OK everyone, I am getting together all of the parts needed for a 390 build, and I have come across two things which I am not used to. This is probably due to my alternative life in bowtie land.
I have heard about, and have a crankshaft sleeve. I bought the engine disassembled (stupid, I know) and I do not know it's function or placement. Any insight on that would be nice.
Also, I needed a harmonic balancer, and I found a nice piece someone is willing to sell me for $27 incl shipping. He asked if I needed a balancer spacer. Ruh roh... what's that?
I plan on buying Steve Christ's book but until then... can anyone help me out?

 

MaximumMax001,i'm ? on the crankshaft sleeve, the harmonic balancer cool, and the spacer that gos on the front of the crankshaft behind the balancer,it gos into the timing cover , its about 5"/ to 6" long, wait the sleeve is what gos on the front/ the spacer. TNT

 

Crank sleave fits between the balancer and the timing gear.

 

This is a little off topic but since your getting your parts together let me reccomed: clevite rod and main bearings or speed pro rods and mains. Also make sure you do the oil mods reccomended by ratsmoker and run a HV pump with ARP driveshaft. Dont cheap it on the driveshaft they break if there cheap.

 

The crank sleeve and balance spacer are the same thing.

 

Also make sure that the crank sleeve does NOT have a groove on it from the timing cover lip seal. A situation called fretting. If it does you will need a speedy sleeve to repair the groove, by covering it, or a new sleeve.

 

I would like to ask a little more about the oiling system modifications. How important are these modifications for an engine under 6 grand? I was under the assumption that a standard oil pump would work ok. I guess I am not opposed to the idea, I just wanted to make sure that it was worth it. No problem with the arp driveshaft or the bearings... I would never buy cheapo bearings for a performance engine.
How about another kinda off-topic question... How important is resizing the rods after changing the bolts? I was definitely planning on going with ARP rod bolts, but I didn't want to fork over any money to machine shops... especially being away from home and not knowing any reputations...

 

First, as stated before, the balancer spacer IS the crankshaft sleeve, and YES, you do need one. It is a cast iron sleeve with keyways cut the length of it. It is about a quarter of an inch thick and 4-5inches long. I slids over the crank snout, after the timing chain crank sprocket, and gives the harmonic balancer something to seat against, and the timing cover seal something to ride on. Again, if a used one is grooved from the timing cover seal, you can purchase what is called a "speedy sleeve" to slide over the spacer, covering the groove and giving your seal a fresh surface to ride on.

The oil mods, while nice, are not necessary on an average FE. There are MANY, MANY, MANY of them out there running fine without the mods. Also, the standard pump is fine.

Now for your rods question. You will need to have the rods resized WITH the ARP bolts. Anytime you change fasteners on the rods, the rods should be made round with the new fasteners installed and torqued to spec. Look at it this way. Suppose you have rods that are round with bolts that require 35ft/lbs of torque. Now you switch to a bolt that requires 45ft/lbs. Is the hole still gonna be round? Maybe, maybe not. Therefore we resize 'em.

Hope this helps.

-Scouder

 

Thanks a lot guys... It's great to have this incredible pool of knowledge from which to pull from. I'll let everyone know how it comes out.

 

What are your plans for your engine? and, yes, this forum is awesome. They've bailed me out more times than I can count. I had my engine out and tore apart, these guys helped me get it going again. I'd buy them a round if I could.

 

it will be a ~350 hp .030 over 390 with stock port matched D8ae-H heads and stock valve sizes (for now? 1.65 exhaust valves are worth like a tenth), edelbrock RPM intake and edelbrock carb. Good bearings and a comp 224 cam (huge exhaust duration), 9.5ish : 1 pistons, duraspark or converted electronic distributor, arp rod bolts and driveshaft, headers and a 2000 stall converter pretty much round out the package. Unfortunately (for being in a truck forum) this is going into a 65 Galaxie in front of a C4. According to desktop dragstrip this combo should tickle the twelves... that's running with new hardware from pretty much everyone but exotics. Vipers and Vettes will be tough too, but it will still be a hard running car.
Being predominantly a bowtie guy, this should introduce me to the weird world where the pushrods go through the intake. Also, instead of having hundreds of choices for everything, each being good, this seems to take some work dealing with the extreme selectivity required (for instance, there are like 4 modern day intakes available!!!). I'll let everyone know how it turns out.
Thanks again