i am planning to swap my 400 with a 460 soon in my 78 f-250 camper special. and i know i want more power and im surely going to bore the 460 out between .040 to .060 over, and all the new stuff like msd ignition, new timing gear, new pistons, new cam and rollers and rods. but im really wondering if i bore it out .060 over can i still stroke it and not worry about blowing a cylinder wall? and if so what is the max i can stroke it to? and i have the money and know what they cost so thats no worry. thanks any help will be much appreciated.

 

First off I would suggest that you figure out what the Block code is. Is it a C8VE, C9VE, D0VE, D1VE, or a D9TE-XX. This will give you and idea what the Deck Height is, also what the cylinder wall depth is.

I'll leave it at that because there are guys that know a **** ton more about these motors, also look in the Ford 385 series motor forums, there is a bunch of info that has surfaced in there on that very subject matter.

 

ok thanks a lot i'll look into that. and im hoping and trying to find a 4 bolt main. and im wondering if i have to have that machined or is there some where i can find one out of a truck. i dont know the exact specs but i know they are high horsepower blocks. any help on that would be appreciated from anyone.

 

If you can find a block out of a 69 or 70 lincoln they are very thick. That is what i have in my race car .080 over with a 4.14 stroke. They are the strongest 460 stock block you will find. I still run 2 bolt mains with this block and 800 horsepower with no issues.

 

You'll be looking for a long time for a 4 bolt mains it doesn't exsist. But the cast has thicker mains web and can be drilled and tapped for a 4 bolt on the D0VE-A block, or you can just get a girdle setup to run.

 

ok thanks. but i have heard that 460's that come from cars have 4 valves and dont the truck 460's have 8 valves. so wouldnt that translate into less power? im not sure i have never worked on a 460 from a car.

 

I'm not sure what you mean about 4 or 8 valves but if you are building a stroker 460 you sure don't want to bother with the stock heads. That is where all your power is.

 

i was planning on replacing everything on the 460 and leaving almost nothing stock including the heads. im planning on putting high performance heads on, and i have heard about dove heads i dont know whats so great about them.

 

porting and polishing a set of dove heads will cost as much as a set of performer heads plus you can run a little higher compression with aluminum heads than you can with cast heads

 

ok thanks i think about that when im rebuilding my engine. and i was thinking about strokin git out 4.5 and boring it out .060 over and was does anyone know is there anything else besides the dove heads, stroker crank, and boring out to give me more power? i was thinking about a new cam and maybe putting in roller rockers.

 

for more power, i would go to comp cams for your cam, and check out Kasse semi-hemi heads. they are performance heads similar to those used on the legendary boss 429. kasse himself used those heads to make a 900+ horsepower, naturally aspirated, pump gas mustang. check out the either february or march (i dont remember which) issue of popular hotrodding to find out more.

 

Hmm..I wouldn't go more than .040 over as more than that tends to make the cylinder walls weak. Stock heads are fine with a little work, but if you want to go with the aluminum heads that would be fine also, just be careful when you torque them down. I think the stock heads don't allow for roller rockers, so if you want rollers just go for the aftermarket heads. Your truck is a camper special, are you going to use it as such to pull a lot of weight?? If you are, use some type of RV cam, I got one in my 460 and it also has the MSD ignition distributor, MSD coil, Edel. carb, Edel. intake, 9.7:1 compression, bored .040 over, and it still has stock heads and rockers, and it makes plenty of power. You could also think about port and polish, and mill the cylinder head deck down to give more compression.

 

This is actually false urban myth information, there is no significant thickness difference form year to year, foundry casting location or application of the 429/460 blocks, this was proven at a block summit done a few years ago (which I attended) we sonic tested 36 blocks in 1 day and many more have been done since that time. What was found was that in every year and casting number you will have some blocks that will go .080 over with no problems and some what .060 would be max (and some that shouldn't be bored at all, but those are actually fairly rare)

Here is some information on the block summit if you would like to read what was found about the blocks that dispelled those myths.

Ford 385 Series Block Summit

Actually a late model block is much better for building strokers due to the longer cylinder walls and thus better piston support at BDC, and they are just as strong, mine is a D9TE block with 2bolt mains, bored .060 with a 4.3 crank, A heads a roller cam and over 900hp going on 6yrs and still running just fine thank you.

basically if your going to bore it .030 your fine, actually you could go .060 with never a worry any further and I would suggest a sonic test, as usually 1 cylinder actually ends up pretty thin although for some reason the 460 blocks seem to be able to run thinner then I have seen other engines live which is why guys have gotten away with boring factory blocks .140 over (my block actually could go that big if you sleeved 2 cylinders the rest where thick enough)
Big thing to remember on choosing how much to bore is piston selection, .030 and .080 are very common off the shelf pistons and rings for both stock stroke and a large variety of stroker crank/rod combination. The .040 and .060 can be had but are many times a custom order piston.

 

.140 over......thats crazy, But I like it, he he he

 

actually will probably end up boring my new block .140 over.... Of coarse it's not exactly a standard passenger car block LOL.

That is if I can get past boring a brand new block that much (it's actually under 4.360 now) But at .140 that is 4.5, combined with a 4.5 crank it makes 572 (or if I really don't care if this block ever gets rebuilt I can go to 4.6 and make a 598)