Junkyard Ford 445 FE Gets Modern EFI - Engine Power S8, E4

i'm pat toppalinski thanks for watching we know you never want to miss an episode of engine power so click the subscribe button and there you go it's the big subscribe button right there our 445 fe is back a modern efi system along with a time-tested tunnel wedge intake give it plenty of drivability and style hey everyone welcome to engine power today we will revisit a project that was very popular with you viewers and we have some new cool parts we are excited to try on it we will be working on our ford cubic inch fe that made spectacular power with some easy bolt-on parts but still ran on pump gas to see how this project came together take a look it started as a worn out 390 fe which had lived a hard life as a power plant in a dump truck when we found it the engine was hidden away in the corner of a salvage yard a real diamond in the roof like many gear heads we truly enjoy the challenge of taking a neglected jewel and restoring it to its former glory we scraped off years worth of grime drilled out the seized exhaust flange studs and with the help of our arp cabinet we replaced a bunch of missing or damaged fasteners to get the engine running extreme cases call for extreme measures we poured several cans of seafoam motor treatment into the crank case and primed the oil pump with a drill for a couple of minutes the sea foam went in clear but came out black taking decades worth of engine deposits with it after priming and flushing the engine with conventional oil we strapped it to the dyno believe it or not it ran fuel here comes fuel ignition no leaks no leaks oh my god i'm excited it also leaked oil and was only running on five cylinders but we could fix that [Music] once we tore into the engine it did not take long to find serious wear and tear heavy engine deposits thick sludge in the oil pan and a timing chain that can only be described as floppy we even found a bumper bolt in the water jacket now why the hell would that be in the water jacket we cleaned the engine for about an hour in the jri jet washer and unfortunately we discovered a big problem one we couldn't see under all the grime and gunk during magnetic particle inspection we found several cracks in the block despite our disappointment we were determined to build an fe but we would need a new block after hours worth of work we finally got our replacement block cleaned machined and ready to rock with the cylinders torque plate honed 30 thousandths over size and our new crankshaft going in it pumps up the displacement to 445 cubic inches we started with new cam and main bearings followed by a cast steel eagle crankshaft with a 4250 stroke the camshaft is a custom ground billet hydraulic roller from comp cams the lobes are from their extreme marine high lift series which increases durability with extended run times they work great in big blocks and engines with heavier valve train components comp also provided the billet double row timing set the pistons are molly's power pack series with a 16 cc dish they are mated to a set of eagle 4340 forged i-beam connecting rods that are six seven hundred in length the included ring package is a modern one millimeter one millimeter two millimeter thick set the rod journal is the same size as a big block chevy and the rod bearing clearance is between 23 and 27 10 000 a melling high volume oil pump will keep the engine well lubricated we chose mylodon for the windage tray oil pickup and 8 quart oil pan [Music] with the ati balancer in place true tdc is set and the timing pointer is modified to indicate zero on the top end we made some big upgrades starting with a set of trick flow power port 175 cylinder heads the combustion chamber is heart shaped and measures at 70 cc's the intake valve is 2190 and the exhaust valve is a 1 625 diameter the heads are a direct bolt-on for all 61-76 fe engines comp retrofit hydraulic roller lifters will move the valve train our freshly sandblasted intake splash guard goes in followed by some beads of permatex right stuff 90 minute gasket maker the trick flow track heat intake manifold is a single plane design that has a basic operating range from 4000 to 7000 rpm perfect for our application our engine combination requires custom length push rods and trend performance made it happen with a set of 8 900 long eighty thousandths wall 3 8 diameter pieces no matter what you need they can handle it the heavy duty shaft rocker assembly is from harlan sharp it has a 1.76 ratio with a 7 8 inch shaft and full needle bearing construction for high horsepower and endurance builds after several dyno runs and timing adjustments we ended up with 36 degrees total timing the engine laid down 583 horsepower and 562 pound-feet of torque we are super stoked to try out our new trick induction package on this already stout performer while we're at it we'll give it a new clean look with a fresh coat of paint and when we're done we'll get it back on the dyno and see if this thing runs as good as it looks this is going to look good coming up why have one when you can have two i'm with team summit nhra funny car driver tim wilkerson and we're talking about how to avoid some engine failures now tim in our careers we have seen our fair share of catastrophic engine failures well yeah pat in our car especially when you see an engine failure there's a big problem the body comes off the there's oil on the track the driver's on fire but there are some common threads between failures and why they happen between street cars and race cars yeah you know i was in the gas station business for 30 years always told my customers start at the basics oil levels coolant levels make sure all that stuff is correct your car will perform better start rare now we have a few tools laid out that will help you not only diagnose or fix but help avoid problems one being a timing light yeah pat i mean probably one of the most critical