Building an All-Aluminum, Fuel Injected FE Ford (with a Carroll Shelby Block!)

[Music] ford's fe engines are essentially little big blocks they started out in 1958 at just 332 cubic inches as a replacement for the short-lived y block and if you're curious about those by the way we've done a pretty cool y-block build and i'll include a link in the description for this video anyhow although it has its faults the fe is definitely a better design than the y block and it even grew in displacement over the years until it finally became the better known 427 and 428 versions before it was phased out of production by 1976 but by then the fe had already staked out its place in racing with big wins in nascar sports car racing and drag racing and it's obviously still a popular option for powering blue oval rebuilds from the 60s and 70s that's exactly what's going on here but with a twist prestige motorsports is building a 482 cubic inch fe with all new components including modern stacked fuel injection and nothing that's actually a real ford product all for a classic cobra reproduction the baseline for this build is a new aluminum fe block from carroll shelby engine company the aluminum casting is approximately 125 pounds making it 45 lighter than an original iron block but because of the modern design of materials is actually stronger just check out that webbing across the lifter valley tying the two banks of cylinders together the shelby fe block has a stock bell housing pattern and deck height but it can handle a stroke as large as 4.375 inches and that's the same for the cylinder bore making displacements as high as 526 cubic inches possible there's also priority main oiling directing the oil to the main bearings first before feeding it to the cam which we definitely appreciate this block uses the stock two and three quarter inch main bores but interestingly the shelby block also uses billet aluminum main caps which is a bit unusual it probably will help the two bearing halves expand at the same rate once the engine gets hot versus a more standard setup where you have an aluminum block and steel main caps the main bearings are from sealed power once they are in place and coated with assembly lube cody mccleary installs plastic sleeves over the main studs to protect the crank as it's lowered into place [Music] the forged crank has a four and a quarter inch stroke which the block handles easily with no clearancing required the main journals are stock fe sized but the raw journals are chevy big block standard 2 inch 200 000 which will provide more choices when choosing connecting rods [Music] after tapping in the first four main caps mccleary prepares the seal for the rear main cap because this is a skirted block you not only need the main seal to keep the oil from leaking around the crank journal but you must also seal between the sides of the cap and the skirt of the block mccleary installs the seals into the grooves and the sides of the cap and then for good measure adds a nice thick line of high temp silicone after the cap is in place and mccleary confirms that the seals are completely bottomed out all the nuts on the main studs are torqued to 100 foot-pounds then two steel spikes are driven in behind the seals in the rear main cap to make sure that those seals are fully pressed against the aluminum next up come the side bolts which help significantly strengthen the bottom end there are two on each side of numbers two three and four main caps to keep oil from weeping past the bolts a thin bead of silicone is run on both sides of the washers then the bolts are all torqued to 40 foot-pounds the rotating assembly is made up of je pistons on eagle connecting rods the forged h-beam rods are six inches seven hundred thousands long and with a bushed end for a floating wrist pin the big end is two inch two hundred thousand chevy big block size like we already mentioned with arp 2000 7 16 inch cap screws meanwhile the je pistons are custom slugs designed to fit into the eight four and a quarter inch holes in the block and have a 25 cc inverted dome to help keep the compression ratio down to about 10.8 to 1. that should at least keep it in the upper range of being pump gas friendly the goal of this engine isn't ultra high horsepower since it will already be going into a super lightweight car also it'll be naturally aspirated so the ring gaps are fairly standard they are 22 thousandths of an inch for the top rings and 24 for the seconds the idea for the slightly larger gap on the second ring is to allow any combustion pressure that gets past the top ring to move on into the crank case that may seem a little counterintuitive at first but too much pressure trapped between the top and the second ring can cause ring flutter so even though you don't want extra pressure anywhere it's much better for it to be in the crank case where it can escape out the pcv valve than trapped in between the piston rings once everything is together mccleary drops the pistons and rods into the block [Music] after double checking stretch each of the rod bolts are tightened