Posts by Dan Case

  • 1963 HiPo heads

    You are welcome.


    Stock street Cobras used stock Ford assembled engines except for ancillaries suited to Cobras. That includes both “1963” style stock head assemblies for most of Cobra production. Long ago I started a list of what small details went into preparing a stock Ford engine for a Cobra. All my notes fit on a single note card. As other engine questions arose that file grew to cover all the street and most race variants. The current notes fill 101 pages.


    Cobra race engines were for the most part blueprinted stock engines. For the 1963 season even the stock HP289 camshaft was used even with 4-2V Weber 48 IDM carburetors. Stock pistons were used all the way into 1967 but in some cases required having valve relief pocket sizes increased.


    “1963” HP289 heads in GT40s, probably but I have no proof. The Lola GT Ford bought and morphed into the GT40 started with High Performance 260 engines.


    “1963” HP289 heads in production Tigers, street no, race maybe. Street Sunbeam Tigers used Ford 260 Industrial Engines (Ford sold automotive, marine, and industrial versions of 260 2V engines.) “Tiger” 260s have differences from a “Fairlane” 260 including cylinder blocks I am told. Rootes Group (maker of Tigers before Chrysler bought the brand) bought a few HP289 engines from Shelby American but no one I know seems to know exactly what they were. A friend owns and races one of the factory Le Mans Tigers and he sent me a picture he found of a HP289 being prepared to go into a race Tiger by Rootes. It looked like a pretty stock engine on the outside. None of the HP289s in Tigers survived the Le Mans race I am told.


    Early GT40s were all show cars or racers as far as I know. The pure street cars were not made until 1966 I think.


    First production 1963 HP289 Fairlane? I have no idea. That would be a question for the Fairlane Club of America forum.

  • 1963 HiPo heads

    This site has lots of coverage of 1965-67 HP289s. In general , to me, 1965-67 model year engines are not nearly as complicated to understand as 1963-64 models. In my Cobra engine notes (currently 101 pages in length) I call March 1963-June 1963 engines 1963½ model year engines as they were released pass the middle of Ford’s 1963 model year. 1964 model year engine date from August 1963 through early July 1964. There was also a 48 piece assembly run in August 1964 for new five bolt engines for Cobras that did not yet have engines when five bolt production stopped. Plus Ford assembled a few five bolt HP289 engines as required for service at least into 1971.


    1963½ wise there are engine assemblies March through mid April and revised assemblies from then through June 1963. The changes one can spot in road test pictures or new car pictures owners took are changes in carburetors and ignition distributors used.


    1964 a few changes were made around mid February 1964 and another group mid April 1964. The “1964” cylinder heads were cast in March 1964 and introduced into engines in April. Manual choke carburetors were introduced in April for manual and automatic transmissions. (A very rare end of the 1964 model year Fairlane High Performance 289 and High Performance C4 automatic transmission option package came out by May with its own manual choke HP289 carburetor assembly.)


    1963-64: Drilling down to things like changes in crankcase ventilation system designs and revisions in designs over time it is tough to buy one part as a time and build up an engineering number correct date appropriate complete engine. Some parts were dropped from service before “their” model year was over and replaced with something else. At least one engine plant part was never sold as a service part.


    I highly recommend buying a digital copy of Bob Mannel’s book. Having a copy loaded on your home computer has the answers to countless questions at your ready.

  • 1963 HiPo heads

    You are welcome.

    Street car, no.

    Shelby American race engine, slight maybe.


    Shelby American, Inc. contracted with three different cylinder head modification specialist companies. I suspect that the volume of work was too much for just one shop to handle. Each shop stamped heads with their own identification. Just because one finds a matched pair of heads with custom shop stamps doesn’t mean that Shelby American installed those assemblies into a race engine. It doesn’t mean they were ever Shelby in any way as several mail order companies also used these shops and of course some people could just take their car’s cylinder heads in person to one of these three shops for modification.

    Once “race” sets of heads were in stock at Shelby American they might be sold:

    • As a racing cylinder head kit to a retail customer or to a private racer or race team.
    • Assembled into a race engine and sold to a wholesaler or customer. Some mail order ‘speed parts’ businesses sold “Shelby” street and race goodies through at least 1971.
    • A set was assembled into Shelby Race Team racing engine. In that case heads were given serial numbers to go along with the race engine that they were fit to.


