Chapter 7
Building the Engine

by Ryan King
1/08

When I finally got to the engine, I really felt like things were going well. I’d successfully rebuilt the transmission and was ready to tackle the next step.

Since I’d never assembled a shortblock before, this was my first complete engine build. I had my work cut out for me.

To start, I had to get the stroker rotating assembly I planned to use, from Coast High Performance, so the machine shop could balance it and machine the block.

Looking back, were I to get a rotating assembly again, having the perspective and experience I have now, I would have spent a little extra and gone with a longer rod kit from DSS Racing for a number of reasons. First, I wasn’t impressed with the quality of the pistons. The machine work on the pistons left slivers of aluminum still attached to them. They also didn’t bother to machine the valve reliefs, leaving them raw forgings that were of different volumes from piston to piston. The shape of the dish – which I requested a custom 16cc volume to produce a 9:1 compression ratio – wasn’t optimized for any kind of swirl, which hurts torque, horsepower, emissions and fuel economy. The kit was also supposed to be supplied with Clevite 77 tri-metal bearings and wasn’t. Instead, it was supplied with a generic tri-metal bearing that had a problem with the tolerance of the thrust-bearing surface.

More on the problem with the thrust bearing later, I had other problems to attend to first – namely, getting the machine work and balancing done.

I had what I thought was a simple list of needs for the engine:

• Clean up the block

• Square up the block; align honing mains and truing the deck

• Machine the deck so that the pistons were flush at TDC

• Torque-plate hone the cylinders

• Install new cam bearings

• Clearance the block for the stroker rotating assembly

• Balance the rotating assembly

As difficult as it was to get the first six points done, it was the last that was the most difficult and one of the two problems that ultimately doomed this engine.

After nearly two months of waiting for the machinists to finish machining the engine and balancing the rotating assembly, I finally got everything back. The crank, flywheel and pressure plate looked like Swiss cheese. The crank was also welded repeatedly to fill in poorly chosen weight relief holes. I wasn’t happy with that, but at the time, I didn’t understand the real problems with what had been. First, the flywheel and pressure plate shouldn’t have been drilled as it weakened them and could have potentially caused them to shatter in the right circumstances. That, of course, poses a serious danger to the driver and passenger in the vehicle as the flying debris has enough energy to sever limbs.

Thankfully, I had the foresight to choose a billet steel flywheel to help prevent that kind of problem. Looking back, I just wish its integrity hadn’t been compromised. Nothing happened, so I, and all my passengers still have their body parts attached.

The crank, while it didn’t pose an immediate danger, did have all sorts of poorly finished relief holes left after the balancing. Those poorly finished holes were a bunch of stress risers and while they didn’t directly impact the load bearing areas of the crank, they did potentially invite cracks which could cause it to break under severe loads, such as, say, high RPM and boost…which was where I was planning to head with this engine. Like the flywheel and pressure plate, I didn’t understand those issues the way I do now, and won’t except that kind of work any more.

With the balanced rotating assembly and the freshly machined block in my possession I was able to get started with assembly.

After a careful inspection of each main journal for burs and proper edge chamfers, I checked bearing fit. Tang depth was good and crush height (indicated by distance of seated bearing ends above the caps and journals) was right on the money. Since I didn’t have a telescoping micrometer or a bore gauge, I used the tried and pretty-true plastigage method to check the journal clearances. Those seemed as close to exact as one get with plastigage and I moved on to checking the end play.

Remember when I mentioned a problem with the thrust bearing? This is where I ran into that problem. Crankshaft end play was too tight and I had to sand down the thrust bearing to get it into spec. While I’m aware this is an adjustment that needs to be done from time-to-time, this went to the extreme. So extreme, in fact, that I sanded down past the babbit coating into the laminated copper layer on both thrust surfaces…and it still wasn’t providing enough end play.

This is when I opted to pick up a set of higher quality Clevite bearings. Boy was I much happier. Everything fit perfectly this time without so much as a nudge of adjustment necessary.

I installed the mains and crank using ARP studs designed for a windage tray. Looking back over Chapter 5: The Plan, I realized I had forgotten to mention my desire to free up some extra ponies with a MAC Performance windage tray – more on that later.

After I finished assembling the mains, I moved on to fitting the pistons on the rods and the piston, and rod assemblies into the engine. There was some more drama involved in both procedures.

At first, everything seemed to go together all right. That was, until I had to remove a piston from a rod for a reason I don’t remember. Because these were floating pistons the piston pins had to be held in with lock rings. The lock rings used in these pistons were dependable yet disposable spiral locks which are difficult if not impossible to remove without destroying them.