to 75 foot-pounds with molly lube on the thread [Music] prestige often uses solid rollers on their hot street builds saying that you can get great performance from them and if the engine is built right the chore of lashing valves should rarely ever have to be done the cam is pretty square it has 335 thousandths of an inch of lobe lift for both the intakes and the exhaust with 1.76 ratio rocker arms that comes out to 589 thousandths total lift the duration of 50 000 slope lift is also the same for both at 244.6 degrees the lobe separation angle is 110 degrees with a 106 degree center line larry broker has taken over engine assembly at this point after stabbing the camshaft into the block he uses a cam thrust plate from pioneer to lock the cam in place and on top of that goes a billet double roller adjustable timing set once the cam has been degreed in broker installs the carroll shelby cast timing cover notice the sleeve over the snout of the crank the fe engine design uses a separate sleeve like this versus an extra long snout on the crank damper and this is also made by carroll shelby engine company for this purpose now we turn our attention to the oil pan this is one of ava's 427 cobra wet sump pans this nine quart pan is extra wide so it can maintain good oil control while still only being six inches deep it has multiple segments and trap doors to help hold oil around the pickup even on the most aggressive track days and there's also a windows tray to help keep excess oil away from the crankshaft one of the advantages of a deep skirt block like the fe is it accepts a flat one-piece oil pan gasket these are less prone to leaking but broker still applies a thin bead of silicone to help ensure zero leaks then the windows tray drops into place notice the stud extending up from the center of the tray that's the mount for the oil pan pickup and by the way we're using one of melling's high volume oil pumps to move oil throughout the [Music] engine after another gasket is laid in place on top of the windows tray the pan can go into position and be bolted down last before broker flips the block back right side up he presses on the innovator's west harmonic damper here you can see how the damper doesn't have any depth to the hub and the steel sleeve we showed you earlier limits just how far the damper can be pressed onto the snout of the crank [Music] broker drops in the solid roller lifters after lubricating all the lifter bores with assembly lube on a brush these are tie bar lifters from howard's so no dog bones or tie downs are necessary before dropping the cylinder heads on broker first takes a moment to screw in a pair of oil restrictors one for each bank of cylinders the restrictor is drilled with a 62 000 hole and it helps maintain higher oil pressure around the cam journals by limiting the amount of oil entering the rocker stands you'll be able to see it more clearly in a moment but prestige doesn't need as much oil in the rocker stands because they are setting up the valve train to also flow oil through the push rods and oil the rocker arms like a more modern engine a little high pressure lube will keep the big half inch head studs from ever galling against the aluminum threads in the block and they are gently run down until they are just barely bottomed out [Music] the cylinder heads are edelbrock performer rpms they are unported aluminum castings but still much better than any of the original stock castings the decks of the heads have been cut down to get the combustion chambers to 69 cc's to go along with the 170cc intake runners the head has a 13 degree valve angle and the stainless steel intake valves are larger than stock at 2 inches 90 000 while the exhausts are also oversized at an inch 660. maximum valve lift before the springs going to colbine is 600 thousandths of an inch which is just enough for our valve train with 589 thousandths valve lift broker slides the heads down over the half inch studs onto the block [Music] with lube on the threads they are tightened to 100 foot-pounds in three steps here you can get a better look at the intake runner path as we already mentioned the goal of this build isn't to produce world record power the owner wants a strong running engine with great throttle response and plenty of torque throughout the rpm range as well as tons of power so the heads haven't been ported because as cast they are plenty capable of hitting prestigious 500 horsepower gold with the heads in place broker lays down a set of fel pro intake gaskets and applies a thin bead of silicone around all the ports and a thicker bead across the china rails to make sure everything stays down nice and tight normally the rest of the valve train the push rods the rocker arms and all that go on next but that isn't possible with the fe design with the fe the push rods actually route through the intake manifold so it has to be installed first at this point there are no bolts in it yet before anything gets bolted up broker mocks up the distributor making sure it is fully seated this is a great tip because fes are bad to blow oil