I have a 1984 460 out of a van and I was wondering how much power the stock block can handle. I was thinking of a 514 stroker and some nice heads, cam, intake the whole bit.. I have had my eye on the Ford Racing 514 but it is so expensive... is there anyway I can build this type of motor budget wise under $6000 ?

One more question... how much power does my motor have from the factory ? I have heard 240 horsepower and 365 lb-ft torque

Thanks

 

My 460 is out of a 83-84 E350 Van. The stock "Net" horsepower is 214hp and 382 ft. lbs. torque. I believe that Net means at the rear wheels, correct me if i am wrong.

 

I called this place one time with the stock performance ratings on the 84 460 and they told me 240 hp and 365 lb-ft torque... mabye it was differnt for vans vs trucks.... Gross power I would say was flywheel and ya net is wheel horsepower. Your 214 would be about right 204-214 at the wheels but that is sure a lot of torque... That would be cool but i'm not sure at the wheels... that is a lot.

 

I read this information in a library reference book. Im pretty sure that those numbers are what it said. I might stop by the library tomorrow and look again, or even make a copy of it.

 

The stock 460 block and crank can handle upto about 750-800 hp. If your going to be doing this you better go for a good rod, and a light piston. Anything you can assemble semi affordably the stock block and crank will not even notice :]

There are now some nice choices in heads for you to buy including the new Jon Kasse designed Ford Super Cobra Jet allum heads from Ford, the Allum IDT Elliminator head, the edelbrock head that summit sells for about 600.00 each, the EX-514 in both allum and Iron, and of course the allum Bluethunder. Your factory c8 to d0 heads are fine as well, but in the end you will have as much cash in them as you would the summit heads, and you would not have as good of a head or as much power.

Summit lists these:

$1319.00 EDL-61669 Ford: 429/460, complete, Victor Jr. cylinder head (See Product Guide)

Edelbrock's Victor Jr. race head features high-flow intake runners with machined-profile, Cobra Jet-style intake port entries. The combustion chambers have hardened, ductile iron valve seats and phosphor-bronze guides. It accepts standard hardware and comes already assembled with titanium retainers and stainless steel valves.

And these at $879.50 EDL-60669 Ford: 429/460, complete, Performer RPM cylinder head (See Product Guide)

Designed for non-emissions 1968-87 Ford 429 and 460 c.i.d. engines, this head features 95cc (Part number EDL-60679 is a 75cc version) combustion chambers along with 292cc intake ports and 100cc exhaust ports. Other outstanding features include phosphor-bronze valve guides, interlocking ductile iron valve seats, and premium one-piece, stainless steel, high-flow 2.19 in. and 1.76 in. intake and exhaust valves. Heat-treated, machined steel retainers and valve locks, along with heavy duty valve springs, are good for .700 in. lift cams. This powerful head uses the stock location for intake and exhaust bolt holes and flanges, spark plugs, and valve cover rails for compatibility with aftermarket parts.

Bare heads are listed also at $639 and $683 for the SCJ version.
The EX-514 heads are around 1700 bare for allum, or 2200 bare for iron, i expect the IDT heads in allum are similar priced to the EX-514.

Flatlander racing sells the Blue Thunder heads for $1475 bare,
Here is the verbage from the flatlander website:
The "Blue Thunder" Cylinder Head (as cast), will out flow (at full valve lift), "any" cylinder head produced for the Ford 429 CJ that uses stock intake port location and manifolds when prepared under similar conditions.

Std. 429 CJ intake location that flows better than the stock Ford CJ Head
Std. 429 CJ valvetrain geometry, & components (Pushrod/Guide plates/ Rocker Arms & Studs)
Raised valve cover rail, .300" more room for under valve cover components
Easily blocked or opened heat riser
Aluminum heads have pressed-in head bolt seats
Aluminum heads have ½" thick deck, after machining
Heads feature additional cast in deck to upper head postings for greater deck integrity
Features std. bolt hole locations on ends of head for easy accessory mounting
Includes: .0015" undersize replaceable "bronze" guides which are a European developed material that is 92 Rockwell, on the "B" scale, and must be honed with a diamond hone. Valve guides are designed to pass the 200 hr. Marine Industry Durability Tests
All guides and seats are thermally pressed using liquid nitrogen and preclude metal displacement during installation of guides and seats
Stainless steel 1-piece swirl polished Valves
Requires valve spring seats that are available for up to 1.90" O.D. valve springs



Blue Thunder Ford 429-460 Big Block Heads
Blue Thunder Heads are the best standard configuration heads available for 429-460 Ford engines. They use all standard CJ equipment including intake manifold, guide plates, rockers, push rods and exhaust. Valves are the only exception. Blue Thunder heads require longer than stock valves. They are available in 3 combustion chamber sizes (74, 80 and 100cc). Optional BB Chevy exhaust port configuration is also available.