    The only semi-traceable sets were under category 3. To have any confidence in a set was “factory race” you must know complete ownership history from new.

  • 1963 HiPo heads

    Regular production of parts, mid February 1963.

    Ford had preproduction engines in vehicles going through testing by September 1962. Parts and subassemblies unique to HP289 engines started being mass produced mid February 1963. Regular production of engine assemblies started the first work day of March 1963.

    1963-64 HP289s were used in Fairlanes, Cobras, GT40s, anything Shelby, Genie sports racers, Holman-Moody racers, and several other new cars street and race on both sides of the Atlantic ocean.

    From memory, Ford made and shipped about 400 engines a month March 1963 through around June 1964. The highest serial numbers I have listed was in a batch of late Cobras in the 646x range with 6469 being the highest five bolt serial number I have recorded to date.

    A lot of the early engines were raced to destruction and or parted out. Finding a loose block with a serial number and assembly date before about April 12, 1963 is tough. Finding anything dated in any way before mid March 1963 is tough. Mid March 1963 onward there are generally enough loose parts around to build up a date correct engine except maybe a fuel pump. June 1963 parts are rare as production slowed for the summer break. August 1963 onward parts are not super rare except fuel pumps.

    I don't remember the time of change from C3OE-E head castings to C3OE-F castings but "1963" heads were used March 1963 through part of April 1964.

  • Seriously Looking to buy a 1965 289 block std bore must be in very nice cond..

    Ford's change from five bolt bell housing blocks to six bolt design had nothing to do with block strength. Shelby ran five bolt engines in racing Cobras and early GT40s that could be used flat out road racing for up to 35 to 40 hours between rebuilds. Le Mans was a real engine proving ground.

    The change to six bolt came about because some trucks out side of the USA needed a larger diameter clutch than you could fit behind a five bolt block. People think North America when they think of Ford engines but Ford was using or selling engines to multiple countries and continents for all kinds of vehicles. Not long ago I found a new old stock fuel pump for a 1962 Fairlane with a 260 2V engine for sale by a parts store in Europe.

    There were "factory" forged steel 289 crankshafts and even some four bolt main 289 blocks by 1965. The "GT40" heads carrying C6FE prefix came out in 1965. These were all parts for Shelby American to use and were not available to the typical retail customer. There is a Cobra for sale right now that got a four bolt main steel crank race engine through noted Cobra racer Don Roberts decades ago. Ford even made a few single over head cam high performance engines. What street cars used and what Shelby American could get were often much different.


    HP289s blueprinted to Ford-Shelby specifications, five or six bolt, were/are pretty durable except for the stock cast pistons which would suffer cracked skirts.

  • NOS C3OZ-7563-A Heavy Duty Pressure Plate

    https://www.ebay.com/itm/COBRA-Shel…353.m2749.l2649

    "COBRA Shelby Ford clutch original for 260 & 289 small block cobra .

    As found in old FORD / Cobra Shelby inventory. Original box with trademark Shelby America COBRA head symbol. This one of last two pieces we have left from this inventory stock."


    I purchased this item for $300 as the only bidder. It is stock for early High Performance 289 engines. Ford offered a "Class VA COBRA KIT" under number C3OZ-7A537-A that included this pressure plate and a matching clutch disc. Each part was in its own box and each box had a COBRA sticker attached. Like other COBRA KIT offerings individual packages inside a large 'kit' package did not have any kind of Ford part description, part number, or engineering number markings. I recognized it as an assembly line "bronze" color code and "green spring" color code assembly line part. Our black Cobra is still using the exact one Ford installed in February 1964. Remanufactured assemblies loose their assembly line identification color codes. If the assembly had been sold by Ford over the counter it would have been in a box that identified the contents.

    P plate.jpg

  • Hipo Carburetor Booster

    Quote from C6ZZKGT

    Here is an Ebay auction for a used secondary carburetor booster by Ebay member "toddlutz" with a starting bid of $129.99:

    This is the correct booster for a 1963 - 1967 289 HIgh Performance V8 that was optional for Mustangs and Fairlane.

    https://www.ebay.com/itm/1965-1966-…04AAOSwkeFerkGt

    I take exception to his claim for 1963-64 HP289 assembly line carburetors. C3OF-AB 1963½ for production and C3OF-AJ 1963½-1964 for production used a "B" secondary support. Bob Mannel's book lists a "BA" as a 1964 service replacement for C3OF-AJ model carburetors. I think the newest unrestored core C3OF-AJ I have been into was made in January 1964 and it still had (still has) a B secondary support.

