not)

For the money, and to get my cobra on the road asap, I chose the bargain SVO 514. Spiced it up with Holley EFI (currently being installed ) Lots of guys seem very happy with their 460/514 SVO. I figure if it lasts only 20K, I will then get an aftermarket monster motor for it, and most of my money was well spent. If it holds up, and no problems, I got a real deal

[cobrashoch]

Agro1- I have seen seen both good and bad with these crate motors. My only real problem with them is Ford does not live up to the warranty like they should. In your case a solution may be to have a authorized Ford dealer install the 460 in the shell that Superformance supplys. That way the dealer has to live with the motor. I think the Cincy Superformance folks also had a solution to the warrarty problem the last time I talked to them about a year ago. If your thinking about a Superformance w/crate engine there is a very good history using this combo.
cobrashoch

[Mr.Fixit]

My experience with ford crate motors is on par with cobrashoch. I had one customer (with a ford crate motor) tow his car into the shop. The distributer gear went away on it. Ford put a cast iron gear in it with a roller cam. It was also getting a tiny amount of coolant in every cylinder. The motor was shipped back to the ford facility at customer's expense, and returned with a new dist gear only. $600 worth of shipping for a $5 part replacement. The customer also had to pay my shop to troubleshoot, remove, crate up, ship, and reinstall the motor. The coolant issue was written in magic marker on the valve cover, and was still there when it came back from ford, and so was the problem. Customer was very disappointed with the motor and the warrantee service from ford.