Rebuilding a Junkyard Ford 460 on a Rock Bottom Budget - Horsepower S13, E4

[Music] hey guys i don't have to tell you that budgets are tight these days some of us don't have enough money to pay attention so when we say we're building a big block motor today on a budget we're talking down and dirty cheap but first we've got a long-awaited power payoff for our turbo mustang here we're going to see how its power at the flywheel compares to power at the rear wheels weeks ago we dived into a project we called the turbo stay a 382 cubic inch small block beefed up with a turbo kit from hellion it made 1100 horsepower at the flywheel on race gas almost a grand on 93 octane premium well later we built a complete roll cage then we followed that up with pin work to close up the cockpit we reinforced the subframes and replaced the floor board we bolted up a qa1 system up front that included a tubular k-member control arms and coilover conversion kit we gave it a pro street brake kit along with a front engine plate that let us bolt the motor right onto the subframe last week we installed the fuel delivery system from the tank to the fuel pump and filters up to the motor we installed a new trick dash loaded with gauges and assembled the lightweight steering setup including of course a new wheel that looks good next was the radiator with a low profile fan then we relocated the battery out back and installed a kill switch the rest of the drivetrain including the power glide and drive shaft and a performance shifter before its first time fire up inside the car now it's time to see what this thing's got at the rear wheels where it really counts because of parasitic losses in the drivetrain horsepower measured at the rear wheels is generally 15 to 20 percent less than the horsepower measured at the flywheel now on our first run we're going to take it easy with a mild first gear pull and make sure we're not going to tear anything up look how hard she twisted i thought she was rolling off first that was fast here we go we'll do one in a second doing in high gear all right did you ever wonder what 24 pounds of boost looks like want to see it again this was a problem on the dyno too this thing makes so much boost once you get it all plumbed up you can actually take these off get it welded together and put in and just have one or two of your access points so you can pull it apart v-band clamps work real well too well after a quick fix our third run confirmed our suspicions the low rear end gearing won't let the current converter spin fast enough to lock up that's why they call it test and tune well no reason pushing this thing any harder today in a few weeks however we will take this thing out for the ultimate workout at a local drag strip meanwhile a complete turnaround coming up as we build a blue oval big block without going in the red here it is the junkyard starting point of a budget engine build now what is it well it's a 385 series engine which was ford's last attempt at a production big block there were three engines in the 385 series the 429 got the most attention and the most use in factory muscle cars this would be a nest nobody's home while 460s were planted in a few performance cars most of those found homes in heavier cars like t-birds mercury's and lincoln's and i'm pretty surprised there's not a lot of wear on top of the valves either where the rock arms been running on it there went ahead because of their long production run from 68 to 96 well-worn 460 motors are plentiful and pretty cheap compared to ford fes here we go we found this one for 200 bucks at a local bone yard that's nice 460s are well known for their stout bottom ends parts are plentiful and despite that lackluster image these motors are capable of making massive torque and plenty of power here's a little known fact the fabled fe motor can only be stroked to 454 cubic inches while the 460 can be stroked up to 550 all that makes the 460 block a favorite foundation for drag racer we've got some grooves in it too i think crank can be cleaned up with just polish during an engine tear down you can learn a lot about how an engine ran and how well it was treated for example hammered rod bearings are signs of hard use and abuse no matter what they told you when you buck your old motor you never know the real story till you get inside stop more even a budget motor build involves a trip to the machine shop and even good blocks will need a little work now if you're reusing the crank like us you'll probably need to have the journals polished but you can save money by doing some of the work yourself like reconditioning reusable rods our bill at the machine shop which included reconditioning these iron heads was about 500 bucks kind of what we expected so we're reusing everything here including the rods we've pre-assembled so everything over here is either a factory replacement or came from comp cams for about 800 bucks so with the block the machining and the parts so far we're at fifteen hundred