406 Ford

[Harris]

Does anyone remember the old 406 Ford that was available in the early 60s (Galaxies etc). Would this be a good competitive engine choice for my Cobra. Was it a small block or an FE type? A buddy had a red 62-63 Galaxie with the 406 motor with solid lifters and a four speed. I remember the car well. GREAT sound at idle. The rear end must have been about a 2:75 to 1-you could drive @ 65 in third gear and the tach would show 2100 RPM.
I think it had a 3x2 manifold. Don't remember seeing more than 2 or 3 of these cars.. Haven't the vaguest idea of where you would find one.

[Ron61]

Harris,

The 406 was made in 1962 and 1963 and it came with the three two setup. I have known some that really ran . A friend of mine had a 1963 Galaxie with one and he got beat regulary at the drags by the 390 HIPO cars. But another guy had one and he did some work on it and it ran great. And it is an FE block. Actually a 390 punched out. And they do make good motors for Cobras. Bill Emerson has one setting in his shop now at Emerson Motorsports. You might contact him and talk to him about it as I think it is for sale. Like all motors, some were great and others weren't.
Not being a drag racer I am not sure that my friends problems weren't as much his driving as the car and motor.

[Dan Stryffeler]

Send an email to wadesdad...

wadesdad@hotmail.com

He has one in his A&C Cobra. I think it is basically a 351 Cleveland with taller heads. I know he has been having problems with his pushrods.

- Dan

[Blue66]

406 is a FE motor....


Dan

[dkjos]

Since you have a slabside replica, the 406 may not fit in the engine compartment very easily, either in width or height. Even going to a 351W will require at least an exhaust system change since it is both wider and taller than the 289/302.

[Dan Stryffeler]

Whoops, sorry... about the bad info, i.e. 'Cleveland'

Wadesdad (Steve) does have the 406 and is bending pushrods... the lastest info is he mave have too much cam, or cheap pushrods, or needs adjustable rockers - or - all of the above.

- Dan

[tj61]

The 406 was Ford?s answer to the #evy 409. It has a thicker cylinder wall and a 4.13 bore. It is similar to the 390HP block with thicker main bearing webs and horizontal support ribs and has the same crank dimensions as the 390, but was NOT just punched out, it was cast with the intended displacement of 406. The early blocks did not have the cross bolt mains until mid 1962. This was in response to racers having problems with crankshaft ?walk? at sustained rpm?s. The 406 eventually evolved into the 427. None of the 406?s were side oilers, although many have the cross bolt mains. They were considered a very well made engine and if properly assembled should last as long as any FE. I think they were only offered from 1962 to 1963, but I am uncertain. The 406 is considered ?rare? as FE?s go but occasionally one turns up. Make sure you don?t confuse the FE 406 with the Mercury 410 or some sort of stroked small block! Check on the FE forum archives for better and more detailed info. That forum is outstanding and has the real experts on it. It is not interchangeable with the Windsor, Y-blocks, Clevelands, or the 385 series (the 429, 460 engines).

www.fordfe.com

Tom Johnson
Tj61@juno.com

[Jack21]

Ditto the above. The Ford 406 was an FE motor produced in the '62 - '63 timeframe to compete with Chevy 409's of the time. The Chevy 409 was an oddball truck motor, punched out from a 348, and stuffed into a 4000 pound passenger car.

The Ford smallblock had just hatched as a 221, then a 260 for econobox use. These were the dog days for Ford as the Hi Po Chevy's (even Pontiacs) were kicking everybody's ass. 351 Clevelands weren't even a "wet spot" on the drawing boards yet. And 351 Windsors would have to wait 30 years for the aftermarket to provide the "Good Stuff" to resurrect them from " Truck motor & Boat Anchor" status.

Just grousing. The valve train on the FE was a carry over from the 272-292-312 of ''54 -'57" timeframe. Edelbrock, among others could have converted these heads to 1) stud mounted rocker arms, and 2) full size heads with the pushrods going through the head, not the intake. It wasn't one of Fords better ideas then, or Ede's now.

