Test assemble the whole thing, mark it with a felt tip pen and trim as required.

Royce Peterson

In all the after market soft plug kits I've used, I never seen any. It's is a good idea to drill at least a .040 to .050 hole whether you use threaded plug or not, keep the chain lubed. Check some of ford sites, you might be able find some original soft plug kits. Ray

I don't see this being related to fuel pressure, Steve. You would experience fuel pouring out of the vent tubes and boosters with the engine idling if the pump was blowing the needles off the seats. But for most Holleys, fuel pressure should be around five psi. You would probably be O.K, with up to seven psi, but you need a needle and seat assembly in good condition. Anything above seven psi and you're asking for it. Another thing to consider is fuel percolation in the fuel line leading to the carb. It looks like you're done quite a bit to try and insulate the carb itself, but try pouring cold water on the pump and hard line to see if this makes the problem go away.

Some other things to consider with fuel leaking out of a Holley are the gaskets. It's fairly common when using rebuild kits for non-specific applications (and by that I mean for your specific list number. A model number kit like a 4150 or 4160 is too generic) that the metering block or plate gaskets not correct. The wrong gasket can cause fuel to leak out of the bowl and through the metering system into the throttle plate.

I was fascinated to see the chart describing bore grading and the corresponding mark to be used. I have seen these painted marks on the inside of 427 blocks and thought I knew what they meant, now my suspicions have been confirmed. That was just one thing that was of interest, more study is required to see other morsels of info that are no doubt waiting to reveal themselves.

Thanks Dave!

Royce Peterson

Well at the time I raced Boss 302 Mustangs but we all realized the FE was running out of dispacement. Chevy had a 454 , Olds,Buick,Pontiac had a 455 , Mopar had the 440. The 385 series (429/460) engine had "Chevy Style" heads , and dispacement growth , it really is a more "robust engine" . As a 429 they didn't perform as well as the 427/428 FE , at first,(too much reciprocating mass) they didn't accelerate as quick , but cubic inch growth made up for this over time.Today its punched out to 550-600 cu inches and will make 1400 on 1 dominator carb , getting 800 hp out of an old FE is a stretch. I happen to have a couple of FEs so thats what I tinker with , but given a clean sheet of paper I would go for the 429-460+ series of engines.

I remember thinking it looked a lot like an upgraded big-block Chevy. The Boss was nice though it didn't have the attraction of the SOHC. I wondered why Ford just didn't stick a 428 crank in the 427 if they were going to stop at 460cid and save all the tooling costs.. Their crystal ball was set for further in the future than mine, I guess.

I would agree , I have a couple of files set up in Dyno2000 for 428s , one for the motor in my 68 and another for a motor I am building now . Since your motor is similar I ran a simulation using it and the two cams you describe. The 33-208-3 is about 5 hp better at the peak of 5500 RPM than the "old cam".
I run a solid cam with 227/227 and 505 net lift and the simulation says I make 410 HP at 5000RPM or about 15 or 16 HP less than the 33-208-3 , but the simulation says my torque curve is broader so I would be hard pressed to see much of a performance difference . I run 13.5 to 13.6 at 104 to 105 in the quarter with street tires, closed exhaust ,4 spd,2 1/4 exhaust and tri-y headers and 3:89-1 gears.
So with the CompCam with a similar combo you might run low 13s but unless you use slicks or drag radials and large tube headers you probably won't get into the 12s but you get close and the 33-208-3 will probably be a nice all around cam with a good idle and broad power curve.
If you do some head work with a good exhaust, a 2500-2800 stall converter and a 3:70 to 3:90-1 rear gear you probably would get into the 12s.
Hope this helps.Bottom line is the 33-208-3 looks like a good pick.

From the info I have, the original Fomoco CJ grind was 206/221 @.050 and ground on a 115 lobe seperation. Is this fact or fiction?

Guess what I found hiding in the Comp Cam warehouse from about ten years back. It is a cam that has 222/226 duration @ .050 and has .544 lift. This cam got lost in the last publicity blitz that Comp Cam had with the Magnum, High Energy and all the other whiz bang slogans they cam up with along with the new cam grinds to match. They never sold that many of these cams so they were not included in the new catalogs. Comp Cams thought they were gonna have to eat them I guess. I descovered it by talking to one of the oldest techs at Comp. He told me that it is a great cam and said that it makes more power with a wider power band than the single pattern cams he sees becoming so popular. He was telling me that the stock cam had to much seperation on the duration pattern that it made the car a slug on the bottom end. I canceled the old order and placed a new one. I will be the ginny pig on this one and let all my fellow FE crusaders know how it goes.

I don't believe that the original 428CJ/390GT cam had 224/232 @0.050 duration. I think it was much milder than that. These figures appear to be from what Lunati refers to as their "version" of Ford's CJ/GT cam. I also think that the LSA was even wider than 114.

The damper must not sit flush with the end of the crank. It needs to tug on the snout (using the damper bolt) to clamp the damper/spacer/slinger, and crank gear into one solid mass.

Shoe.

Essentially they're all the same. But there's one exception, the head casting # C8OE-N. That's the 428 Cobra Jet. The valve sizes on this head are 2.09- Intake/ 1.66-Exhaust.

A good all around head to look for is the C6AE-R. A very similar combustion chamber to the C8OE-N. They have the "tall" intake port. They have the provisions cast by the exhaust ports to accept either the CJ or the GT/uni-body exhaust manifolds. Some of the '66 heads are already drilled/tapped for the GT/uni-body manifolds.

My too many cents worth is that the C6AE-R is as good as the Cobra Jet C8OE-N except for concours "correct" 428CJ powered cars.

yes they are interchangeable. bore diameters are 4.05 and 4.13 on the 390 and 428. standard valve diameters are 2.02int, 1.55 exh most 390's. 2.08 and 1.6 on 428 cj. there are some minor diffs in chamber cc's and exhaust manifold bolt patterns.

That casting was used on all FE displacements except the 427. Measure the bore and stroke to determine what you really have. The date code of the block should be 2 - 12 weeks prior to the car's construction if it is the original one from the car.

royce Peterson

Yes.. see my comments on the "help iding the block question a couple of topics below this one.

Sure a 75-75 F100 has a Ford electronic ing. go to yard and remove the dist., harness controll box and wire it into yours.

Hi Linden. Haven't stopped by the fabulous '59Ford.com site lately. I'm going there after this little piece of info for you.

There will be others that visit/contribute here regularly that can provide you some details. I hope to get the ball rolling on this for you. Yes, Ford did offer an electronic ignition system for the FE. Maybe it was in '75 too? But I know for sure that in the last year of a production USA built vehicle with FE power, 1976, the pick ups got the DuraSpark system with module and electronic distributor. These are available from various parts houses, NAPA for sure, as rebuilds. Other should know more.

I had my '69 Cobra Jet Distributor, C8OE.... converted to electronic internals using a late seventies era 302 distributor as the organ donor. I still run that exact distributor in my 390 in my '68 F100 with an MSD 6A unit. It has never given me a bit of trouble.

Now, did those Kafton Bros. ever send you some digital pics of their '57 & '59s powered by hard running 427s? Honest to goodness guys, I have video of Steve Kafton running a '59 Ford 2 door post sedan with a 390 & C6 in the low 11's. And he drives it on the street...occasionally. He has re-powered it with a 427 and it's much more streetable than the 390 was. You can imagine how built the 390 was to have it be able to pull the front wheels of that all steel '59 over a foot in the air off the line on its way to running low 11's. Anyway Linden, I now have a digital camera and I may have to go get those pics myself.

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