That lost me an entire week waiting for the two replacement locks I would need (two to a side – I only needed to remove one side to get the pin out). I thought it would be easy to get replacement locks, but when I called CHP, their support person didn’t want to send them to me for some unknown reason even though I was willing to pay for them. They eventually arrived a week later – free of charge – and I was able to finish assembling the pistons.

Moving onto installing the rod assemblies, I ran into another problem when I broke one of the piston ring. That prompted another call to CHP, which meant talking to the same person who was averse to helping me before. This time he wouldn’t budge and told me that they only sold rings in sets, and that if I wanted another ring, I’d have to buy a set from them.

With that avenue closed to me, I went directly to the manufacturer, Childs and Albert. I’m glad I specifically asked for their Dura-Moly rings when I ordered my kit because Childs and Albert’s customer service was a dream to work with. I told them I broke a compression ring during installation and asked if I could order just one ring. They said it wasn’t necessary, they would just send me one…for free.

In a couple of days I was on my way to finishing the engine…right up until I dug a rod corner into one of the rod journals, putting both a nick and a matching bulge into it. At this point, I was nearly devastated. All this work and struggle just to damage the crank and have to pull it apart, and possibly replace it, and the balance-matched (read: custom drilled) flywheel, and pressure plate.

Before I jumped to any conclusions, however, I spoke with my friend and mentor, Jack – who was helping me through the process of building the engine – and found out that some careful sanding with 2000 grit sandpaper on a wood block would fix the problem. After a couple of hours of sanding I had flattened the bulge and the small nick that was left behind would just hold a little oil so I ended up skirting around disassembling my work and replacing the crank, flywheel, and pressure plate.

Next up was fitting the windage tray to the main caps – a task that would end up not working out. I followed the instructions that came with the windage tray to a “T,” but I couldn’t get the correct clearance between the scraper and the rotating assembly. I tried massaging it with a hammer, but that lead to breaking the scraper free from the windage tray. I had to have it reattached, which is when I tried to get a different perspective on my problem. It was then that I discovered that the nuts on the ARP studs were taller than the heads of the bolts that came with the windage tray, thus making it impossible to get the correct clearance. Rather than continue to fight with it – which looking back on it, would have required some notching, fabricating and welding on the windage tray to work – I kaboshed the idea and just moved on to assembling the rest of the engine.

Other than the SNAFU with the windage tray, everything had been going according to plan (kinda…more later) right up until the cam – again I chose to go a different direction. Why? That’s a good question and I have an equally good answer.

After I planned the engine, I did some research by calling Crane who sells the 2040 grind (exactly the same as the E303 which Crane designed with Ford Racing and grinds for them as well). I asked the tech what he thought of my choice of using the E303/2040 and he explained to me that in testing, that grind worked well with the 302 but had some quirks in the 347 – namely that its power band had light switch characteristics. He said that in the 347, it was dead below 4000 and would then come on strong to 5500 and fall off again. With that info, I decided not to use the E303 and asked what cam he’d recommend with my engine combination. He explained that in a 347 application, the 2031 had the power output of the 2040 but with a much wider curve. Since I had little experience to draw from, I took what I hoped was the safe bet and bought a 2031 cam kit which includes the cam, springs, retainers and two different sets of locks to install the springs on standard GT-40 heads like those installed on the ’93-’95 Cobra. Incidentally, the cam and kit were designed as a performance replacement for the Cobra engines.

Once I got the cam installed I moved on to the cylinder heads. I had every intention of following the rest of my plan and had gone so far as to buy a pair of GT-40Y heads, but I ran into some financial difficulties before I had even gotten the shortblock back from the machine shop.

While the block and rotating assembly were at the machinist, I discovered I was running out of funds and I had not only the engine to finish, but the rest of the car.

At the time, the only way I could see getting this car on the road in any foreseeable time frame was to rethink my plan.

I decided that setting the bar for my goals lower as well as returning the parts I’d accumulated for those goals would be a requirement. I also needed to find another direction to take with the car so that I would have it back on the road, since that was the most important part of this project for me.