    "BA" supports were used in C4, C5, and C6 prefix assembly line carburetors. The price point in this auction would be high for a new old stock support. BA supports are not rare as multiple carburetor assemblies used them over about a ten year production span. You might find a $75 carburetor core with a great BA support as part of the deal. They are common enough that I have tossed rough ones in the trash in the last few months.

  • Hunting A Ford 4100 Carburetor Part Color Code

    Color Code Information Wanted

    Ford 2100/4100 Carburetor “Support” (a.k.a. booster, cluster) Color Codes


    Mid 1960s support assemblies were marked with either one or two daubs of colored paint. Some of the late 1950s parts were partially dipped in dyes of different colors. The tubular passages from their tower like main bodies out to auxiliary venturi were targets for color code daubs. Each color they had could be used alone of in combinations with itself or other colors. The example below is the secondary “B” support in a new old stock C3OF-AJ model for most 1963½ HP289 Fairlane engines. The B supports received a single red daub on what would be the driver’s side tube of the car the carburetor was used in.

    pasted-from-clipboard.png

    The “BA” support used in C4OF-AL carburetor assemblies received a red daub on both tubes. There were all kinds of colors and combinations; i.e. yellow on one side and black on the other. The one I can find no data on is the “M” support used in C4OF-AL carburetors. So far I have not found anybody that knows how they were marked. While the daubs on secondary supports often last until somebody solvent cleans the assembly the daubs on primary clusters usually got washed off pretty quickly, probably by fuel mist during choke operation.


    My question to the community is, does anybody have color pictures of a new old stock M support or have a used part with traces of paint remaining? I sure would like the information to complete my spread sheet on color codes on C4OF-AL, C4OF-AT, and early C5OF-L carburetors for 1964½-65 HP289 engines.


    Thanks for looking.

    Dan

  • WTB Selected Ford 4100 Carb. Parts

  • Used FoMoCo Weber Intake Manifold

    Quote from C6ZZKGT

    The most unusual one of these that I have seen is the Cougar one that a friend of mine bought many years ago. I have seen these Weber manifolds indexed both directions for the carburetors which changes the accelerator linkage setup. I knew a guy in the San Francisco area who had a cross ram? Weber manifold on the Honey West Cobra back in the 70's.

    -Fred-


    L-M offered COUGAR lettered aluminum engine goodies and they are all extremely rare now. If you know how many different items had COBRA lettering for the 1967 model year you know how many COUGAR lettered items there were. I have seen only one COUGAR 4-2V Weber carburetors intake for sale ever.

    The "cross ram" side draft systems were something Dean Moon's companies sold. Shelby American tested a XHP-260 engine with a side draft system and the system was deemed too complicated and too little benefit. Ford had been working on 48 mm and 58 mm down draft systems for a couple of years by that time and Cobras went 48 mm down draft style systems.

  • Used FoMoCo Weber Intake Manifold

  • WTB Selected Ford 4100 Carb. Parts

    Wanted To Buy Ford 4100 Series Carburetor Parts

    2 each narrow angle idle mixture needle valve screws
    [Blocked Image: http://www.clubcobra.com/photopost/data…mall_needle.jpg]

    4 each 4 loop coil springs that go with the narrow angle idle mixture screws above (4 loop springs are rare, most 2100/4100 carburetors use 4½ loop springs)


    2 each manual choke fast idle adjustment levers (different part than automatic choke applications) and long fast idle adjustment screws (different part than automatic choke applications)

    [Blocked Image: http://www.clubcobra.com/photopost/data…_and_Boss_2.jpg]
    http://www.clubcobra.com/photopost/showphoto.php/photo/89634


    2 each fast idle cam distance pieces, plated steel version (looks like an odd thick flat washer)

    [Blocked Image: http://www.clubcobra.com/photopost/data…st_Idle_Cam.jpg]

