Posts by Dan Case

  • NOS C2OZ 6384 B Flywheel Ring Gear

    As a technical point, the original ring gear for 1963-1965 HP289 engines was the C2OZ-6384-A with 160 teeth. I cannot tell you about 1966 and later engines as I never did anything with them. Ford stopped using and selling them, the 160 tooth ring, as service items at some point in time.

  • Buddy Bar open letter valve covers

    Quote from bcrumpley

    Thanks Dan, your information is always appreciated. This photo is after a dip in the ultrasonic cleaner and vapor blasting, but you can see the scratches on the fins that will need to be removed as part of the polishing effort.

    Bobby

    To make them pretty just takes a little time mostly. Reworking them to look like Barksdale's company made them is a lot of trouble; ditto all the aluminum intakes they made or the intakes made by Offenhauser. 1963-64 made parts have evidence of many steps, multiple mill table set ups, and lots of hand work. The covers made for Cobras with 1964 model year engines were all made off a single wooden master pattern. Raw castings were cleaned up with hand files and machined to create oil fill tube and PCV valve versions. The insides were chemically polished to a slick surface. The outsides were media blasted to create a fine dull matt finish and then sealed by something. Raised appearance side features were polished. Oil fill tubes appear to have been hand made in a set of processes that cut pieces of preplated steel tubing to length and added the SAE type beads with something like a Parker® tool set. It appears some type hand tool was used to lock the oil tubes in place. Unmolested oil fill tubes have all the evidence of all the steps required to make and install them as artifacts.


    Circa January 1965 the whole manufacturing scheme was changed and many fewer steps were applied. Multiple new wooden patterns made to revised designs so that oil fill and PCV sides got their own castings meant less machine work was required on raw castings. Oil fill tubes were redesigned and became machine made it appears. The internal chemical polishing was dropped. The external matt texturing remained but to me the covers made 1965-66 were much more variable in appearance of the finish with some covers being quite bright fresh matt aluminum day one while others could be a medium gray color.

  • Buddy Bar open letter valve covers

    To the broader audience, be aware that many cover sand castings have lots of small gas bubble voids in the aluminum. Harsh solid media blasting can enlarge voids that were exposed during original manufacture and break open voids just under the surface. Once whatever raised features finishing is done these little pits can be anything between hardly noticeable to very noticeable depending on how many and how large the pits are. Polishing compound in the pits shows up as dark spots.

    Top restorers avoid making visible pitting worse than it was day one.

  • Buddy Bar open letter valve covers

    Bobby,

    To make them look something like they were the day made the exterior (less plated steel parts) would be given a very fine matt finish through carefully selected aluminum oxide media first.

    Then the just blasted surface would be sealed chemically. Some people use a modern corrosion inhibitor product to fill the pores in the metal; there are aqueous and non aqueous versions for sale.

    As manufactured type process.

    Then the tops of raised features would be machine buffed with something like a cotton buff and soft metal stick type polishing compound taking care not to push the buff down between raised features. Originally the tops of raised surfaces had as close as one might get to a mirror finish in a job shop production situation. All polishing would be lengthwise as much as possible.


    Remove any polishing compound residue. I just use WD40® lubricant and a soft cloth most of the time on polished parts.


    Hand polishing type process.

    I have repaired unrestored polished areas, usually tarnished by something like anti-freeze solution or battery acid, by hand slowly. 600 wet or dry paper wetted with soapy water or WD40 lengthwise of the part. Step wise repeat with finer grades each step to at least 2400 grit. Then your favorite magnesium or aluminum polish can be used with a thick rubber sanding block wrapped in fine weave cotton cloth or thin rough leather until the desired surface finish is obtained.

  • GT40 heads

    Quote from 67Kcode

    I know the history of the car from 1972 so im sure there 1960's,

    they are in good condition no cracks etc. The motor has the original 4100 carb,

    manifold and exhaust manifolds and cam so i wonder why someone put C6FE heads on? i mean their not to their full potential.

    Thanks Dan

    John

    Maybe they were cheap and seemed like a neat idea. I know somebody that bought an excellent used ex-factory race team set for $100 delivered circa 1980.


    Without full competition modification to go with them the C6FE heads might even be a step backward depending on the combustion chamber sizes. The chambers are larger than the chambers in stock heads as cast and can get larger during any reshaping and polishing work without milling the decks to reduce volumes. SA often used steel shim head gaskets or o-ringed decks with C6FE heads. The limit to them is still getting exhaust out.

  • GT40 heads

    Quote from 67Kcode

    Just started a full rebuild and found i have C6FE heads on my motor, just how rare are these?

    Original 1960s ones, pretty rare. 1960s ones that have never cracked and required repair, even rarer.

    Mid 1970s on reproductions, not all that rare and new made ones can still be obtained.

  • Cobra Intake and Holley 715 Carb Worth It?

    Quote from C6ZZKGT

    You will definitely receive differing opinions on this subject. Having done this same upgrade in the past, I did not experience any large gain. Keep in mind that another part of the upgrade on 65 and 66 Shelbys were the Tri-Y headers. I did not add those.

