I am working on a engine I believe to be a FE 390 I have a few questions:

1. The #1 connecting rod is missing and there are two #6 and they are all out of order (i.e. the #8 connecting rod is in the #5 cylinder). I talked to the guy I bought the engine from and his reply was "In the 70s the FE engines were balanced! To accomplish this all parts were weight to be within Gram. All 8 parts to go in engine as a set. When a part was out of tolerance you had to drill material out or weld material in. If you needed to catch up on your quota of production you inserted a spare part of the correct weight to the set". Has anyone ever heard of this happening?

2. I am trying to decode and date the block's casting numbers:
- The "352" means that the basic block is a 352
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How can I tell if it is 17 Oct 1976 or 17 Oct 1966?

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I have no idea what this one means?

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Could this be a random push rod that was put in and needed to be ground to fix the length?

 

352 is only a casting number and does not refer to engine displacement. Measure the stroke to be sure it is a 390. My 390 has ball end pushrods, so no flat spot. It sounds as though the engine has been partially disassembled. Everything should be kept in order as it is removed. If you are going to rebuild the engine, get Steve Christ's book. It is comprehensive. Good luck.

 

There are only 2 push rods that are ground down the rest have the normal ball end. I was able to get the casting number off the crankshaft all I could see was C7TE6303. I look it up online and it said it should have an A or B at the end to tell if it is a 361 or 391. Would there be any harm if I take the sides of the connecting rod to a sander to remove the old markings and restamp them in the correct order?

 

Don't grind off the numbers. You should get your parts in order and have a good machine shop with FE experience balance the engine. They can renumber things.

As for the push rods, they point so some poor practices in the last assembly, just as the mixed up rod numbers.

The rocker where that pushrod was is probably destroyed as well, and the grindings have probably found their way into other critical areas. If the pushrod was ground by the prior assembler, then nothing done by that person can be trusted. If it ground itself that way, again, improper assembly should be suspected throughout.

This thing should be hot tanked and sonic checked also.

Do the pistons have any marks on them like ".030".

 

Next time I work on it I will have to check to see if there is any markings on connecting rods. I am going to cleans all the parts off and sand blasts them before I take it to the machine shop to try and save some money. Any other ideas on how to save money at the machine shop?

 

Don't sand blast engine parts. The machine shop will hot tank the parts.

If you are trying to save money, don't rebuild an FE, especially one with this history.

You can't cheap out on machine work and getting the block and reciprocating assembly right, nor can you take shortcuts on the valve train.

You can stay with manifolds instead of headers, an iron 2bbl manifold instead of a Performer RPM with a 4bbl, and a few other things.

 

Even if I tape off all the machined surfaces and the openings in the block you say I still shouldn't blast the engine? It has a cast iron 4bbl intake already on it.

 

You asked for advice and 85e gave you good advice. You sound like you want to argue for the sake of a buck or two.

 

+1 on NOT blasting , if you need to get it clean grab a gallon of Aircraft stripper it will get it 100% clean

 

Hey those few bucks add up to better parts.

 

true but sand/media in the engine is NOT A GOOD THING .
budget balancing is normally done by , weighting all rods and pistons finding lightest one and matching others to it , this is what i did on my 390 build .

 

I agree but better parts and trashed parts don't make a good combo.

 

I am going to change out all the "trashed parts", but if I save some money I can get better replacement parts.

 

as for the year of block
c6mea = 1966
c=60s
d= 70s
e=80s

 

Sand blasting is very bad voodoo with motors. Once you sand blasting engine parts you almost never get all the sand out. Save some money and just build one motor. With sand you will be building a second motor and it will be more money than the 1st motor was.