I have a 1972 Lincoln MarkIV. Can anyone provide me with a good basic engine build up to gain more power and tq. Im not looking to race up and down streets just looking for more power to get this heavy load moving faster. It has been thru a rebuild bored 30 times over to a 466 and i have added a performer 460 intake and 600cfm holley carb. Just looking to build a mild performance machine for no more than 2grand. Thanks for any input. Ohh not looking to add nitro or blowers or chargers.

 

You could build a pretty salty motor if you dropped $2000 on your exististing motor. Depends on whether you want to get into the innards or if you just want to go with bolt on junk.

 

A little more information, if you can.

1) What are the casting numbers of the heads?

2) What are you using for a distributor & ignition?

3) Are you using the stock exhaust manifolds, and, if so, do you want to keep them? (I realize the options are somewhat limited, but not totally.)

4) When you say "rebuild", what did that entail? Is it totally stock except for the Holley & Performer? How many miles since the rebuild?

Let us know.

 

the heads are D2VE, disrtibutor and ignition are factory replacements, exhaust is stock but i would change out to a decent pair of block hugger/shortie headers if available im not sure i long headers will fit or not. Basically the rebuild was purelly stock with the exception of the carb and intake just something i added. But just adding the aftermarket intake and carb really made a difference but looking for a bit more. THANKXXX.

 

Well...if you've been reading this forum for a while, you probably know that those castings are by far the worst of all BBF castings to work with. The general consensus of most Ford cyl. head experts is that virtually nothing can be done to improve them, primarily because they have no quench area & are very prone to detonation. Also, with the stock style dished pistons (assuming that's what was used on the rebuild), you have low compression due to the large combustion chamber & piston dish. They are a one year only head casting, for good reason.

With an eye towards keeping your existing short block, since it's pretty new, & 'cause I like spending other people's $$$, here's my suggestions.

1) Swap your cyl. heads for an early set of C8VE, C9VE, or D0VE heads. This gives you a better chamber design & will also lift the compression to around 9.5:1.

2) Invest a little cash (or time) and do some work on the exhaust ports, or have a good, knowlegeable machine shop do it. At the minimum, grind out the Thermactor bump in the port, at least. One of the posters on FTE has an excellent website with advice on this, if you're feeling adventurous. Even just grinding out the bump will help quite a bit. If the heads you find need to be rebuilt anyway, etc. etc.

3) These heads will allow you to use adjustable rockers (with the correct studs & guideplates). Decent roller rockers can be had for around $200, but you can just use the stamped "roller tipped" cheaper ones if you want. Stay away from CAT parts, IMHO.

4) You will want to switch to a Holley 750 vacuum secondary 3310 carb or equivalent. The 600 will choke the 460 around 4000 rpm & above. Not vitally necessary to start, but I'd seriously think about it once everything else is done & working.

5) I seem to recall that Torino, Montego, etc. 460 headers fit the Lincoln, with some minor mods, removing a brace, or something. I could be mistaken. Otherwise, I'd look at the Sanderson header website and see if one of their sets will work. They are willing to mix & match between sets, too. I'd absolutely do everything I could to avoid using the stock exhaust manifolds; they're awful. Run dual exhaust with a crossover pipe, regardless whether it's headers or manifolds. Other, cheaper, brands of shorty headers may work too.

6) Use an aftermarket distributor with adjustable advance (& vacuum advance), or at least convert the points with a Pertronix kit. I'd start out with about 10-12 degrees initial timing, about 32-34 total, and a moderately quick curve, all in by 3400 rpm, and work from there.

7) Since the car is so heavy, I'd use one of the Comp Cams Extreme 4x4 grinds for low rpm torque; the 34-235-4 is a good compromise. Use a good '68-'71 timing set; the Ford Racing, Cloyes 9-3122, or Comp 3122 (same thing as the Cloyes but cheaper ) will all work fine. The cheap double rollers can sometimes be off quite a bit. Use the Comp springs & lifters; or take the easy route & get the whole Comp K-Kit which has everything. A little pricey though.

All this should be way under $2000 if you shop carefully. You can use the extra $$$$ to buy replacement back tires.

 

What he said ^^

Brad

 

Hey looking for suggestions. On my 460cid I have the D2VE heads with the 95cc chamber vs. the DOVE heads with 74-75cc chambers. If I were to change out the stock cam and replace it with a lager one or just a larger duration would this in turn also boost my compression and possibly retard the suspected detonation. I was just wondering because eldebroock also sells the 95cc heads matched with a larger cam then stock. Suggestions anyone?

 

I'll try to explain this without writing a book here. Maybe Brad or Scott J or someone else more expert will chime in.

Compression (static) is a function of the chamber type & size, the bore size, the piston "height" in relation to the chamber, the piston design, & several other things. The cam doesn't affect the static compression at all.

