Many of you will probably remember I took a little holiday to the USA and I came back with a 1975 Ford LTD sedan. There is a thread about that if you missed it.
The short version is that this is an interesting old bus. Its first owner was Ford Motor Vehicles, Engineering Department. They spec'd this baby nice. Its a base model LTD, which was the replacement model for the Galaxie 500 which was dropped in North America after 1974. However they did spec AC and most importantly the 460 4 barrel engine with dual exhausts, Trak-loc diff and all the heavy duty running gear stuff. Woot.
After importing the car I was reminded about its foibles. It idles bad, hesitates tipping in off cruise, and there are some known issues under the hood.
When connected, the vacuum advance causes the car to backfire and idle worse.
The exhaust manifolds are cracked.
The exhaust system is a mess of patched up rusty pipes
But I didn't want to "just fix it"
So work has now started to pep this old bus up.
Since the heads had to come off anyway to fit the "custom fit" ceramic coated FPA headers I bought for it I decided to go with some performance mods there also.
The '75 460 is a low compression smogger with open chamber heads. We knew the bottom end of the engine to be good so we can build on top of that no issues.
I started looking round for good head options (don't we all) and not being able to justify the cost of Edelbrock alloy heads I advertised for a set of D0VE heads which were the best flowing factory heads in '70 - used on the Mustang 429 and so on. Turns out a chap in Derby had a set of C8VE heads which are just as good but don't have the hardened seats for unleaded. As I was having the heads rebuilt anyway it was a small* additional cost to have the inserts machined and fitted. He only wanted £100 for them so I was on a winner.
So step one has been to get the engine stripped down to a short block assembly and get the heads and other parts machined ready for this.
I went to pick up the heads
And Rare Developments who are specialist engineers on the old Ford V8s (as well as other American iron) started work on the heads.
unleaded inserts
bare castings degreased, decoked and blasted.
Studs removed
Threads tapped and chased as needed
Seat cutting
A little chamber work and so on
valve lapping and a 2 angle cut (3 angle isn't an advantage on a Ford 385 series)
Assembled heads have been slightly skimmed for trueness
Laying out the Edelbrock intake against the gaskets to match
Finished piece has the ports blended back nicely.
Comp Cams rocker arms
Melling performance cam, basically this is a slightly hotter grind than the Ford factory performance cam for the Cobrajet 429
I didn't want anything too obnoxious as I want good vacuum and smooth idle. Also its a heavy old car with the stock torque converter.
The headwork raises the compression from like 8:1 to 9.2:1 which will be a nice improvement.
More work coming soon....
The short version is that this is an interesting old bus. Its first owner was Ford Motor Vehicles, Engineering Department. They spec'd this baby nice. Its a base model LTD, which was the replacement model for the Galaxie 500 which was dropped in North America after 1974. However they did spec AC and most importantly the 460 4 barrel engine with dual exhausts, Trak-loc diff and all the heavy duty running gear stuff. Woot.
After importing the car I was reminded about its foibles. It idles bad, hesitates tipping in off cruise, and there are some known issues under the hood.
When connected, the vacuum advance causes the car to backfire and idle worse.
The exhaust manifolds are cracked.
The exhaust system is a mess of patched up rusty pipes
But I didn't want to "just fix it"
So work has now started to pep this old bus up.
Since the heads had to come off anyway to fit the "custom fit" ceramic coated FPA headers I bought for it I decided to go with some performance mods there also.
The '75 460 is a low compression smogger with open chamber heads. We knew the bottom end of the engine to be good so we can build on top of that no issues.
I started looking round for good head options (don't we all) and not being able to justify the cost of Edelbrock alloy heads I advertised for a set of D0VE heads which were the best flowing factory heads in '70 - used on the Mustang 429 and so on. Turns out a chap in Derby had a set of C8VE heads which are just as good but don't have the hardened seats for unleaded. As I was having the heads rebuilt anyway it was a small* additional cost to have the inserts machined and fitted. He only wanted £100 for them so I was on a winner.
So step one has been to get the engine stripped down to a short block assembly and get the heads and other parts machined ready for this.
I went to pick up the heads
And Rare Developments who are specialist engineers on the old Ford V8s (as well as other American iron) started work on the heads.
unleaded inserts
bare castings degreased, decoked and blasted.
Studs removed
Threads tapped and chased as needed
Seat cutting
A little chamber work and so on
valve lapping and a 2 angle cut (3 angle isn't an advantage on a Ford 385 series)
Assembled heads have been slightly skimmed for trueness
Laying out the Edelbrock intake against the gaskets to match
Finished piece has the ports blended back nicely.
Comp Cams rocker arms
Melling performance cam, basically this is a slightly hotter grind than the Ford factory performance cam for the Cobrajet 429
I didn't want anything too obnoxious as I want good vacuum and smooth idle. Also its a heavy old car with the stock torque converter.
The headwork raises the compression from like 8:1 to 9.2:1 which will be a nice improvement.
More work coming soon....
