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Courtesy of James Lay! It is not useable for a build without a sleeve but it is going to work well for drilling on and taking pictures of the oiling mods. It even has used bearings in it I can use for a template for chamfering the passages. This block is a little weird though. It is a standard 4.05" block (.030 over) but it has no casting number. It also has the ribbing on the side. It does have 352 on the front. Anybody remember what the deal was with the ribbed blocks?
RSSean, keep looking for the casting ##. I have a D4TE block that had the casting number in an odd spot, and I'll be damned if I can remember where it is, but it wasn't in the normal place. It does have the ribs on the skirt. And it seems very thick all over. Have you done Shoe's drill bit test ? You might have a good candidate for a larger bore block. DF
It does not have the re-inforced webs Cal. That is what kinda stumped me. I will give you the drill bit measurement in a second. The freeze plug is already out. Just from looking at it I would say that it isn't thick walled as there is tons of space between the bores.
Edit: Just took a closer look and it does not have the distributor bushing. It is one piece. If I put the drill bit straight in through the center of the freeze plug hole then 7/32" was a tight fit but towards the top it was very loose. I don't have Dave's drill bit chart handy.
Here are the markings that I have found:
C25
352 A 19 on the rear.
48 DIF
There are no markings in the lifter valley.
The drivers side lifter galley is plugged but the left galley isn't.. This might be normal.
D3 and D4 blocks came out of the Michigan Casting Center (MCC), your DIF block is one of the later ones (68+) out of the Dearborn Foundry with the ribs. The ribs gave the block more support and the story I heard is the iron mix on the later blocks was not as strong as the earlier blocks, hence the added ribs. Is there a date code under the filter pad?
I've heard of a few later DIF blocks but that's not the norm. Wonder why they were still casting there when they moved to a new facility anyway. Sounds like a question for shoe.
You know these later castings are sloppy compared to the earlier ones, jagged edges, hard to read numbers, etc. It's almost like they didn't care anymore.
Its a shame too because they were using a better design at the time.
I just looked up the drill bit test info and it says that I have a standard 390 block that should be good for .040 - .060 overbore. The 1/4" bit fits at the very top of the bore if i push really hard.
all i can say is as far as i know that block came in that truck from the factory when i pulled it down to rebuild every part i pulled out was stamped fomoco, when i had the machine work done i used a shop that was familiar with fe motors and they didnt say that there was anything odd about it other than one of the holesfor the cam bearing was out of round and had to be milled the freeze plugs were out because i use frost plug heaters in my motors. And yes the casting on the block was rather crude several of the edges of the block had what would equivilate to runs in a paint job it looked like metal had ran down the side and just didnt quite drip off.