    Thanks for looking.
    Dan

  • NOS C3OZ 8592 A Thermostat Housing

    [quote pid='1569' dateline='1572793731']

    Quote from C6ZZKGT


    Here is an Ebay auction for an NOS C3OZ 8592 A thermostat housing by Ebay member "cobranda" with a Buy-It-Now of $150.00:


    https://www.ebay.com/itm/1964-1-2-6…3IAAOSwlc9db7Ro

    -Fred-

    Please use caution with the sellers description as this housing only fits up to a time in 1965. This housing is for intake manifolds with a pocket in the manifold for the thermostat. If you try to use this housing with a thermostat on later manifolds without the thermostat pocket, you will break this housing.

    -Fred-


    It is actually a new old replacement stock (NORS) part made after 1978. Ford Motor Company owned and operated an aluminum foundry in Sheffield Alabama for decades making die cast aluminum pieces. Raw castings were shipped from the casting plant to other facilities for final machining and or assembly as required. After the plant in north Alabama plant closed, production was moved elsewhere. As molds wore the castings got increasingly poor in appearance. The solution was to tumble them with media to give them a texture like the part in this auction.

    Dan

    [/quote]

  • Used COBRA Dual Quad Intake Manifold

    The unfortunate thing is that the intake manifolds are not rare and are just about the lowest cost piece if you are trying to buy one part at a time to assembly a production Cobra or Ford accessory (there were many differences in parts for new Cobras versus over the counter kits) system. To come up with every single piece for a Cobra can be more costly that a genuine 1964-65 4-2V Weber carburetor system from the same time frame. Got a Fairlane, they required a special throttle linkage kit from Ford for this system. I have not seen one since 1980 when I sold the new old stock kit I once had. The standard Ford accessory parts are not easy either. Sooner or later most people trying to go "original" resort to hand making parts themselves or having somebody else do so based on pictures of Day 1 installations. In the case of a 1964-65 Cobra if somebody gives you an intake you still might have several thousand to maybe ten thousand dollars or more and lots of time before getting to the end of that journey.

    Dan

    PS The drawings for the intakes and Cobra installations were not done until late 1963. The production carburetors for Cobras are normally dated December 1963 or early 1964. Got Chrysler carburetors dated 1961-62, sorry too early for anything Cobra or Ford. Ford accessory system carburetors you might find can be dated between 1964 and 1967. Many were dated in 1965.

  • Engine ModifiKation

    Regarding C6FE cylinder head castings, in no particular order.


    Original 1960s castings are not as rare as you might think as Ford made many of them in at least two different versions of casting patterns. Assemblies wise out of the box from Ford and as contractors prepared them for Shelby American they were quite different. The other original race parts for either Group II sedans or GT40s engines are extremely rare in excellent condition.


    Cylinder head matched assemblies prepared by Mondello, Valley, and maybe Rogers for Shelby American in serial numbered matched sets that are still in very good to excellent condition are pretty rare.


    When vintage racing went from a few owners riding around on a pretty day to people running like a national championship was at stake in the late 1970s early 1980s lots of reproduction castings were made for the vintage racers. I talked to a man that advertised them in Hemmings Motor News® back then and he said he had PALLET LOADS of raw castings ready to machined and finished any way buyers wanted. Since then I believe somebody else has made reproductions. (That set of situations made me lose interest in any not traceable back to Ford or Shelby American.) In the early 1980s parts dealers wanted between $3,500 and $6,500 for a pair of new old stock assemblies as Ford sold them. If you wanted to get them fully race prepared you had to do so on your own. When the vintage race replicas hit the market new old stock pair 'value' dropped to not much more than a pair of new old stock HP289 heads. Good used pairs of C6FE head might have been found for less that $800.


    I cannot speak about all 1967 Group II Mustang or Cougars or later GT40 MKIs but at least some don’t want 1960s cylinder heads.


    One of the three Shelby numbered pairs I have purchased or traded for were from a GT40 race coupe owner that wanted a certain pair of modern aftermarket aluminum heads and $600 in trade. That was for Shelby set serial number 5. Joe Mondello’s shop prepared them for Shelby American new and Joe refreshed them for me in 2002. In our hour plus long discussion about my plans for them and how they were to be refreshed Mr. Mondello agreed that hardened exhaust seat inserts should be installed so he did so. We are using them in our red car.