Bare Heads *Stage 1 **Stage 2 ***Stage 3 Comp
with Ford
Exhaust Ports
$1475 $2299 $2599 $2849 $3999
with Chevy Exhaust Ports
$1599 $2599 $2649 $2999 $4299
*Stage 1: Recommended for 460 - 500 cu. in.
**Stage 2: Recommended for 500 - 530 cu. in.
***Stage 3:Recommended for 530 - & up cu. in.


The summit head is the most cost effective and it or the Ford Motor Sport SCJ may be the best for the size engine you mentioned. Go with a set of good heads, a nice set of eagle or scatt rods, and a light piston from whomever you prefere.....Probe, Ross, Venolia, Wiseco, TRW..and you may wish to add a girdle or a 4-bolt cap to help high rpm stability.

(I have run 6500 rpm consistantly on 2 bolt blocks with brand new "truck rods" like the ones Ford used to put in the 514 crate engine. I dont recomend it, but I made it 2 years and about 80 passes with an occasional 7000 rpm run and many 6500 runs.)

With a good rod and light piston, proper block work and prep you can do even more. With a 521 you increase the stroke and piston speed so you need the better rod/piston and rod combo to hold together at lower RPM's.....maybe you would want to call 6500-6800 or so your self imposed redline, and set your rev limiter at 7000. Good luck, you have a million choices ahead of you! Next stop....where do I get a good cam....lol.....what kind of cam....the fun is just begining!

 

See my motor was rebuilt a few years ago but just useing stock stuff.. Do you guys have any idea of what kind of power I might have if I bought a nice intake carb,cam,heads ? How long would you think the internals would last?

 

Thats the magic of it, you make the power in the cam/heads/carb and you survive or die by the block/crank/rods/piston assembly. I could make a stock block make 1500 hp for at least .25 of a second for under 6 grand, but it costs you cash to make it reliably :]

It is very easy to make 600 hp give or take a few on a basic 460, you have to try hard not to make 500 with ported factory heads and a good cam/intake/carb. You can get about 670 hp from well preped D0VE heads and a solid flat tappet, high compression package with a dominator on a victor intake. What I am saying is if you wanted to, you can make anywhere from say....300 to 550/600 hp without getting into the big money. The 670 area is getting real serious on the factory heads, and going into a cam/lifter package that would not be a great street package unless you drop the knickles on a solid roller that can take that abuse more long term. If you wanted to go the way of aftermarket heads, a hydaulic roller set up, and went to a stealth SCJ intake (Victor would be even better yet...) and a Holley 4150HP carb (Dominator would be better...) in a 850 to 1000 CFM range you would be able to do minor port work, and put together a nice reliable package that would put 650 to 750 hp down and be streetable. Dave Mclain did a 521ci 460 that was a very basic (under $10K) based on the EX-514 heads and factory 2 bolt block, Eagle rods that put 904 hp on the dyno. Talk about cheap and easy! A couple years ago that would have been hard to get from a 460 based engine, today its off the shelf parts with no porting!

 

How much power do you think I could get from just switching the intake and carb and mabye some tuneing? I would like to get as much out of it before going to some expensive heads or ported the stock ones.. Which by the way how much is the head porter kits and how hard is it really for an amature like me to just port my heads and intake out ?

 

You can get the porting kit from summit racing, its about 50 bucks....I dont know exactly as I get my stuff from the "free bin" at work :] Just changing the intake and carb will not get you much, as the issues that hold you back are really a bit deeper than that. I would think if you saw 20 hp from the carb/intake swap your doing good.

The Wiend Stealth is the intake to use for street use. Make sure you use the gaskets to at least gasket match the intake and heads. You can take and mash rags into the intake ports of the heads and do your grinding with a shop-vac being held by a second set of hands. Clean the crap out of the intake area and duct tape an old bath towel there. The shop vac will control your mess and MINIMIZE the chance of grindings into a bad place and causing catastraphy later.

If you went and took the heads off and spent a week of evenings on them you could buy yourself much in flow quality. I dont care to much for flat out flow numbers in CFM, I would look at getting the ports to smoothly move the air and let port quality do the work for you. You can learn tons at http://www.reincarnation-automotive.com/ it will cost you $25.00 to get the step by step porting from the members area, but this site is going to turn into the very best $25 you will ever spend....period.

You will find that the porting on the stealth intake will be nothing more than gasket matching, and on the heads you may want to swap out to a C8, C9, or D0 head if you can. You will bump up the compression and have a non smog head that will be a much better starting point. With a set of heads ported the way Scott J's website shows you, you can get 500-550 HP easily.