past the distributor seal if it isn't perfectly seated so make sure that the distributor is in nice and square and then bolt the intake manifold down tight and now that the intake is in place a quick coat of extreme pressure lube on the ends of the push rods is all that's needed before they can be dropped through and seated into the lifter cups prestige is using 3 8 inch diameter hardened steel push rods with an 80 000 thick wall the intakes are eight inches 900 thousandths long and the exhaust are 100 000 shorter at 8-800 the fe engine design uses a shaft mount rocker system the original system oiled through the rocker shafts and used solid cup push rods that system would use adjusters like you see on the left broker swaps them out with cup adjusters that's them on the right so we can run conventional hollow push rods besides installing the new adjusters into the pushrod side of the rocker arms broker also rearranges the spacers to move the intake rockers further apart this is because the larger intake valves edelbrock uses in the performer rpm heads require the valve locations to be adjusted so the rocker positions on the shaft should be moved to match in order to achieve the best valve train geometry because it's a shaft mount system all the rocker arms have to go on at once this is a 1.76 to 1 ratio setup from harlan sharp with aluminum rockers the fulcrum of these rockers is bushed so they will be provided a steady supply of oil that's fed through a gallery in the cylinder head through the rocker stand and into the shaft that's the one we showed you broker screwing the restrictor into earlier the push rods are hollow and also provide oil to each rocker arm for additional lubrication broker slowly works the entire rocker assembly into place running each bolt in a little at a time before coming back around if you simply crank down on one corner and start working your way across you can potentially bend the shaft and ruin the rocker assembly before you even get a chance to fire the engine once everything is finally snug broker torques the rocker stand bolts down to 35 pounds and lashing these bad boys can be a bit tricky remember this is a solid roller with a 10 inch 150 thousandths tall aluminum block and aluminum heads on top of that it's going to grow a lot once it warms up to account for this broker runs the latch all the way down and then tightens the adjusters once the engine fires up and gets warm the lash will open up and they will dial in the hot lash then now let's talk about this intake manifold you've probably already noticed there's no central plenum like a conventional intake that's because this is part of an individual runner setup from borla induction in order to run properly individual runner systems like this still must be able to communicate between the cylinders to do this the borla intake manifold casting has small lines from each runner that leads to a hidden chamber or some people call it a plenum the crosstalk that's allowed through this plenum smooths out the intake pulses and helps the engine run more smoothly the four beautiful throttle body assemblies are sized at 48 millimeters and as you can probably tell they're designed to mimic classic weber carbs really i just love that canadian look and the fuel lines will be run on the inside to keep a really clean appearance that wheel you see in the center of the intake is borla's capstan style throttle linkage [Applause] [Music] and all eight butterflies will open on the same ratio that center plenum chamber we spoke of earlier allows the map sensor to be mounted low and out of the way on the intake and the throttle position sensor is mounted on the rear most throttle body to help keep it hidden on the dyno you can see the billet specialties trutrx serpentine system has been installed to spin up the engine accessories and here you can also see how the fuel lines are plumbed up to the inside of the throttle bodies all the engine management is handled by a holley terminator x ecu so let's pull the handle and see what she can do so so prestige ran the 482 fe from 3500 to 5800 rpm the 573 foot-pounds of peak torque came on at 4 100 rpm and peak horsepower was 501.6 at 5400 rpm best of all the engine pulls strong all the way through this engine should be a blast to drive on the street or even a track day average torque throughout the pull was 529 foot-pounds which means the driver should be able to burn rubber with no more effort than simply mashing the throttle plus you gotta admit those canon throttle stacks just look wicked hey thanks for watching please subscribe and we'll see you next time [Music] you

Channel: The Horsepower Monster

Views: 385,455

Keywords: Ford FE, Cobra motor, cobra engine, GT40 engine, gt40 motor, gt motor, gt engine, Prestige Motorsports, Jeff Huneycutt, Horsepower Monster, Borla Induction, Holley Terminator X, Carroll Shelby FE, Carrol Shelby Engine Company, big block ford, small block ford, 427 ford, 427 stroker, muscle car engine

Id: 3rksPj1tu3o

Length: 18min 58sec (1138 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 16 2020