not too shabby we also painted the block ourselves to save a few extra bucks now we're gonna go ahead and install some freeze plugs now here's a little tip i see a lot of people just drop these into place and press them in well that can cause water seepage so we're going to use a little loctite retaining compound which will take care of that leak now using a socket slightly smaller than the freeze plug tap it into place [Music] it's also a good idea to tap the head bolt holes to make sure they're clean otherwise machining material trapped inside could cause a problem when you torque the heads down just like ours now here's how you can do a little detective work and tell a little bit about when your motor was made and what it was made for all thanks to this casting number now ours is a d9te-ab the d9 we learned stands for 1979 or later the t means it was made for a truck and the e stands for the ford engineering group the a b just means there was one revision to the casting now we can drop in the upper half of the rear main seal now make sure that the larger side of the ceiling lip is towards the front of the engine now since we only had to polish our cranks journals we can get by with standard size bearings like these stock replacements we got from down the street at o'reilly with the usual dab of silicone on the seal ends and some oil on the bearings we're ready for that crank hey here's something for your ford buddies who are trivia freaks the 385 series gets its name from the crank stroke of this motor 3.85 all right now the original main caps can go on but the arrow is pointing to the front of the motor of course and we'll keep them in place with factory replacement bolts that we torque to 90 foot-pounds in a criss-cross pattern from the center out the factory replacement pistons going in here are cast of course good for about 6 000 rpms and we'll handle plenty of horsepower yeah now we're going to get ready to drop the rod and piston in and i already oiled up the rings and put lube on the bottom of the bearing joe i think we're ready to pound at home awesome all right with that we now have ourselves a fresh 460 short block that's solid and also pretty cheap yeah it turns over nice too hey we'll show you how we finish up the bottom end and the parts we're going to use up top on our budget big block when we come back we're back with more of our big block budget build up now our reconditioned heads are almost ready to go back onto the short block but before we do that i want to show you something now when you hear somebody talking about valve lapping here's what they mean when a valve is lapped compound is used between the face of the valve and the head then it's spun what this does is it gives it a perfectly consistent circle around the face of the valve what this boils down to is a perfectly good seal when the valve is shut and no loss of compression here's a stock spring and here's one of the new ones we got from comp cams now it's a little bit taller and it has a higher spring rate and check this out down inside there's a dampener and that keeps the spring from wobbling at higher rpms now in case you're keeping score the specs on the valves of these stock heads measure out at 206 on the intake 165 on the exhaust side we can also tell you that the combustion chambers measure 88 cc's and since they're cast iron they are ridiculously heavy velcro gaskets on a budget build you bet don't cut corners here unless you want to blow a head gasket now you should always torque your heads from the center out in three increments in our case from 80 to 142 foot-pounds also whatever you do don't forget to install the head dials at each end of the block they're absolutely necessary to properly locate the heads our new cam is a comp hydraulic flat tappet with a 494 gross valve lift on both intake and exhaust now since it is a flat tablet gotta lube up every one of these lobes now this thing has a broad power band and for you guys i love to hear them dance got a very noticeable idol the timing chain's another thing you need to replace ours is a stock replacement installed dot to dot oh we are using the old cam both though torqued to 45 foot-pounds then the comp hydraulic flat tablet lifters can go in and they need lots of lube to help break in that cam then our stock replacement push rods and finally the stamp rocker arms okay now for the induction on our big block this original cast iron intake manifold is not only heavy it comes up way short in the plenum volume department now our wiring replacements lightweight aluminum 37 pounds lighter and the extra volume well it's going to add up to a broad power band from 1500 to 6000 rpms with the usual bead of silicone laid down on the ends of a block and new gaskets in place we can drop on the intake and this you want to get right the first time looks like we did these bolts by the way have a torque spec of 25 foot-pounds our 460 big block came with an old points type distributor we could replace it with