One of the most effective means of improving horsepower is to increase displacement, and one only need look at the current popularity of 5.0L and 5.8L Windsor strokers to illustrate the performance world’s affection with being large and in charge. We know the Windsor strokers are plenty powerful, but we know too that they aren’t the only motivational game in town. In fact, there are likely less expensive alternatives when looking for a replacement with displacement.
Best of all, these cost-effective replacements come from what must be considered humble origins. Take a stroll through the Ford/Lincoln section of your local wrecking yard and, likelier than not, you’ll find a dozen or so big-block Fords just begging for a new home. For now, we’ll dismiss the early 390-428 FE motors and concentrate on the big-boy 460s. Offered also in a slightly smaller 370- and 429ci displacement, the 385-series engines are simultaneously plentiful, powerful, and (best of all) dirt cheap.
Pulled from a local wrecking...
Pulled from a local wrecking yard, the 460 Lincoln was in excellent shape internally. Recent work had obviously been done, as the heads and cylinder bores looked factory fresh from a recent rebuild.
From an enthusiast’s standpoint, the great thing about the 385-series engines is that in addition to the many Ford and Lincoln fullsize vehicles, they also found homes in marine, motor home, and industrial applications. The little-known 370 was used primarily in medium-duty truck applications, but the 429s and later 460s eventually became Ford’s bread and butter big-blocks. Rated at 370 hp in 1970 (375 hp for the Super Cobra Jet), the 429 Cobra Jet and SCJ were the weapons of choice for dragstrips and NASCAR alike. Underrated by Ford, these Cobra Jet motors likely put out more than 400 hp thanks to wilder cam timing, a static compression ratio that exceeded 11.0:1, and a sizable Holley carburetor.
Now that we have whet your appetite, forget everything you’ve read about the 429 Cobra Jet and Super Cobra Jet engines, as the supply of those ultra-rare engines has long since dried up. Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t build something even more powerful, and selecting the larger 460 is a significant step up the proverbial performance ladder.
The ’68 460 engine featured...
The ’68 460 engine featured dished pistons with valve reliefs. Fear not Ford fans, as the dished piston was necessary to work with the small-chamber heads to create a streetable static compression of 10.5:1.
Since the 429 was offered for only a few years, Ford eventually relied on the 460 all through the ’70s, ’80s, and early ’90s to do the heavy lifting. Though never offered in Cobra Jet or Super Cobra Jet guise, the abundance of 460s makes them dirt cheap and easy to come by. Available in wrecking yards, we found a complete engine (including accessories and everything under the air cleaner) available at a local Pick-a-Part for the paltry sum of $265, plus core. For the serious penny pincher, our Pick-a-Part had sale weekends where everything was 50-percent off, meaning a complete running engine was available for as little as $130, plus a core charge of $65. How can you go wrong with a complete running engine that costs less than $200?
When you go looking for an engine, especially if you plan on running it as is, make sure to do your homework and thoroughly check out each potentially viable candidate. Since the oil will likely be drained, don’t hesitate to pull a valve cover to check for telltale signs of abuse or neglect. Is there oil sludge present or does the head look clean? Does it look like it might have been rebuilt recently (like ours), or does it look like it spent every inch of those 200,000 miles lugging ore deep in some coal mile?
Pull the plugs, check for coolant leaks (stains) and generally give it a thorough inspection (including spinning it over) before making your decision to pull and purchase. We even dropped the oil pan for a quick look. That’s what sealed the deal on our engine, as the 460 obviously had recent work done. Before pulling the engine, we even filled it with oil and fired it up briefly using a battery we brought for just such a purpose.
The reason to choose the early...
The reason to choose the early (pre-’72) engines is that they feature the small-chamber (high-compression) cylinder heads. The heads on our ’68 460 featured C8VE casting numbers.
No Cobra Jet-sized ports here,...
No Cobra Jet-sized ports here, but even these standard heads can be made to flow well with a little work.
Our early heads featured rail...
Our early heads featured rail rockers with guided tips to positively locate the rocker on the valve tip. These heavy rockers are not suited to performance use, as they limit maximum cam lift. The pinch nuts also have a tendency to back off. The one good thing about the 460 heads is that they came equipped with screw-in rocker studs, thus making the swap to guideplates and roller rockers much easier.
[6] When installing roller...
[6] When installing roller rockers on the factory heads, it was necessary to install guideplates to locate the pushrods. The factory 3⁄8-inch studs (on the rocker side) were more than adequate for most cam and valvespring combos, but these are easily swapped over to the larger 7⁄16-inch studs if need be.
Our 460 came equipped with...
Our 460 came equipped with a heavy cast-iron four-barrel intake manifold designed to accept an Autolite carburetor. Using a pair of gaskets on our throttle linkage plate allowed us to successfully run the Holley carburetor in place of the Autolite.
The carburetor that came with...
The carburetor that came with our wrecking yard engine was not usable, so we decided to substitute our trusty Holley 750 HP. The Percy’s Adjust-a-Jet system allowed for easy tuning on the dyno.
The 460 was run on the dyno...
The 460 was run on the dyno using an electronic distributor and manual water pump. The distributor was run with an MSD 6AL ignition amplifier. The factory ignition curve was employed on the electronic distributor (which we pirated from another donor engine in the wrecking yard). The 460 made best power with 37 degrees of total timing.
Rather than run the factory...
Rather than run the factory cast-iron exhaust manifolds, we opted to substitute a set of 1-7⁄8-inch Hooker Super Comp headers feeding a set of 18-inch collector extensions.
Run in baseline trim with...
Run in baseline trim with the Holley carb and Hooker headers, the ’68 460 produced 349 hp at 4,700 rpm and 492 lb-ft at 3,000 rpm. Torque production exceeded 450 lb-ft from 2,500 to 3,900 rpm. Despite the horsepower-inducing, large-bore and short-stroke combination, these 460 Fords make some serious torque.
After our baseline testing,...
After our baseline testing, off came the factory cast-iron intake to make way for the Weiand aluminum intake.
For this mild application,...
For this mild application, we chose a Weiand Stealth intake. The intake swap is a good idea on the weight savings alone, but the intake was also worth extra power. On the dyno, the Weiand intake improved horsepower production by 16 hp, from 349 to 365, but torque production suffered. This is not uncommon on stock intakes, as they were designed to maximize torque production very low in the rev range. The Weiand intake offered as much as 25 hp out past 5,000 rpm, but the cost was a like amount of torque below 3,000 rpm. It all depends on where you want your power production. For a truck application, the low-speed torque offered by the stock intake would be hard to beat, but for any type of performance street application, the additional power offered by the Weiand intake would certainly be welcome.
Next on the to-do list was...
Next on the to-do list was a set of roller rocker arms. These blue aluminum roller rockers from Ford Racing work well as do the more cost-effective die-cast High Energy rockers from Comp Cams. Run with the FRPP 1.73:1 ratio roller rockers, the 460 produced exactly the same power. We’ve seen rocker swaps net 12-15 hp on other applications, but on our mild 460, they didn’t offer any power over the factory rockers.