    -Fred-

    +1 Fred


    Some comments.

    - I will add to Fred's MUSTANG GT350 comments. The 1965 cars also used straight through very low restriction glass pack mufflers and for most states very short side out exhaust pipes for free exhaust flow.


    - Larger volume intake manifold and larger volume carburetor normally means a little more sluggish low end while pushing the engine's power band up to a higher rpm range. Shelby American assumed buyers were competition minded and assumed they would be running up to 6,500 rpm frequently.


    - For testing Shelby American had super premium, usually highly leaded, fuels that users could also get somewhere close to where they lived. Their highest numbers used in advertising were obtained using special leaded race fuel, no alternator, no air cleaner, dynamometer room headers, and BF603 (very cold) racing spark plugs. If your engine block decks or cylinder head decks have ever been milled the static compression ratio went up unless something was done with pistons or head gaskets to prevent the increase and higher pressures make fuel choice more important.


    - Shelby American normally, based on their engine test reports, used a total ignition advance of 36°. Some users now find that too high these days; goes back to fuels available. Every engine, exhaust, and vehicle system is different and so are driving requirements and styles so one setting may not suit everybody.


    - The Ford 4100-A carburetors are generally regarded, some will disagree, the best 4V carburetor ever produced. Being a smaller carburetor than the GT350 one the velocity of air and then air/fuel mix will be faster and that is a good situation all around especially in the low and mid range. How many times does one run 5,500 rpm and above these days and for how long?


    There are lots of pros and cons about going to an aftermarket larger volume induction system. The whole topic is way too long to cover in little text boxes in forums.

  • 4100 autolite for a 347 stroker

    Apparently an escapee from Ford development. My information table indicated they had two sized of throttle bores 1.23 and 1.19. Some speculate it was an attempt at the "spread bore" concept. I have never found any data on SAE corrected air flow. One was for sale on eBay(R) not all that long ago. It was not a production model. There was a 1.19 production model in the 1950s that was very rare then and super rare now. Some big block engine folks hunt for the 1.19 size models.

  • 4100 autolite for a 347 stroker

    Still depends on location (altitude mostly) and of course vehicle specifics and driving styles.

    We live at 5,400ish feet above sea level now. In addition to lower oxygen content the relative humidity is often very low (8 to 23% has been common this summer). A day's outing might cover altitudes between 3,500 feet and 8,700 feet above sea level. Our black car got a dealer installed COBRA 4V induction kit and linkage kit for a Cobra circa early 1968. I retuned it for this area when we moved here and it was very nice but not as crisp in throttle response and felt light on torque in the mid range here as compared to in Alabama. I cleaned up a C4OF-AL and prepared it for a Cobra at this altitude and got back to crisp drive away and instantly responsive low to mid range tip in again. The R-3259-1 Holley® was okay but even more "too large" at this altitude. Yes, I am sure ultimate power is down with a smaller carburetor but I don't drive around zipping up to 6,000 to 8,000 rpm any more. Now it is more important to me for the engine to be super smooth under a wide range of conditions and immediately responsive. (The Holley installed decades ago is being kept and may go back on if I get to where I cannot drive the car much anymore. I have already serviced it for a return to duty.)

  • Used Autolite BF32 Star Spark Plugs

    Depending what early means assembly line parts could have been three rib insulators early and five rib late.

  • Mystery Engine??

    Fred,

    I never kept up with all the race only cylinder small blocks Ford made after 1965 and there were quite a few before Ford quit factory racing after the 1970 season. Some were not such good ideas. Some were raw materials for independents to machine any way they wanted. Some like the 351 Mirage made one of the strangest engines I have ever seen in period.

    I have asked somebody that might know more from the poor description posted.

  • Buddy Bar open letter valve covers

    Quote from Ashep65k

    How would one determine witch one I have? All I know is they were open letter, have the “buddy bar” stamp and some knucklehead painted them orange…I can post a pic when I get home. I figured they were period correct for my 65 and authentic so I bought them to match the 3 Duce I’m installing on the car

    Every wooden master pattern resulted in unique castings, i.e. every wooden master was different in some ways a little or a lot. There was only one wooden pattern in 1963 and 1964 for 1964 engines. It gets more complicated in late 1964 as the first MUSTANG GT350s used parts from the aborted production of Cobras. During 1965 several new wooden masters were carved and from then on several versions of castings followed. Oil fill tubes changed multiple times also. The last part number created was introduced in May 1965.

    I have a large slide show I created that has details and pictures of all the 1963-1964 Cobra part versions and some details on the ones made 1965 and later. If you want a copy send me your email address in a message through this site. The current slide show has 29 pages of information and illustrations.

    Parts made in 1963-64 for 1964 engines are tough to find and sought by Cobra owners and restorers. I have hunted for a PCV side cover that was suitable for an unrestored 1964 car since 2004-2005. If one you have turned out to be a 1964 part and could be just gently cleaned of paint I would be interested in finding a 1965 replacement to make some kind of trade arrangement.