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By bird55 - 18 Years Ago
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Well, it has taken me forever, but I finally finished this engine and got it on the dyno yesterday. Thanks to John Mummert, Stanley Morton, Ted Eaton, Jerry Christianson, Ralph Alex and a bunch of others on this site.
Had it cross wired, sorted that blunder out. Then it fired almost immediatly on ignition. Ran it up to 3000 to break in the new cam and lifters. shut down to fix the dist. (the point plate broke loose from the dist shaft and the oil filter adapter was leaking badly. sorted that out and rewelded the plate. Then the fun began, check out the spec sheet. This should make a great engine for my bird. can't wait to do the swap and test drive.
 
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By Ted - 18 Years Ago
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Al, Great torque throughout the rpm range! That will definitely feel good in your 'Bird without a doubt. And you're almost pushing a horsepower to the cubic inch also. In fact, if the rpm's had been taken up just a little further, you'd likely have acheived that also. Good job!
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By bird55 - 18 Years Ago
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Thanks Ted,
It did see 310hp but we didn't record accurately and then changed some things around. Also Stanley Morton would ask me if I wanted to "take it further" but he had that look in his eye that it was completely up to me. He said he could tell that it wanted more and it saw 5700 rpm at one point, so it might go 6. just made me too nervous. Thats when he reminded me it basically has stock rods and cast pistons. It will make the hp, it may just pull the rods into or pull the bottoms out of the pistons! So even though I did a lot of good stuff to it, like balancing, main studs and arp rod bolts etc. You have to pony up more money for custom forged pistons and h-beam rods if you expect it to stay together. $ vs horsepower. And I had to draw the line somewhere. For my use on the street with an occasional blast down the strip it should be great fun. I also plan to run an automatic hence the mild cam choice. Still haven't committed to the trans choice yet, FMX-C4-AOD. Need to find an extra pile of dough somewhere.
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By LON - 18 Years Ago
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Hey bird55,
Could you give some more specs on the motor? Heads, cam, carb etc?? I'm sure there would be a lot of people interested with the internals. Can't wait to see what my 56 Vicky puts out at the rear wheels. Those headers sure look trick as does the dyno sheet.
Regards LON56
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By bird55 - 18 Years Ago
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Here's some more detail. 292 block is around 325ci with 312 crank. all mechanicals were balanced and blueprinted. rods were ground, polished and shot peened, ARP bolts in the rod caps. ARP studs in the mains and heads. Precision Oil pump. Cast Pistons.
Rollmaster Billet timing gears and chain. Stock rocker arm sets for now. Heads are ECZ-G, Mummert prepared "Street" port. Stainless valves-int. 1.94, ex. 1.60 New hardened seats and guides. Complete Isky rpm 300 cam, springs and lifters kit, 298 lift 270 duration from Ted Eaton.
Blue thunder intake. Eldebrock performer 600cfm-right outa the box.
Ford PowerTrain headers made specifically for tbirds 55-57. I ground all the casting surfaces on the block and heads smooth of casting seams. Distributor is '57 Ford tbird factory mechanical tach drive with pertronix and full mechanical advance we ended tests at 31.5 degrees advance. Interesting note: I saw a difference of 15 HP increase on one of the pulls when we advanced the timing from up just 1.5 degrees. It may still use more advance yet.
things I coulda, shoulda done but just could not find any more money to throw at it is: Hyperuetectic pistons or forged custom pistons and h-beam rods-this would have added an insurance factor because this little engine revs quickly to 5,700rpm and will go to 6,000 scarily easy, it just may not live there very long! Also we might have decked the block more-the pistons are about .0125 in the hole. This is primarily a street car with some weekend drags but mostly I hope to DRIVE it to places like Columbus, OH, and race it NOT trailer it. About 1600 miles rnd trip, I've done it before and had a blast.
Throttle response seemed electric.
There was a kid helping in the shop about 30 yrs old who installed it on the dyno-He said he'd never seen one of these engines before. Ha, was he ever surprised.
And the machinist was impressed he didn't realise it would ever go much over 5000rpm but wanted to know- "who did you say did the heads?- that guy is goood". He said it really made the difference in it.
Not bad for engine out of a junkyard.
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By Daniel Jessup - 18 Years Ago
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SWEET!
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By pcmenten - 18 Years Ago
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Holy cats! 112^ LSA. I'll bet that runs nice on the street. Nice cam.
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By Hoosier Hurricane - 18 Years Ago
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Al: Great Job!!!!!!!!!! Now, here's a few words of comfort. I am running stock, polished beam rods in my engine, and have taken it over 6000 many times with 10-12 pounds of boost. I've made over 450 calculated horses, no rod failures. I do have forged pistons though. 31.5 degrees of total advance? I'll bet it would like around 38 degrees a lot more. Don't be afraid of the engine, you've built it right. See you in Columbus. John
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By bird55 - 18 Years Ago
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Hey John, Merry Christmas eve! and thanks for the words of encouragement.I bet you are right on the rods, the pistons are the off the shelf cast "badger" brand pistons, I shouldn't have cheaped out there but I had to stop the bleeding.
You have helped me more on this forum than you will ever know. Hope I can make it up to you some time.
And for anyone else reading this forum-these guys are great. I figured out how this was done all right here from these y's guys.
I had plans to get this thing back home and do a quick engine swap and try it out BUT! As usual my compusive self has got the better of me And I have got EVERYTHING from the firewall forward removed from the car! So here are some pics of the progress IF you can call it that. I have a few things at the powder coatings place A-frames and stuff even the front apron behind the grill. Lots farther than I intended to go but Hey my labor is the cheapest thing I've got, And this way the new stroker will have a detailed new engine bay to sit in. Merry Christmas everyone!
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