a new high dollar piece but instead we're going to save about 130 bucks with a little upgrade from protronix first we remove the points condenser and grommet then clean out any dirt or oil between the breaker plate and cam next we can install the igniter module and place the magnet sleeve onto the distributor shaft now we can insert the black and red wires with the new grommet through the housing finally we set the air gap between the module and magnet sleeve using the provided 30 thousandths feeler gauge now what you don't want to do is fire off a distributor like this with a newer hei coil because you'd melt the module patronix recommends something like this flamethrower that's rated at one and a half ohms with forty thousand votes which is just right for this application back on the bottom end we can bolt up the oil pump now we went with a standard volume since we don't need the extra volume you need in a high performance application we got the pump the pickup and the pan from o'reilly auto parts now we can't put the pan on until the front timing cover is in place and that's part of this week's budget tip so stick around because we're going to have that tip and a trip to the engine diner room right when we get back build on a budget horsepower projects that save you time and money delivery horsepower our low budget big block build all started with the junkyard 460 ford motor we disassembled for some machining on the block heads and crankshaft then we loaded it with factory replacement pistons hanging on refurbished stock rods we replaced the springs for taller stiffer ones from cop and installed one of their hydraulic flat tablet cams after a basic timing chain setup we dropped in the rest of our valve train components and buttoned up the top end with a new aluminum intake then to save a few bucks we upgraded the stock distributor and bolted up a parts store replacement oil pump and pickup to pinch your pennies on a budget bill you've got to reuse as many original parts as possible and for us that means things like this timing cover even water neck and oh since we like the looks of these old valve covers well they're on the list too that is after we show you how to bring them back to almost new condition starting with getting rid of this old gasket material then we use solvent and lots of elbow grease to get rid of the caked on oil and dirt after 30 minutes of this your arm may be numb but keep thinking about all the money you're saving man for such an old valve cover these things are still in pretty good shape they do need a little work though over the years they were most likely used with only a quart gasket what ends up happening is the area around the bolt hole gets pulled down and that adds up to a leaky gasket around the rest of the rail so i'm going to use this hammer and dolly to get them back into shape with the dolly on the top of the rail i'll tap the bottom side to flatten them out while we're here a little facelift won't hurt either we're using dupli-color high heat ceramic paint with an aluminum finish [Music] more ford blue for the timing cover finally we knock in a new seal and it's ready to go back on the motor unlike aftermarket crankshafts that are mostly all internally balanced our 460 crankshaft is externally balanced so we got to run this counterweight on the front of the crankshaft now make sure when you do your teardown to keep track of this piece because they're really hard to come by [Music] we're dumping our 460's exhaust into some headers we got from flowtech the pipes measure an inch and three-quarter and feed into a three-inch collector so racing's just come out with a new street strip carburetor that's perfect for this project they got three versions we got the 750 cfm version with a manual choke and mechanical secondaries and at 330 bucks it sure fit our budget yeah and they use a tumble polishing process that makes it look a lot more expensive than it really is now let's see if she'll run i don't know about you guys but there's nothing like the sound of a big block going through a set of super 40s this thing sounds awesome ready just for reference factory 460s after 79 like ours had a horsepower rating of 215. 447 foot-pounds 348 horse that's still 130 over stock now let's find the rest 472 foot pounds 366 horsepower getting a lot it's liking the timing it is loving it man for a motor that was a dog back in the day this thing's making 493 foot pounds at 3 400 378 horsepower at 4 700 rpm yeah i'm pretty happy and we only spent a shade over 2 300 bucks that's pretty low budget well we got to go but uh we're going to keep playing we'll see you next time with a special engine builder challenge you'll try to beat that yeah let's try it

Channel: Gunpowder & Gasoline

Views: 42,508

Rating: 4.9232326 out of 5

Keywords: horsepower, engine build, ford, ford engine, ford 460, junkyard build, junkyard 460

Id: Qw3ed0ZMCB4

Length: 17min 50sec (1070 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 28 2020