After some considerable deliberation, the new plan looked like this:

• All suspension, brake, wheel and tire plans pushed off until the next stage

• All top end engine and rear end plans also moved forward to the next stage

What I needed to complete my plan was:

• A set of rebuilt heads (I figured they’d be the cheapest solution and would work with the valvetrain components I’d accumulated thus far, including the springs, retainers and locks that came with the cam kit)

• A set of headers that would do a better job with the larger engine and exhaust I’d already installed

• A Ford Racing MAF conversion system so that the stroker engine would work in the ’87 chassis

• Some cleaning and detailing of the old engine parts so they would look a little nicer

After I returned the components I’d purchased for the previous plan, I looked around for a place to rebuild the stock ’87 heads. To my disappointment – and possibly my advantage – I found that the cost was either prohibitive or the shops were too busy.

I needed a new solution.

The solution came in the form of the newly available GT-40P heads from Ford Racing. They were relatively inexpensive compared to their aluminum counterparts and immediately available. They would also work with the components from the cam kit. The only drawback wasn’t all that bad for me in this situation, that being the requirement for special headers to fit them in the ’87 chassis. Ford Racing had those as well. It all seemed to be working out fortuitously.

A new set of hardware later and the heads were on the engine.

My experience with the valvetrain wasn’t so easy. That became a fiasco due to my lack of knowledge and experience with set up and geometry.

My biggest problem was that I was unaware the cam was designed for longer-than-stock 6.318” pushrods. The fact that wear on some of the rocker arms (I was using the original stamped steel 1.6:1 rockers instead of the Cobra 1.7:1 rollers the cam was designed for) played havoc with the consistency of the required rod length from valve-to-valve didn’t help either.

My second problem was my lack of experience, which lead to two problems. First, I didn’t think to call and ask a Crane tech if they had a ready-made solution to my problem. Second, instead of ordering a pushrod length-checking tool and testing the required length for each valve, I used the trial and error method, which meant tightening down the rocker arms with the stock pushrods, figuring out the needed length by the approximate number of turns (of the rocker bolt) outside of spec (1/4-1/2) the lifter plunger depression was, followed by guessing how much length to add to the stock spec (6.258”). Over a couple of weeks of testing and ordering custom push rods, I had tried several lengths before I had an acceptable lifter plunger depression for each valve. Of course, at the time I didn’t know how to check rocker geometry or anything else a good engine builder would do, but I was still very detailed and got each cylinder pretty exact via the rocker bolt tightening method.

Once the valvetrain was installed and the cam timing confirmed, I was able to finish prepping the engine to go in the car.

I carefully masked off the mating surfaces and exposed internal components, and – along with the original oil pan – gave it an even coating of Ford Gray engine paint. I followed that with the installation of a new Ford Racing oil pump driveshaft, Melling pump and the original pickup, I just wished I’d installed them in that order to begin with. Instead, I installed the oil pump and pickup and forgot about the driveshaft until after I had the engine back in the car. So, what I’m trying to say is I installed the oil pump and pickup.

I stuck with a stock replacement pump since they’re plenty of pump for a motor with stock clearances up to about 6500 RPM and I had no intention of taking this engine beyond that point at any time. I finished off the bottom of the engine by installing the original timing chain cover and bolting down the freshly painted oil pan.

With the bottom all buttoned up, I only head a few areas I needed to complete before it was ready to have the flywheel, clutch and transmission installed so that it could be dropped back into the car in one piece.

I turned my attention to the top of the motor and installed the original lower intake, with a new ACT and coolant temp sensor followed by the 19 lb injectors I just replaced during the last stage. Along with the original rails, I made sure a new fuel pressure regulator was in place. I also installed the original valve covers, heater hose manifold and a new ECT sensor.

If you’re seeing a trend with the new sensors, there’s a good reason. Something I learned early on and have since seen ample proof of, is that while old sensors may not be out of range (worn out) as far as the computer is concerned, when they are all aged as those were, they have a collective negative effect on performance because the computer isn’t able to read the changes in engine conditions as quickly or precisely as with new sensors. That leads the computer to compensate for something the engine isn’t doing, causing sluggish performance.

At this point, I was almost done. The front of the engine was the second to last area I would be assembling before it went into the car. I installed the water pump I had used to replace the original in the first stage, followed by the original thermostat housing. I used an ARP balancer bolt to secure the new 50oz Fluidampr harmonic damper (which, I will have to say, was the single best choice I made on that engine, it’s awesome and will be used again on the Project GT) and the original pointer.

I finished it all off with a set of Ford Racing 1 5/8” stainless steel shorty headers designed for the GT-40P heads and the original dipstick.

In Chapter 8, Derrek and I will be dropping the engine and transmission into the car and firing it up! Keep an eye out in May for the next update!

Click image for Chapter 7 Work Photos.