tools that gets used or misused right from our experiences through the years that's a quality unit there that timing light has some advance and some functions to it that you can actually set your timing on zero look at your gauge and say oh i actually have 20 degrees of total advance so really a neat tool now for the modern stuff a diagnostic tool that can tell you what's wrong with what's going on without even popping your hood now on the old school side we have a some carb tuning and stuff here it's more more of our speed but having your your fuel right and having the right amount of fuel go through it and the right type of fuel go through it along with your timing you can eliminate probably 99 of your problems sure you can and for the layman they get themselves in trouble with this a little bit changing jet sizes in your holley carburetor this is a kit made by holley and it's really a nice little kit it's got every gasket in it power valve in it i guess pat bottom line is most engine failures they can be avoided from just simple maintenance trick flow is an industry leader in high performance induction systems for a wide variety of power plants from high-tech muscle to vintage iron they are constantly creating product to make big power they supplied our fe with a 175 cc power port head and their r series single plane race intake this package runs spectacular but we can never leave well enough alone trick flow has recently released a new r series dual four barrel tunnel wedge intake and we are lucky enough to get our hands on one this intake is an improved design over its oem counterpart but retains that same classic look but with updated engineering it has an o-ring sealed bottom plate is designed to use the stock style dual throttle linkage and it's only around six and a half inches tall this will give us that nostalgia look with greatly improved performance we'll start by removing the spark plug wires and the distributor the wedge distributor gasket seals up tight even stronger than you might expect dang you're probably wondering why we are messing with such a well-sorted combination it's basically for two reasons first is looks we wanted the classic look of a dual four-barrel muscle car engine like the factory race cars of the 60s second is improved drivability which includes going from a single old-school carb to a modern dual throttle body fuel injection on an fe you have to remove the valve train to remove the intake we made sure to keep all the pieces in order so they go back in their original position the permatex right stuff sealant on the intake works really well we'll work slowly to remove it with a pry bar chiseling the silicone from several angles until the manifold frees up it's like wrestling like wild anaconda very nice what's your joke of the day holy holy morning my joke of the day yeah what's your joke of the day you want a dad joke sure why are elephants not ever seen hiding in trees [Music] why because they're really good at it [Music] now that we've removed the headers we can prep for paint by taping off the aluminum heads we love the way they look and want to show them off by keeping them as is we like using green masking tape to give us sharp clean lines with no paint blow by we considered partial disassembly of the engine for painting but if you're careful you can get great results by just taping things off [Music] we're going for a classic understated look on the fe after laying down some primer we'll use gloss black engine enamel with ceramic up next the fe gets an easy to tune efi system and heads to the dyno cell we're almost ready to get the fe back in the dyno cell but first we have to get the intake sealed up and bolted down what i like about trick flow stuff is everything fits extremely nice out of the box even in the runners and everything yeah yeah very very nice [Music] it's nice all right good stuff one step closer to the dyno [Music] for this particular build we're using a dual four-barrel manifold but we want the luxury of modern fuel injection normally dual carburetor configurations are complicated to set up and tune especially if you're not used to doing it fi tech has fixed that with their go efi 2x4 throttle body system their fuel injection package is very easy to use fits on most dual quad manifolds and has a clean fit and finish it's rated from 250 all the way to 1200 horsepower and with a built-in two and a half bar map sensor it's great for both naturally aspirated and blown applications it also has an integral fuel pressure regulator and timing control that will actively timing for engines running boost or nitrous the kit comes with everything you need including a tidy wiring harness a handheld touchscreen that can be hidden or dash mounted and easy to follow instructions this makes it as quick to install as a set of old style carbs and even easier to use [Music] the phy tech units fit perfectly where the old style carburetors would be the linkage pulls in a straight line instead of using side pole with a bell crank which is used on traditional tunnel ramp setups always make sure the butterflies stay clear of the manifold opening that way there's no binding at wide open throttle looks good everything clears looks really nice yeah those two go together and then the rest we can hide underneath the manifold all right sweet since the engine has been on the superflow powermark dyno before we already have the dyno setup all scienced out [Music] the wiring of the phytex system only needs a few simple connections the comprehensive instructions make it super easy so before we start our engine we need to go into the interface and set it up so we're going to go into go efi initial setup and then we'll go to engine setup so we can put in the parameters of our engine obviously we're working with a v8 so we'll leave that and then our cubic inches is obviously 445 not 350. so you can toggle through or you can select use the touch