Ford Racing 427W ate cam gear

[Luce]

Wow. We must have gotten some early ones with bad cams. I would rather pay the $700 this is costing me and change it myself than pull the engine out of this thing and shipping it. That would entail separating the engine and transmission in my case with the equipment I have. As it is, the worst part for me is pulling the condenser and radiator. The intake and oil pan are easy to get to.

[vector1]

what weight oil you guys using in these engines?

[Luce]

10W40...per instructions. Castrol GTX for break in. I had Moble1 ready to change this week before Texas Cobra Spring meet.

[Texasdoc]

Are you using a high volume oil pump or standard?

[Jaydee]

I have just installed a new crane, roller cam. And now you guys have me worried about the dizzy gear. It's a 302 Windsor. I used the old shaft on a drill to prime the oil system, and I was suprised how much torque was used to spin the oil pump. Even at a very low rpm the oil pressure was 60 psi.
I assume, once the oil warms up, it wouldn't drag as much?
So should my new dizzy gear be shiny?
JD

[dallas_]

Originally Posted by Texasdoc

Are you using a high volume oil pump or standard?

Those come with high volume oil pumps.

[dallas_]

Originally Posted by Luce

Wow. We must have gotten some early ones with bad cams. I would rather pay the $700 this is costing me and change it myself than pull the engine out of this thing and shipping it. That would entail separating the engine and transmission in my case with the equipment I have. As it is, the worst part for me is pulling the condenser and radiator. The intake and oil pan are easy to get to.

Yeah, it was the 2nd time I had to pull the motor, crate it and ship it back to Ford. Somewhat of a pita for sure.

Tilt front sure made it easier though.



Takes about 5 minutes to pull the whole front clip off.

[vector1]

one of my cars has the 351 fms engine that came with a high volume oil pump, no problems, yet.

[carmine]

Dallas

Was that a bronze gear that they told you to install in your ford racing 427w or was it a steel or cast iron gear?

Does the engine have hydraulic roller lifters?

[dallas_]

Originally Posted by carmine

Dallas

Was that a bronze gear that they told you to install in your ford racing 427w or was it a steel or cast iron gear?

Does the engine have hydraulic roller lifters?

Steel gear, hydraulic roller.

The distributor gear looked good, no wear.
(But it did have some small scars from the cam gear comming apart.)

[Luce]

I love the flip lid option. I can see that this is going to be a bit of a pain with the small hood opening.

I think it has a high volume. I'm going back with a high volume.

Same for my dizzy gear. There's a few marks from the cam gear coming apart, but the bulk of the metal is still there. The cam gear is another story. There is considerable metal missing. If you know what you're looking at in the pic, you can see that 1/2 of the width of the teeth eroded away before the tips started chipping off and the timing started jumping around, then it actually skipped a toothed every second revolution.

[madmaxx]

How in the f&Ck, after 100 years of building engines can it be possilbe to have a mismatch between the distributor gear and cam gear. Zero excuses. There is very little to zero compentcy left in the "aftermarket" engine building realm. The one who know what they are doing - KC, Blykins, deliver detail build manuals with all parts and clearnaces spelled out for your particular engine. What do the big boys give you - not a f8cking thing. Avoid them like the plague.

[Luce]

I have to agree with you on that.

I thought when I plunked my chunk of cash down on a Fordracing (you know, with the name in front I thought was behind it) I thought I was side stepping all of the problems with the bottom dollar is all that matters engine builders. All I wanted was a rock solid long block that I could put the induction and EFi system I wanted on. I was sorely disappointing with the documentation I was provided.

The pain about a kit car is the engine is usually well out of warranty before it is ever fired over. But you have to have the engine to fab all of the other stuff. Maybe the thing is to buy a dead boat anchor and build the car around it, then put the big dollar engine in so you can get 10-20K miles before the warranty expires.