He also does port and sell head and cam kits. I think the D0VE heads are about 1200 complete....maybe 1500...but they flow good cfm, and with great port quality. He is arguably the very best porter of factory iron BBF heads. He can sell you a head/cam combo that can get you anything you want upto about 600/650 hp in stock iron.

 

heres another cheap trick- even cheaper than an intake- swap out your stock timing set with an aftermarket set... or get a stock 1968-71 timing set... should give you a few horse because the factory is 4 degrees retarded

 

'77 swb f-100 custom had '76 crown vic 460 that I ported and polished the heads gasket matched the intake and exhaust ports, bored it out to .30 over, and chamfered the stock crank ran truck rods and low dish pistons with NO2 reliefs, long tube hedman headers 3" dual exhaust with connector h pipe and 2 chamber flowmasters ... at 5800 I was making 566 hp and 660 lbs tq through a c6 with a 1200 stall converter 4" drive shaft 3.08 dana 44.
255 65 15 fronts
275 60 15 rears

I could pull 12.66 in the 1/4 all day long

poped the rear glass out 2 times from the TQ

 

You have good advice so far.

Power, net and gross. Generally speaking, mfg HP ratings are either net or gross. Both are flywheel ratings, NOT rear wheel. Gross ratings were the "old days" and did not include air cleaners, accessories, mufflers etc. This changed in 1972 when a new SAE "net" standard came into play. Many incorrectly blame the "loss" of hp on smog standards. Some was from that, some was the standard. Figure about 80% of the old gross standard, for example, a hi-po 289 rated at 271 was probably about 230.

More build suggestions, lots of specific info and what to expect. Just found this surfing the 'net on the "12000 rpm" postings.

460ford.com :: View topic - 460 Horsepower Chart

 

low dish pistons with NO2 reliefs. what are them?

 

You have posted this before and before you cut and paste someone elses mistakes you might want to verify the accruacy. first off to make that kind of power you are NOT going to be using a torque convertor that is LOWER stall then stock. Do you even know what "chamfer the stock crank" means? rough guess you don't but let me help you with part of it, it doesn't mean squat especially when your talking about building power, you piston description really doesn't say a thing especially since there is no such thing as a NO2 relief. basically I don't see much in there that has any relevance on reality.


Now onto the other stuff. If your looking at a stroker kit don't use the early heads, I don't know how much I can stress this but you want to sell your early DOVE or C8, C9 castings and go with D3VE castings instead. The early heads don't flow any better, and their only advantage is a increase in compression well when you do a stroker you pick your pistons to get you where you want to be. So with 22cc dish pistons on late model heads set down in the bore .010 you are at 9.25:1 which is really perfect for pump gas street use, but bolt on those early heads and you have 10.82:1 which is great if you don't mind buying $6.50/gal race fuel.

As to aftermarket heads, the edelbrocks are a fair head but really I wouldn't waste my money. The TFS streets are 100 times better quality, (although you have the same issues as the early iron heads with a 72cc chamber but with alum you can run more compression and lower octane fuel). The SCJ or better yet Jon Kaase's P51s are for a hot street engine (based on the ford SCJ heads and use the manifolds) the P51's were designed by Jon as an improvement on and to compete with the ones he designed for ford.
fordtrkpuller mentioned the EX-514 basically thats just one brand of the A460 style heads. The A heads WILL build a lot of power but they are not for a cheap build as NOTHING fits from stock stuff. Pistons, headers, intake, even the head gaskets and head bolts are different. These are older school race heads and should only be used as REAL, REAL hot street or race heads.

 

okay to help u out a little bit,im 18 im new to this website, also new to the 460. im building a performance 460 for my 77 f100 single cab short bed. i got a 460 0ut of a 77 lincoln town car and tore it compltetly down to bare block, now i have as the previous guy sayed a (free bin at work) and i can do all the machining work at my work. so i saved a bunch there. but im building a budget build u could say. ive done alot of reserch and my uncle is helping me, he has a 87 mustang that runs mid 9 all day with a 200 shotof nitrous. with stock bottom end, rods, crank, etc. now im hoping for low 12 to mid 11s with mine, and im porting and polishing stock heads, doing a little oil control. getting a eld performer rpm intake and gasket matching that as well, eletric fuel pump, a lunati cam and lifter kit, hypertitic flat top pistons to increase my compression, roller rockers and 3/8 push rods. if u are getting any kind of performance i would change over to those cause the stock 5/16 just wont hold up. ill keep this updated on the performance, but other than that as long as u turn the compression up and get that motor to swing more rpms, the crank, block and piston rods will hold up just fine. im also running a ford 9 inch with a 4500 racing stall, and 4:11 gears