More grousing. If Edelbrock (or TFS, AR, others) wanted to do us a favor, they could have made Cleveland style, canted valve, aluminum heads (2.19/1.73) for Windsor blocks. Matching Performer RPM C4B intake and all.

What does it take to get the attention of the Corporate "Bean Counters" to get us "counted"?

[RACER X #99]

Jack,
Where have you been hiding, Robert Yates has been making canted valve heads for Nascar Windsors for a long time. Blue thunder and Brodix also make canted valve heads for the Windsor. Only trouble with them is they are not good low rpm heads, they make lots of power in the high rpms but for the average street and sometimes track racer the inline valves are a better choice. Remember when the Boss 302's were kicking butt in Trans Am but the Z 28's were the quickest on the street and dragstrip. Ford even reduced the valve size on the Boss 302 trying to get more low rpm power. Lot's of guys make the mistake of going too big on the valves and lose bottom end. You would have to agree the Chevy guys have been doing pretty good with inline valves for quite a few years.
With the FE's you don't get many choices with Cylinder heads but with the Windsors you have lot's to choose from. Of course not as good a choice as Brand X but were getting close.

Cranky

[bmalone]

As mentioned, made in '62 and '63. Indeed, the predecessor to the '64 427. Late '63's had the cross-bolted main caps.

Interesting to note; two engines were produced. A 6V, rated at 405 HP at 5800 with an astounding 12.1:1 CR. And, a 4V motor w/ 385 HP. No matter how you look at it, very good numbers.

I had one stuffed in a '66 Fairlane and it got up.

[RACER X #99]

Good info Bill but wrong address. How come the BIG guys always wind up hanging with the little guys.

Moderators, how about moving this FE talk to the RIGHT neighborhood.

Cranky

[bmalone]

Well, Roger, I know, but couldn't resist chiming in along the same vein as the others. Asked myself the same question.

[Anthony]

Jack, I have wondered myself why Ford would design the FE head that way, with a small head, with the pushrods going through the intake. The only thing that I figured out was that aluminum intakes were common, but aluminum heads were not. Making the head smaller, and the intake bigger allowed a weight advantage when using an aluminum intake and iron heads.

Wadesdad has a 400M, bored out to 406 ci, not a 406 FE from the early '60's.

[RACER X #99]

Anthony, I think a lot of people have wondered why they built those heads that way. Especially people looking to improve them. What they should have done was to mass produce the Cammer. Make all the FE engines OHC. Perhaps had they done that maybe the FE cammer would have been the engine of choice for top Fuel instead or the Chrysler Hemi. 30 years of aftermarket product development and maybe the FE would have been the King of all big cube racing engines.
But they didn't do that, they made the 385 series engines instead, better than the FE but still not up to the performance of the BB Chevy and Hemi.

Time to close all this FE talk over here.

Cranky

[Jack21]

Ok, Ok. One last comment, and I'll shut up.

Refreshing, though, to grouse about Corporate "Why did they do that?.... Any idiot ......" about what Ford did/didn't do in the '60's, and get replies from others that have been there and ask the same questions. I'm not the only crazy one in the bunch. Thanks for the sanity check.

Didn't IBM, and Ford have some Executive Exchange Program going on in the '60's that continues to this day? How many "IBM" PC's does IBM sell today? (About as many as CS sells Cobras) And howcum some 20 year old UT dropout is today the largest manufacturer of IBM (compatible)PC's? (SOB probably never even owned a nickels worth of IBM stock, much less worked for IBM)

That oughta get your Irish up!

[Jack21]

Racer X,

Hiding? Perhaps so.

Have read the recent ads for Blue Thunder aluminum Cleveland heads. Was not aware Brodix also made them.

Pantera forum has an Australian made C3V Cleveland head with C4V valves, and C2V ports. Said to be more streetable in bottom end, and mid range but they cost $1k each from website.