    The typical want advertisements I see posted have been from people racing something in the UK or Europe.


    Us, Dan and Martha, we are using set serial 5 ex-GT40 in our red car. I have not damaged a 289 cylinder head ever even playing at 8,500 rpm in SFM5S142 so I am not concerned.


    PS To get the benefit of full race C6FE heads induction and exhaust systems are required to suit. Some of the Shelby Team heads have seriously enlarged exhaust ports that just any header won't match up to them.

  • Engine ModifiKation

    Regarding exhaust valve seat recession in cast iron cylinder heads, my 2 cents.

    Driven lightly to moderately most of the time I have never heard of any issues with iron cylinder heads and stock Ford valves. Some owners used lead free premium fuel in the 1960s and 1970s, I did from time to time but not exclusively. In period the common wisdom was use some leaded premium occasionally with unleaded fuel most of the time. Lead level content for preignition suppression and lead level content enough to protect the exhaust valves were different subjects. Said another way, you didn’t have to have so much lead in the system so as to produce chalk white insides of tail pipes to protect the valve train.

    Driven at 4,500 rpm and higher revolutions a minute for prolonged periods can under some circumstances cause dramatic recession with stock Ford valves in stock heads. This situation comes up in original Cobras during some long distance tours (750 to 1,300 miles in four days) with 3.77:1 differential gears and rear tires anywhere close to the O.E.M. tire diameter on 25.5 inches for most Cobras. 1965 GT350s with 3.89:1 gears also turn pretty fast on tours and during track days.
    In our red car, depending on exact rear tire diameter in use,

    90 mph is around 4,500 rpm± depending on tires used

    120 mph is around 6,000 rpm±

    132 mph is around 6,500 rpm±

    Engine heat wise five minutes at 6,000 rpm and above is a long time and I have done 30 minutes at a time hitting 8,000 rpm on the straights in open track events.

    We have participate in quite I think eight (8) long tours and there is almost always some spirited driving between 4,500 and 6,500 rpm for more than just short sprints. One of the owners we have toured with participated with have a very near stock engine developed progressively deteriorating performance during one of the western long distance high road speed events. By the end of the event the car would barely run. Upon inspection all the exhaust valve seats deeply recessed. The cylinder head castings and exhaust valves were both damaged.

    I am told by very experienced long term owners that using any brand or alloy of stainless steel or titanium exhaust valves is a solution to the problem. Having hardened exhaust seats installed will solve the problem even with stock 1960s Ford valves.

    We have a car with the valve train Ford installed in February 1964 except for lifters which I replaced at circa 50,000 miles. We use a lead substitute additive in it and have no fear of running it hard as long as I like. Sounds really great above 5,000 rpm. Our other car has modern stainless steel valves and hardened seats. We do not use lead substitute with it and I have no fear of running it as hard and long as I wish. We use to own 1965 MUSTANG GT350. I modified that engine internally including hardened seats and stainless steel valves. I often ran it 6,000 rpm and up on jaunts between towns and up to 8,500 rpm during play for miles at a time. Hardened seats and stainless steel valves were zero problem.

    Summary, from my prospective, with unleaded non-ethanol fuels.

    Engines to be used lightly with occasional short moderate sprints can probably go decades just fine in as built specifications.

    Engines to be used for extended periods of time under high loads and high revolutions per minute probably should be modified. Why risk degradation. (In 2016 we had the engine for a friend's car rebuilt. My friend will probably never run the car very hard or long at one time. I had hardened seats and nice stainless steel valves installed not for my friend but the future of the car. Maybe not in more standard Mustangs but in Cobras, 427 Cobras, and GT350s it is not all that rare for somebody to spend an awful lot for a show quality car and then have it suffer serious engine failure very soon after purchase. Several day tours or open track events find the weak links.)

    Engines with now very rare 1966-65 Shelby American racing cylinder head assemblies, why risk an issue. (You might just roll in and out of a trailer or go to the cars and coffee but the next owner might take the car to a race track or even SAAC convention open track event.)

    Engines with now ultra rare C6FE GT40/Group II cylinder heads from Ford or Shelby, why risk it. (Ditto, maybe not you but a subsequent owner might run the engine hard.)

    Dan