Posts by Dan Case

  • Early 4v SBF intake . .aftermarket as well

    You are welcome. I just got back from the shop library. I looked through 1964-65 "speed" catalogs and magazine year books. Through 1964 and into 1965 Holman-Moody and Shelby American were the go to aftermarket 4V aluminum intake manifold Ford 260-289 engine sources.

    The 1965 Moon catalog, for example, has zero 4V intakes for 260-289 Fords. It lists the Edelbrock 2-4V cross ram and the 2-4V low rise copy of the COBRA 2-4V intake that was released mid September 1963 as the Stage II induction option for new Cobras.

    Ford was offering the iron 4V intake to 260-289 powered racers in early 1964 through Ford dealers. Shelby offered them also in a Stage I induction kit for a long time.

    The 1964 hot aftermarket induction systems in magazines, magazine year books, and carburetion books were 2-4V, 3-2V, all kinds of multiple 1V or 2V, 4-2V Weber carburetors (mostly Cobra systems for 260s and 289), mechanical fuel injection, or some version of super charging.

    Late 1965 onward, all kinds of things became possible.

  • Early 4v SBF intake . .aftermarket as well

    Holman-Moody (H-M) made aluminum 260 4V intakes by 1962 for their Ford Falcon European rally cars and marine engines. Functionally it looks like a dead ringer copy of one of the Ford Experimental High Performance 260 intakes. Designed for 260 engines Shelby American was using them and selling them over the counter for 260 and 289 engines in early 1963. Shelby advertised intakes and carburetors in magazines. Shelby offered the COBRA lettered low rise version of the H-M part as a option on new Cobras through summer 1964 and sold them over the counter for at least another year. They were listed in the May 31, 1965 parts book.

    The H-M pattern was changed a few times to make intakes for Shelby American (Cobras) and Rootes (Sunbeam Tigers). Circa summer of 1964 the first 289 high rise racing COBRA intake became available but few people bought them. Later in 1964 the GT350 and TIGER 289 high rise intakes came out, which were sold over the counter also. At some point the first version of Edelbrock F4B intake for 289s came out and the H-M / Shelby / TIGER intakes (two different ones) were dropped for Sunbeam Tiger owners.

    In their advertising Shelby American claimed to have been the first with high rise 4V intakes for 289s. 1964-1968 there was a lot of evolution and more than a dozen different versions before the last in 1968.

    Most of the high rise intakes were cast by Offenhauser but there is some evidence that at least one version was cast by Buddy Barksdale's company and another Ford itself (prototypes perhaps). Not all 4V high rise aluminum intakes (any brand) had equal performance on the dynomometer cell or race track but you probably wouldn't know the difference in a street car.

  • C6ZF F carburetor booster

    Carburetor cores are around but no one I have corresponded with wants to part them out anymore. A genuine core that was "worth" $250± in 2013 now might be "worth" low four figures territory. At $250± a core was worth more broken up into parts but that is no longer true.

  • WTB: Autolite 4100 "M" primary booster cluster

    Quote from rtate

    Hi I'm looking for boosters for my 65 carburetor with M and BA stampings , but I'm sure you already know that :D

    Let me know what you have please

    Thanks

    Robert

    Robert,

    From my response above,

    I have good used BA assembly available. I have already painted the correct color code paint daubs on it. I am thinking $30 plus postage.

    If you are interested in a couple of pictures, get your email address to me.

    If you are not interested another member is.

    Dan

  • WTB: Autolite 4100 "M" primary booster cluster

    No moving parts but tiny passages that can get restricted or completely blocked. If a rebuilding company took them apart there is no real way to be sure what emulsion tubes they put back or if the drilled passages without taking them apart again. I have also tossed some in the trash that somebody zinc plated and then dichromated as assemblies and closed passages a little to a lot with their plating operation. BA assemblies are common enough I discard any I have any doubts about.

  • WTB: Autolite 4100 "M" primary booster cluster

    Quote from rtate

    Hi I'm looking for boosters for my 65 carburetor with M and BA stampings , but I'm sure you already know that :D

    Let me know what you have please

    Thanks

    Robert

    M assemblies are very rare as loose part in any condition, I know multiple car owners, carburetor shops, and or car restorers always hunting for them. I myself have use of one for a friend's carburetor that was damaged by fire. Sorry no suggestion of finding one.

    BA assemblies are not all that rare as quite a few carburetor assemblies for years used them. Used and new old stock ones show up in eBay® listings regularly. Sellers usually price them like unobtainium.

    I have good used BA assembly available. I have already painted the correct color code paint daubs on it. I am thinking $30 plus postage.

    I did not find any CF or CH models are in the drawer.

    If you are interested in a couple of pictures, get your email address to me

  • Used C3OE Heads

    Some owners had their block decks milled. Some used Ford steel shim head gaskets. Some had the head decks milled. Some used custom “pop up” pistons. Some folks did these things in some kind of combination in the quest for more power.


    In Shelby American’s exhaustive testing and development they found that as static compression ratios (SCR) were raised above 11.6:1 in 289 engines durability suffered. They also preferred flat top pistons. Shelby developed Cobras and GT40s to be able to race 289 engines 35 hours or more between overhauls. That was good enough for world championships and Le Mans. People forget that actual SCRs can go up as the engine is used because of deposits on valves, piston tops, and combustion chambers. That was truer with the highly leaded fuels of the 1960s than it is today. People often don’t take into account actual cylinder combustion pressures that can vary a lot depending on all kinds of parts design factors that affect volumetric efficiency from air cleaner to exhaust tail pipe(s) plus ignition timing.


    What I don’t like is milled block decks. Ford only left a small amount of “deck height” for quench. It doesn’t take much milling to get it all with O.E. configuration pistons. The engine in our red car had all the stock deck height removed by milling in the 1960s. One of the reasons we had Arias Pistons make custom pistons for this engine was we kept the cylinder bores at 0.003” (three thousandths) over size and a another reason was the block decks had been milled so much.


    Potential buyers of the cylinder head assemblies offered should want to know what the combustion chamber sizes are. With that information they could determine what would be required to get whatever target SCR they have in mind.

  • 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.

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  • 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.