The 2 bolt main 427s were mainly used as industrial engines powering generators and irrigation pumps. They were very similar to the 300 hp engines used in the big yachts from Chris-Craft. They came with a double ported heat riser heads and iron 4V intakes, all had valve rotators on the exhaust and many had rotators on the intakes also. The 300 hp engines had dished pistons, about .100" deep, and were the choice for the low buck 428 strokers, The crankshafts were nodular iron on nearly all of them that I saw with forged steel being an option.
To use a reverse rotation crank in a standard rotation application the seal area was usually ground undrsize, welded and reground back to standard, then used without the siping or knurls found on the stock cranks. The cams had the drive gears for opposite rotation and could nor be used. The distributors only needed the correct rotation gear installed.
As many of the industrial engines supplied power to the driven device from the front of the engine the 391" forged steel crank from the HD trucks were used as they are a lot larger diameter than the automotive units. Micky Thompson and other top fuelers ran that forging as a better/stronger blower drive.

 

I noticed that link was broken

If you can find any information about him or those pics, post it here

thanks!

 

I notice that the OP mentioned that the vendor said the block was bored 40 thou over. I claim no knowledge of 427's that didn't come from reading about them, but one thing that stood out in all the information about 427's was that they could not be bored without sleeves.

Would that not indicate that it is not a true 427?

 

They do get thin but there are engines that I knew of running with .060 overbores, .030 was the acceptable max back in the day. Drag racers filled the blocks to stiffen the cylinder walls if they knew they were losing performance due to the walls bellying out.

 

It was my understanding that 0.030" was max for a 427, and that's why a lot of people use other lower over-bore pistons as they can work up to 0.030" from a number of other (probably non-Ford) choices.

Smokey Yunick says that when bores crack, they do it around the circumference, usually near the base of the bore. I can see that as I once made particualrly effervescent root beer in thin regular beer bottles, and it was the bottoms that all broke away.

 

That confusion about 427's needing sleeves may have to do with making a "regular" FE block into a 427. To go out to the bore needed to make a 427, you would need to sleeve the block.

 

I've known Smokey since 1961. he was a friend, a customer and a reliable source of information for many years. I have bought several engines and quite a few parts from him over the years, starting with Pontiac stuff. I also helped to inventory, arrange the sale and price the machine shop, Ford and Pontiac stuff that was left after he died. Smokey was a great guy, a true genius and innovator.
Smokey's knowledge of the 427 Ford engine was somewhat limited as he only got involved with them when Richard Petty came over to Ford. Ford was in the transition of switching all the NASCAR teams over to the Boss 429s from the 427 tunnel port engines, without a whole lot of success, I might add. Smokey helped to make the horsepower that was needed but didn't have enough time to make the Boss 428 reliable for a 500 mile race as Ford pretty much stopped all help to the racers about then. Smokey's engineering and mechanical talent made it possible for him to adapt to any engineering challenge. He was a great man and the world is poorer with him gone.

Back to the 427 engine bores. .030 was the max overbore according to Ford and even that could be risky due to core shifting during the casting process. That is one of the reasons all Ford NASCAR blocks were X-Ray and Sonic tested before being built for a race application.