Big block Chevy street heads use rectangular port size valves with oval port heads to optimize mid range torque. Concept makes sense.

Point was, people who could have changed this "it's always been done this way", ( Edelbrock, TFS, etc) chose not to do so. And we end users, consumers, have to live with it (or express our disappointment by not purchasing the product).

[RACER X #99]

Jack,
Brodix makes both the inline valve heads and also the canted valve style called the Brodix/Neal head. If I could afford the $5K for the heads I probably should have gone that way. Meanwhile I'll have to settle for the AFR 205's.

Cranky

[Anthony]

Racer X,

The FE could never be the king of big cube racing engines. The engine was designed in the '50's with too small of bore spacing, not allowing for better bore/stroke ratio's as with the BBC, BBF, Mopar, etc. I don't think the head design allowed for optimal breathing for 500" + engines either. Ford designed the 385 series engine to improve upon the FE, in maybe all aspects except for 1, the deep skirt and cross bolts which was probably superior to short skirt 4 bolt splayed chevy design. The FE had its glory days, although you can still get respectable HP out of it. I still think it is a great engine, not the best ever made, but it still can be a great engine.

Actually, I think the FE block, with its bore sizing, is optimal for a 400-427" size engine, but probably is not for over 500". In the 400" range, you can get a better bore/stroke ratio with a 428/427 block compared to a sbf, due to the latter's smaller bore spacing, limiting the maximum bore. The FE edelbrock heads can flow respectable numbers as well.

I believe prodution cost was the reason why ford did not go through with the cammer, as they wouild have to install it in production cars, to make it qualify for NASCAR, which would have a harder time selling with a much larger price tag. Chyrsler bit the bullet, and offered the 426 hemi in street cars for 1966 to qualify it for racing. Ford instead came out with the mediuim risers, and then tunnel port heads for the 427, for racing. They then designed the Boss 429, from the ground up, for racing. They also designed the engine so it could run non-hemi heads, stealing chevy's design for the canted valve cleveland heads for production cars.

Regarding the cleveland style small block heads, they have been experimenting with them for over 30 years. Chevy designed the canted valve layout for the new 396/427 engine in the early 60's. Chevy also developed a set of canted valve heads for the sbc at the same time. Smokey experimented extensively with them, and wrote about it in his book. From what I remember, he basically said that the canted valves didn't offer any advantage until very high rpm's, and the inline style was cheaper, so there was no reason the put the canted valve head into production. He said that even though the canted valve heads flowed better, the engine displacement was too small to take advantage of it, and you really needed a larger displacement engine, such as the 427, to see a worthwhile difference. But as we know now, NASCAR has adapted that head design again, both ford and chevy. I'm sure the ports are not identical to the way they were in the '60's, but I think the basic concept is the same.

Ford copied the chevy head design for their 335 (351C) and 385 (429/460) series engines. They used the canted valve head for the boss 302 as well. I read that because the heads flowed so well, the had too slow port velocity, and actually the inline tried and true chevy design used in the their 302 produced more mid range power without giving up any top end. I read that the Ford guys actually epoxied the ports in the boss 302 heads, making them smaller, to get higher port velocity to increase mid range power to be competetive with chevy in Trans Am racing.


All engines have pro's and con's, including cost and design parameters.

My '65 Olds 400 engine actually has some advantages. All oldsmobile engines at that time were cast with high nickel cast iron, allowing the block to be thinner than if they used "****" cast iron as in sbc's at that time. Supposidly, my engine actually has the weight of a sbc, even though it physically is much larger. It also came standard with forged crank, as all oldsmobile engines at that time.

whew!!!

I won't say anything more.

[RACER X #99]

Anthony, your contributions are well noted but nobody in small block talk cares about FE's we leave that talk to the show guys and street burnout kings. You wanna talk about sb engines stay here.

cranky

[Excaliber]

Yeah,,,,who let the dogs out? Those FE guys in here anyway.....ha ha.

Ernie