screen and actually enter in the exact value and hit ok and then you want to hit send to ecu after each selection so the computer saves it let's go down to our cam it's a pretty style engine so we're going to go with four and that'll be the says mild to wild one to four so one would be the tamist and four would actually be the most aggressive cam and then we'll raise our rev limiter to 7000 just to have a good range [Music] again because the aggressive cam we're gonna raise the idle to a thousand and then we are using our dyno fuel pump so the system is not running a fuel pump for us so just to be safe we're gonna take this all the way down to zero and then we are using attack signal off of our ignition box so we'll leave that alone and there's our initial setup so the engine's ready to fire up one of the nice things about the phy tech system is you can hook up the fuel system in three different areas depending on how it goes in your vehicle in the back or there's a couple in the front but there is only one return the return hooks right here these are internally regulated at 58 psi so as long as you have pressure over that you're good to go this fuel system is a return style though so the return has to go back to your fuel tank having the right tool for the job is important matco tools always comes through for you with innovative products that you can use to help your job go more efficiently and easier one of my favorites is this 16 volt reciprocating saw first off there is no cord to plug in or to get tangled up with you or your work it is powered by their infinium battery technology that provides 16 volts of power in this handy setup the inline design helps it get into tighter places plus it has up to 3 100 strokes per minute a quick change chuck for fast blade changes and an easily adjustable depth of cut it even has an led light to see what you are doing it comes with two batteries its own charging station and a nice hard case to keep things safe to check it out and all of their other fine tools visit their website at matcotools.com up next it's dyno time [Music] all right you're you're all where you think you should be right the setup's all good should fire right up afr's are set for a base oh there you go fire right now all right nice okay yeah there we go about them apples nice that is cool we got a little bit of oil temp in it we'll get a bit of water temp in it this is a self-learning system so it uh it needs some temperature range to adjust its fuel map right a little bit about this manifold this is a a hearken back to the when ford had uh all their drag race stuff their tunnel wedge stuff long before i was alive well before i was alive too almost um the cool thing about this we have modern really controllable self-learning fuel injection on a vintage monovinci which i really dig and it makes everything way more tunable for street ability for having it have really good manners even though it's got a lot of induction on it oh yeah it's gonna have very good matters in the street cars yeah i think that's the biggest thing and that's the biggest benefit that's why we wanted it for the project that goes in we wanted something that is going to start up drive right you know you're not going to have to mess with it not have to touch it right run it what we're going to do first is i'm going to make a pull from 4 000 to 6 000. [Music] that was nice and clean yeah that was wow okay 575 for horsepower 554.9 for torque we are not high enough to max the engine we're right close to peak power but um there's no way we would would have thought it had manifold vacuum but it definitely doesn't which is awesome that's always good to see i doubt it would have but still always good to see always good to see because you know that nothing's the restriction up in those parts okay so uh the fueling looked good i did yeah the afr's were pretty close um i think it's still learning a little bit we got the you got the peak peeled way back don't you what do you have afr for yeah i think it's set at like 12-3 so that's nice and safe yeah that's okay you know and again you can you can really uh put the screws to that yeah make it lean and mean that's not we're gonna we're gonna do right now because i want to get i want to get a another few poles in it to have this thing learned yeah i like the graph the graph looks good super nice i am going to just for to say we've done it we're going to take it up to 6 500. okay this is not a full bore race engine this is a street engine yeah this system will run up to 1200 horsepower worth of whatever you put under it yeah which that's impressive [Music] that's clean oh yeah i know you said it's not a race engine but it sounds like one when it's okay um i mean we're up at 581 for power 557 pound feet of torque with everything looking good we'll lean out the wide open throttle air fuel ratio to see if we pick up a little power [Music] that was meaner oh yeah baby there we go okay 587.7 that is nice nice nice carries power nice 567 pound feet of torque man dang that apples that is sweet i mean we could fuzz on it constantly but uh that's extremely good power good broad power band so i mean even for the power it's making over 550 all the way from like five grand all the way up so this is spectacular that's a success right there yeah nothing cooler if you pop the hood and you see dual carburetors big headers you know cool manifold all that stuff so uh hey yeah it's a good engine just a good engine i like that just a good engine if you'd like more information on anything you've seen today head on over to powernationtv.com

Channel: POWERNATION

Views: 341,063

Rating: 4.9314756 out of 5

Keywords: Car, PowerNation, howto, how-to, diy, automotive, cars, trucks, automobile, do it yourself, automobiles, auto, powerblock, ford, efi, junkyard, 445 FE, engine build

Id: rGQehVU55_g

Length: 21min 42sec (1302 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 10 2021