[78 blue beast]

Hey guys (and girls). Just had a couple questions to throw out there. Mainly I want to build this engine for mud bogs, and I might do a couple of the competitions they have locally. I have the 460 block with the 429 D3VE a2a heads, edelbrock performer 460 intake, the edelbrock 650 carb, headman headers, and the ford racing valve covers. It has a cam installed but I'm not sure on the specs. Now the heads and block are going to the machine shop, going to shave the heads, and hone the cylenders if there not tooo bad. I'm getting into the pistons because when it is reved up to baout 3000rpm it starts to blow darkish smoke. I guess my big question is how much bore is too much if I was to have them bored? I want it to be able to run it with out overheating. Second, should I invest in some soild lifters and roller rocker, or just the roller rockers. This is all being put in my 78 Bronco. Thanks in advance.

[white night]

78 blue beast, on Mar 16 2009, 07:25 AM, said:

Hey guys (and girls). Just had a couple questions to throw out there. Mainly I want to build this engine for mud bogs, and I might do a couple of the competitions they have locally. I have the 460 block with the 429 D3VE a2a heads, edelbrock performer 460 intake, the edelbrock 650 carb, headman headers, and the ford racing valve covers. It has a cam installed but I'm not sure on the specs. Now the heads and block are going to the machine shop, going to shave the heads, and hone the cylenders if there not tooo bad. I'm getting into the pistons because when it is reved up to baout 3000rpm it starts to blow darkish smoke. I guess my big question is how much bore is too much if I was to have them bored? I want it to be able to run it with out overheating. Second, should I invest in some soild lifters and roller rocker, or just the roller rockers. This is all being put in my 78 Bronco. Thanks in advance.

If the cylinders are in good shape i would bore .030 over the most you want to bore over is .060, the cylinder is thin at that point. If you are going to do roller do the hole valve train in roller.

[78 blue beast]

Roller lifters and rockers than. How much more performance am I going to get out of the roller set up, and is it worth it?

[Justshootme84]

take alook over at 460ford.com for some specs on individual parts and mods, JSM84

http://460ford.com/forum/

[Broncobill78]

As White Knight mentioned .060 is about as far as you'll want to bore a standard block (aftermarket & marine blocks are thicker and can frequently go .090). I'm not sure why you'd even *want* solid lifters unless you've got a thing for spending most wkends resetting your valve lash Were you maybe meaning a roller cam & lifters ? I've gone the 460 route a couple of times and wouldn't spend the money on it, I settled for roller rockers with a better ratio & screw-in studs. A roller cam lets you run a more aggressive lobe profile (steeper ramps that snap the valves open & closed) and rev faster but a big block isn't really what most guys would call a free-revving engine. For this application you're really looking to build for torque and durability. I'd invest in stuff like upgrading to studs for the main bearing caps & a stud girdle, having the block align-honed, etc. I'd be careful with shaving the heads and really wouldn't take off anything other than what's needed to be sure the surface is true otherwise you might be forced into running nothing but super w/octane booster and *that* will drive you nuts real fast. But that's just me, everyone building an engine is entitled to build it the way he wants & after all, the whole purpose of doing this is to have fun (otherwise we'd all be running 300's)

This post has been edited by Broncobill78: 19 March 2009 - 03:47 AM

[Justshootme84]

Good advice, BB78. my plan is to port the head openings and the intake when I install the Dove-3 heads. Also looking into running the 78-earlier timing chain and gear.

[Broncobill78]

JSM84 what year is the 460 ? Any reason to not just pickup a double roller chain ?

The 1972 & up 460's had the crank gear on the timing chains advanced 8-degrees, which effectively retarded the cam timing 4-degrees (for emissions reasons). Just something to think about, most of them have 3 keyways anyways (one advances cam 4-degrees, the other retards cam 4-degrees and the final keyway is for "straight up" ignition timing)

[Justshootme84]

Mine is from an 88 F-350, so it was originally EFi. But i now have a carb on the lower intake, until I can swap to the older heads and a carb intake.

Was 1972 the changeover year for the timing?

[Broncobill78]

yes, 72' & up.

Did yours have a fuel pump eccentric on it when you took it apart ?

This post has been edited by Broncobill78: 19 March 2009 - 07:05 PM

[Justshootme84]

No, the 88 had an electric pump on the frame, and the boss for the mech pump in the timing cover was just a dummy - no hole. I added a 140gph electric pump on the frame for the carb. That should be enough to handle 350-400 HP and the 770cfm carb.

[78 blue beast]

Yeah..I ment the roller lifters. I've been thinking it over and I'm going to just do the roller rockers. I actually had something else that I have been wondering about...what about putting timming gears in, insted of the chain? Any benifit other than a cool sound?

[Broncobill78]

When you change the rockers you can get a bit more performance out of the engine by changing the rocker ratio. Get a set of 1.7 rockers it's not a lot but little things here & there add up. Timing gears are very durable & they're actually machined specifically to make noise. You can get quiet gears.

[Leadsled]

Check this guy out!!! He is the BBF guru. http://www.highflowdynamics.com/

Paul sells anthing and everything for a BBF and will help you out on the phone if needed.

As for boring, every casting series is a little different. So depending on what block casting you have is how for you can take it.

This post has been edited by Leadsled: 28 March 2009 - 01:34 PM

[78 blue beast]

Cool thanks! Lots of good info on my block too. I took the heads off today and it looks as if the smoke was comming from bad valve seals.