What a "bigger" cam can do is alter the dynamic compression; by holding the intake valve open longer, or by increasing overlap. This will tend to bleed off cylinder pressure (LOWERING compression) at lower rpm, which can help to reduce detonation when the static compression is too high for the octane level of the fuel. This is one of the reasons why a big cam has a "lopey" idle. A "big" cam won't increase static or dynamic compression at all. You could say that going from, say, a "huge" cam down to merely a "big" one or even a stock cam will "increase" dynamic compression. However, again, going from a stock cam to a "big" one won't increase compression at all.

Edelbrock (and others) offer the two chamber sizes to correspond to different piston types- dome, dish, or flattop. Typically the larger chamber is used with a dome or a flattop; the smaller with a dish or flattop. Depends on what compression you want to end up with and what parts you have. As a rule, you are somewhat better off with a dished piston and a small chamber, rather than a dome & a larger chamber. Both setups can work.

Detonation is caused by (in simple terms) the "fire" starting in two or more places in the combustion chamber. The two flame fronts collide and basically beat the crap out of the piston top. This will eventually burn the piston, collapse the top ring land, or any of a number of other things, none good.

Most cylinder head designs rely on "quench" to prevent this. Quench basically means that the fuel-air mixture is squeezed in a very narrow gap between a flat part of the piston top and a flat part of the head. This is usually opposite the spark plug. The mixture is squished towards the plug, preventing it from being lit until the proper time, and at only one place.

Quench is the reason why pistons are "dished" in the middle with a small flat band around the edge, or a partial dish/partial flattop, rather than just putting a flattop piston lower in the bore. An engine with low compression & no quench can still have detonation.

The D2VE head has virtually no quench area. About the only way to make them live is to pull a ton of timing out of the ignition curve, both initial and centrifugal. A bigger cam might help somewhat to bleed off cylinder pressure, but if your engine was rebuilt "stock", with the dished pistons, low compression height, and large chambers, you have compression somewhere between 7.5:1 & 8.5:1, at the most. You don't need less cylinder pressure, you need quench, and those heads just can't supply it. Nor can they be modified to give it. Pulling the timing out will just make it a dog, and a gas drinker.

The most telling point about these heads is that, after their one year, Ford returned to the early chamber design in the D3VE heads for 1973. They merely lifted the chamber about .100 farther into the head, making it deeper & larger. There are some subtle differences in the ports because of this, but the D3VE is pretty similar to the early heads in its design. The D2VE was just that bad.

So, the short answer is, no, a bigger cam won't help much, if at all.

Sorry about the book, or at least short story.

 

To add just a little to what homespun91 said. Normally aspired engines can not fill the cylinders to 100% of volume on the intake stroke 70-80% is about it. a Cam with more lift and duration leaves the intake valve open longer allowing a higher percentage of cylinder fill thus actually raising the dynamic compression. The lope in a cam at idle is from the fact that the exhaust and the intake valve are actually open at the same time (overlap) and the engine is losing some of its vaccum to the exhaust side. This is the reason big cams don't carry much if any vaccum at idle.

 

Filling the cylinders is what's referred to as volumetric efficiency. A normally aspirated engine can indeed fill the cylinders to 100% (or actually more, NASCAR engines are a great example of this), depending on the specific rpm you are measuring at, but it takes proper charge motion, optimum exhaust scavenging, & a few other things, which aren't generally found in a stock engine. In one sense, you could say these engines are "supercharged".

"Raising" the dynamic compression by going to a "bigger" cam depends entirely on the characteristics of the stock cam, whatever they may be, and the characteristics of the "bigger" cam, whatever it might be, and comparing the two. The intake opening & closing points affect this the most. As a rule most off-the-shelf cams are only a close approximation of what's "right" at best, depending on the rest of the engine. For the majority, the dynamic compression would be considered to be "lowered" from the static. Depends on what the static is too. Lots of variables here, but I was trying to simplify, probably not too well.

As far as the big cam vs. vacuum, the overlap does control this; if you look at a typical NHRA Pro Stock cam design, considered big by anybody's standards, they idle pretty well and are actually fairly driveable. The lobe separation is so wide, generally 114-118 degrees, that by definition there isn't (comparatively) much overlap. Most "big" cams have a narrower lobe separation & idle more poorly, especially if used in a smaller engine. A larger CI engine can tighten the LSA and still idle decently.

 

go with early model (1968-1972 i believe, correct me if im wrong) 429 heads and a bigger cam. i have a 460 in my truck and i just got some early 429 heads because the combustion chamber is smaller thus making higher compression, and an RV cam from speedpro with .484 valve lift and 268 duration (but of course you have a car and my truck is for off-road, so i dont know if i'd use that cam) and i got all kinds of power to EASILY turn my 40 inch tires. it takes off the line very quick

 

Thanks guys for the info. I found some DOVE heads running for $195 each that have been rebuilt to help out and i think i will opt for the edlebroock 750. As for the cam I found a Lunati with .524 lift and 272 duration part#316A2LUN good from idle-5500 rpm. If any one has a suggestion of a better cam use please advise and I will be out of everyones hair. Im just getting into the cam thing so i dont know much about them. I thought the 429 and 460 heads are alike but correct me if i am wrong. THANKS AGAIN!!!