Catchy title huh....

I've been doing quite a bit of research and have a lot of questions. I have a 460 out of a 89 econoline Catalina, 34k original miles. I've cut 59" out of the chassis and dropped a 52 ****** cab onto the frame and installed a C6 and a NO205 transfer case.... See where this is going
I've welded up the Dana 70 and am working on getting a D60 for the front. For now I'm going to make the efi work and do a minor port to the heads, intake and try to open up the elbow on the intake too.
Questions now that you've got a good idea of what I have going on.
When I go to aluminum heads will they bolt to the block without issues?
I will be ditching the top end and go to carb. I think anywhere between 4-500 hp should make me plenty happy. Is there a set of heads or a preferred "top end kit" that can get me to my goals?
What else is involved in making the swap? I'll admit I do know a lot more then I'm playing it off as but I'm more of a diesel guy through and through but the 460 is appealing.
I like to over build for reliability. Let's say I manage to make 400 hp I want to know the bottom end is good for 500 and so on.
So how much is the bottom end good for on this engine?
This will be a dedicated mud toy, that's it's ONLY purpose in life.
I realize this has probably been talked about a hundred times over but I haven't come across very much with a dedicated vehicle. I want to push it to the max and have some reliability and I know it won't be cheap.
All good help is very much appreciated

 

First thing's first. EFI heads will not bolt up to a carb intake. If you want the power you speak of, edelbrock, trick flow, and ford all make good flowing aftermarket heads for a carb intake. As long as you don't go too wild on opening up the ports, and throw in a massive cam, you will have plenty of torque. You may not want to tear down the block, but one of the best ways to get that kind of power, is to deck the block, and or swap pistons to bump up the compression.

Also, your welded rear will be great for the mud, but tough in every other type of terrain.

 

I thought I wrote that better than I did. For now I'm going to use the efi setup. Either this winter or most likely next winter I'm going to do the conversion from efi to carb.

I've even kicked around the idea of switching to propane injection. That'll be a different thread if it comes about being a possibility. For now out of the question.

I'm well aware of how the welded rear will work. Since it is a dedicated mud toy I'm not too worried about it. If I blow it apart then I'll upgrade gears and get a spool

 

Any idea where you want to be for compression? Would you leave the bottom end alone, and just swap heads?

 

Yeah I would like to leave the bottom end alone. I've read that the bottom end is good for quite a bit of power. Then again all I did was read so I don't know for sure if that's accurate or not.

As far as a solid ratio narrowed down, no I don't know. In my research I have found that my engine should be around 8:1. I don't plan on throwing a turbo or supercharger on it though that would be great but I don't think worth while since that will send EGTs and AIT through the roof being counter productive. Is going with a thinner head gasket an option to bump the ratio?

I will be making a bed for this project since I don't have one right now. Finding a bed for a 60+ year old truck isn't easy and I've located a few but they may as well be made out of solid gold.

 

It won't make much difference going with a thinner gasket. I would just open up a set of D0VE heads and go from there. Swapping them will bump up CR a bit, because the chamber is smaller.

 

I know there's all kinds of different DOVE heads. I haven't done my research on them to see which ones are the go to one's yet.
The bolt pattern is the same between a set of DOVE he and and efi?

 

Check out this page:
http://reincarnation-automotive.com/...s-1-index.html

The bolt patterns are exactly the same

 

Thank you!!

 

For now going with the adapter. What size carb would be sufficient for this type of setup? I'm thinking around 750-800

 

You should have the good bottom end, the newer (post 1979) rods, externally balanced, and an impressive 8:1 compression ratio. These engines have the capability to get up near 10:1 cr with factory bottom end and small chamber heads. the difference in a 95cc chamber and a 72cc chamber is usually the difference from 8:1 and 9.5:1.


The bottom end for mud racing I would take it down, run a little bit of extra oil clearance in the bearings, HV oil pump, and 20w50 oil. This should let the thing rev, lug, flash in rpm if traction slips, and if you hit something hard, the shock won't grab a bearing at rpm.


460s have a very good capability to make power; bottom end should hold good, HP is in the rpm. If you want to support 500 ponies, better plan on north of 6000 rpm. The rotating assembly should be good to 6500 I would think. Some reports of 7200 on the strip, but mud racers are not as forgiving as bracket racers IMHO. Shoot for a 2500+ stall and run 3/8 pushrods, this sort of rpm requires some valve train set up, keep close watch on pushrod length, and try to get the valve train geometry set up for a good lift and this will help make those rpms. 460s seem to need more exhaust help and less intake help, a split pattern cam helps off set this, go more exhaust duration.


Rockers for this kind of build will help a lot. aluminum or steel but do plenty of research, don't just buy the ones that someone recommends, There are a lot of rocker arms out there that don't have good geometry with these engines even though application is listed for 429/460.


