Hey, I have a 1979 lincoln continental with a 400 in it. This summer I have decided that I will pick up a 429/460 from the junkyard and rebuild it for the car. When I was at the junkyard, I was able to find lots of mid 70's 460's, but the one thing that I really liked was a 429 with C9VE heads, which are nice heads with the high compression ratio. But the problem is that I want this car to be a daily drive with 87 of 89 pump gas but have good performance. I really am determined to get a 460, the engines cost $150 if i remember, and don't run, I am wondering if I should by a 429 for the heads and a 460 for the block. Also, if the compression ratio is to high, how can I lower it to an acceptable number?

 

D3 heads ported with bigger valves would be a better choice for what you want.

 

I am not sure if I want to use those heads because of the low compression ratio. Also, I have heard that C9VE and D0VE heads flow better with less money into them.

 

Is 10.5 compression ratio too high in a 460 to run 87 or 89 octane pump gas?

 

even with premium fuel (93 octane) 10:1 is pushing it. 9:1 is a better choice with premium fuel, you might be able to get away with low grade as long as you don't load down the engine and baby it. detonation does some wonderful damage to a motor after time.

the C9/DOVE heads and the D3 heads are basically pretty identical port designs and flow pretty close to the same numbers when ported. you might get a few more cfm out of the C9/D0 heads, but probably not enough to notice.

the nice thing about the older heads is that they have the screw in rocker studs so you can easily convert them to adjustable valvetrain by just getting new rocker studs, guide plates and rocker arms. the D3 heads you either have to machine and drill and tap the pedastal mounts to accept rocker studs or get a conversion kit to accept roller rockers. other than that and the different combustion chambers the two heads are nearly identical.

the nice thing about using the d3 heads is you have a lot more piston choices to get your compression to a more reasonable level. the C9/D0 heads require a bigger dish to get the compression to within reason.

you are not going to be able to run regular gas and 10:1 compression without causing a lot of damage to the motor.

also the only differnence between a 429 and 460 is the crank and pistons, so if you are going to rebuild, just get the 429 and get a 460 crank and pistons at time of rebuild. no sense in buying two blocks just for the crank.

rgds
Mike

 

The machine shop said that I would be able to drop a long duration camshaft and get hardened valve seats and I would be fine.