I'm not dwelling on it. Soon, I'll have my parts to replace the cam and get it back together. Everything else looks great. It'll scream like a charred a$$ ape when I'm done and life will be good again. Then I can get to my other 2 projects... A new Hemi and trans in my 82 Dodge350 crew cab and 3L turbo charged duratec in the '78 Kelmark Ferrari Dino lookalike.

[Tom Wells]

Luce,

This story is at least eleven years old: Tom challenges the Butcher! Dist gear failure report...

Bottom line: bad gear and/or placement from Ford on a crate motor. Tom == out $2200, Ford == bad, bad, bad...

Sorry this is still happening. Maybe Ford doesn't know how to build a performance engine?

This engine BTW just turned 30,000 miles, some of it very hard miles on the track at Sebring etc. It was completely rebuilt by an independent builder.

I wouldn't trust a Ford crate motor any farther than I could throw it one-handed.

All the subsequent engines I use have been built by independent guys who seem to be interested in doing a good job, like most of the engine guys on this web site.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Sounds as if you have the correct attitude - fix the problem and get on with having fun in life; try not to make the same mistake again!

Tom

[GBowman]

Ford doesn't even build the crate motors FYI...I had issues with my solid roller last year, they made it right...BUT, that's why Blykins is building my new engine

[Luce]

I'm not even bringing this to them. I would rather fix it right myself.

The rest looks great. I'll know better tomorrow night after the full tear down and start of the put back. I don't have the gaskets, but I have the cam, so I'll get that replaced and lifters back in the holes. Also still waiting on the timing chain, so I can't yet degree the cam and check valve clearances.

It'll run great when I'm done.

[madmaxx]

Do yourself a favor call blykins maybe want to change cam profile and make sure you use a billet cam not Sadi cast.

[blykins]

Originally Posted by Luce

I'm not even bringing this to them. I would rather fix it right myself.

The rest looks great. I'll know better tomorrow night after the full tear down and start of the put back. I don't have the gaskets, but I have the cam, so I'll get that replaced and lifters back in the holes. Also still waiting on the timing chain, so I can't yet degree the cam and check valve clearances.

It'll run great when I'm done.

I sent your stuff via USPS Express, so hopefully you'll have them today. I know you wanted to get most of this done this weekend.

As for the cam Madmaxx, I supplied the cam and it is a billet core with an altered LSA.

[Wbulk]

I am sorry I came late to this thread but I wanted to add a few things that may have not been covered. The clearance between the gear bottom and the block is a min. .005. This is supposed to be checked with no cam gear or cam in place. You hold down on the housing and reach inside and lift up on the gear. I just bought a spare roller engine and tore it apart and decided to check the clearance. Someone had put in a non-roller dist. with the wrong cast gear that was wearing. But the clearance was correct.

There is a lot of focus on the gear material but there are additional causes even with the correct gear. The correct clearance is to allow the gear to come down to ride on the block for proper mesh with the cam. After-market distributors may not be drilled and pinned in the right location to allow this, and may require re-drilling. Another issue is computer distributors often have a longer shaft that engages with the oil pump rod. Sometimes they bottom out against each other, not allowing the distributor to come down to it's proper location.

Another big issue now days is the High Volume pumps used in the SB. Comp Cams has warned about this and I seem to remember one of the cam companies refusing to warranty cams when a HV pump is used. We have all seen SB pump rods twisting off for various reasons. So a lot of guys put on the ARP better pump rod, which is a good idea. But consider, with a HV pump if you have stock oil clearances that pump is going to put a greater strain on that distributor gear and reasonably cause greater wear. I just don't put in the HV pumps in the SB for that reason. It's not worth ruining the engine for.

[blykins]

I think the hv pump deal is just an excuse from manufacturers. I use hv pumps in everything and have never had a gear failure or a shaft failure. The only issue I've ever had with a gear is when I made an assumption and used a customer-supplied distributor with a bronze gear, without checking the gear install dimension.