Make sure your timing set is straight up, your engine probably has a straight up setin it, but make sure you stick with that.


These engines have a lot of really big head bolts, there fore you should be fine for your build with standard head bolts, if aluminum heads are used, make certain that hard washers are used under the bolt heads.


Carb, Edelbrock seems to have a good unit for driveability and low rpm power, holley seems to make more peak rpm and supports it better, however those new edelbrocks with the dual fuel feed quite possibly will support them better than the old single fuel feed, I still would feel more comfortable recommending a holley for all out performance. The 3310 750 is a nice carb. Summit carbs are pretty good as well, a cross between a holley and an edelbrock. Almost a hybrid. Now, all said and done.


budget would definitely determine way to build. Dove-c heads would boost compression and flow OK. Probably not as good as others. With some port work the dove c casting would probably get you where you need to be, but the expense is high. D3 casting would give you the same or slightly more flow, way cheaper casting, and run flat tops to get 9:1 or 10:1. then have the pedestals milled and tap for stud mount rockers. Not a bad way to go. Next is the aftermarket, edelbrock, TFS, pro comp, Ford motorsport, blue thunder, and on and on. look at all availabilities before making a decision. Your engine will not need huge ports, only efficient ports. CJ stuff might be good if available, but the bigger the port, the less off idle torque, useful power shifts up in rpm. Good luck.

 

Thanks for that long write up! I appreciate it! I'm going to a junk yard today because I got a tip that there's an engine there with an internally balanced 460 and D3 heads. If it looks good I'll be bringingi t home to build and run the efi this coming summer. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the truck build will be done mid summer. I have a reverse manual valve body and a high stall converter in the C6 right now. I'm not absolutely sure what the stall is will find out when I drive it for the first time.

 

What kinda cash was ur engine core? I think I will look for one around here to build another engine to do a swap so I don't have to keep the dually down for long.

As cheap as stroker cranks are I think I will go that route and add 50-100 inches, my buddy used to tell me all the time...

"ain't no replacement for displacement" or "the ladies always like strokers better" . He passed away a couple years ago but I still keep momento's of him hanging out in the shop...an old box of Marlboros and half a 6-Pack of PBR...

He actually chose to drink that beer, not just because it used to be $10 a case.

Anyway, my opinion for what it is worth, the increase in inches also increases compression by approximately the same amount of compression keeping with the same heads / combustion chamber. I will probably look for some aftermarket Alum heads that have a Vortec Chamber if there is such a thing for a 460...I think either Kaase or Trick Flow had something a few years back. If you really want to look at some trick heads look at Jim Feuliings' BBC head. Drop them on your stock 454 and get 25mpg. Tiny valves and heart shape chamber. There is something to making that deal flow like a toilet bowl flushng. They only sold a minimal amount of them til he passed away. He was a real innovater, and anybodyb that knew him misses the hell out of him. I think he was was involved in the design of the 4.6Pi 3valver also.

For street and towing, not too sure I want more than about 9.5:1 for regular crappy ethanol pump gas. I guess you could always throw one of them Snow Water/Meth injectors inline on the throttle body or carb plate.

For that rock crawling deal you better follow a previous posters advice...them thngs are like fast boats, when they get going and the rear or front jumps off the grounf they wil spin up and cause some serious hurt to the innerds. I am sure some smart person out there has developed a traction control to adapt to one of them and if not I bet u can cipher one out even if u use a carb...

I might have seen one on a couple fast oval track cars back in the day when I was building cars...seems Delphi sponsored a couple CUP cars that supposedly had tem systems in place but Gary Nelson never found any evidence of them...

Read those last 8 words closely.

I like Holley carbs cause they are cheap, easy to build and tune, 5 or 6 psi can get you 850hp if you use the right parts and pieces, and u can get a re-build kit at any parts store for $50.

Don't be fooled into getting a hog CARB...BGN engines made 650HP with a 390 carb and Hooters engines made 650HP with a 600 carb. The key is getting good manifold vacuum and proper fuel emulsion frothng out of the boosters. U can get some key info on this by looking up some of John Satteerfields Carb Patents. He uses the vortec ideas al thru his patents in many of the internal channels of the fuel and air handling passages in the carb.

U can buy one of those new 750Hp black carbs for $650 and bolt it on a good engine and make 400-500 reliable HP with it. If you use an electric pump in the tank you need to set up a proper fuel pressure regulator with a bypass back to the tank.

Keep us up on your build.

 

I had no luck at the junk yard the other day as far as an engine goes but I did get everything for a conversion to rotors for my rear Dana 70.
I actually bought the econoline chassis for dirt cheap.