When did ford start puting hardend valve seats in 460's?
i have a 460 out of a 1976 couger XR7

 

I believe it was 87,the yr they required unleaded fuel.
Rich

 

I beg to differ. I think it was '72 or '73 when they started doing the hardened seat thing so you will be fine with the '76.
DannyP

 

Hardened seat inserts were started in 87
They flame hardened the area prior to putting inserts in
If you run 78 heads with todays gas you will be rebuilding them shortly.
Valve recession problems unless you use lead additive.
Trust me been there done it
show me some info area ,please
Rich

 

And I have driven my '69 429 over 150,000 miles since 1985 without hardened valve seats and there is no valve seat recession.

The whole thing was started by soft GM heads in the '70s that showed large amounts of valve recession. However, my heads are C9VEs. I don't know what Ford did in later years where cast iron hardness was concerned.

 

well . I want to put my 460 on propane. with a turbo. i was wondering if valves ect would take the extra heat.
the engine is out of a 1976 couger XR7

 

The passenger car castings started with induction hardened seats in the mid 70's with the advent of cats. The truck castings did not start until later when no lead was required and cats mandated for trucks. Not sure of the exact year but it is near 80.

I grind on these heads all the time and have found the hardened seats to be a lottery of sorts unless the heads come off of a known unmolested engine. There are alot more truck D3's out there than passenger car castings since they were used into the late 80's right before the fuelies.

For use with propane I recommend seat inserts anyway because the material is better than the induction hardened iron. Also use a high quality S/S or super duty exhaust valve similar to a marine duty piece.

For the record I do not advocate the installation of hardened seats in the early casting. I have never seen a case where there was appreciable seat recession in the ford BBF early castings. In certain high load applications I recommend them but for passenger car and performance use I do not.

I used to shy away from them because they caused such a flow disruption in the D0VE exhaust port. Careful sizing of the ID of the insert along with a 30/45/60/70 degree seat eliminated any disparity between seats or no seats.

The fuelie castings I have seen so far all had hardened seat inserts installed. They are very tall and have a large inside ID which makes them suitable for a bigger valve installation. I am going to try 2.19"/1.8" valves in a ported F3TE casting and see where I end up.

Here is a thread from the BBF forum concerning the fuelies if anyone is interested...

http://www.network54.com/Forum/threa...eid=1092370521

 

"For the record I do not advocate the installation of hardened seats in the early casting. I have never seen a case where there was appreciable seat recession in the ford BBF early castings. In certain high load applications I recommend them but for passenger car and performance use I do not."

Thank you for verifying this. The "common" wisdom is that all heads need hardened valve seats. I know for a fact that early BBF heads do not. I also have a '71 400 with 240,000 miles and there is no evidence of seat recession there, either.

 

Last night I took the heads off my 85 F250 with 460. 165,000 miles of snowplowing and towing a trailer. There is no recesssion of the exhaust valves. This truck never had cats, casting number on the heads E5TE-TA. The heads basically rotted out, there is a hole rotted through one of the exhaust ports near the flange, as well as the mounting bosses for the manifolds rotted off three of the ports. One thing I did notice, combustion chambers on 2,3,5,8 are black, and 1,4,6,7 are white. Looks like I have a carb problem. I am putting on a set of the D3 heads. From the discussion here it looks like my D3 heads will be fine without seats installed, is this true?

JWR
85 F250 4x4 460 T-19 4.10

 

I should have clarified my statements from above about 460 heads !
My expierence with these motors is in the motorhome industry
a high heat installation ,where they were cracking exhaust manifolds and bolt bosses.most of the bad heads we took off around 84,85,86,early 87's were having problems with valve recession as well as what was mentioned above and customers never even knew it .unless they mention loss of power.

When they switched to unleaded fuel in 87 in trucks still carburated those heads started the hardened inserts.

Just my expierence

Rich