My weeklong trip took me to Genesis, Columbus, the Henry Ford Museum, and to Total Performance. I was surprisingly welcomed at all of these stops, and, in particular, I was a bit stunned when John Vermeersch opened the doors to Total Performance and let me take over a thousand photos of interesting FE goodies over a period of three days. I learned a bunch and am still a bit sore from moving all those cranks, heads, blocks, intakes, and other FE goodies around.

I very much wanted to visit Dove Performance this trip, but the combination of a dead cell phone and the heaps of great goodies at Total Performance mean I'll have to visit Dove when I set out to visit Holman Moody early next year.

I was very impressed by what I found at Genesis. GEnesis 427 is the brainchild of Tim McLoughlin (sp?) and Ron Read, both of Indianapolis, Indiana.

I got a tour through both the machine shop and also the foundry which they have allied with, and got to see the patterns and molds for the block, as well as the castings.

The machine shop is ISO9000 qualified. Because the shop makes military components, they are not allowed to deviate from these procedures for non-military projects. This means Genesis blocks are being machined to the same standards as missile parts. The CMM (coordinate measurement machine) in the machine shop's inspection department will be used to certify that the measurement fixtures used to inspect the finished blocks are machined to exacting tolerances.

There are presently two Mazatrol CNC machines set up for full-time machining of Genesis blocks. Each of these machines holds all the tooling specifically needed for cutting and tapping the blocks to completion. It takes four hours for one machine to machine one block completely. Four blocks a day are the anticipated production rate, twenty per week, a rate which will likely be in effect in perhaps three weeks (my guess). I expect production is in full swing this week, though I doubt they want to be machining 20 per week until a couple weeks pass.

There were three finish machined blocks at the time of the Columbus show ten days ago. I believe one or two finished blocks were at the show. Two of these finished blocks have likely been sliced apart (destructively inspected) last week in order to assure the product is ready to go to a customer.

Genesis is temporarily nicknaming their present iron block the "Generation 2", because they've made numerous changes in both design and process control since their initial effort. All remaining "Generation 1" blocks will be destroyed, and none have left their hands. Principle changes to the Generation 2 block involve more assured support of the cylinder jacket cores to prevent core shift.

They also had one aluminum block cast up and available for inspection. It had not been machined, but looked just like a production 427 iron block. I picked it up with two fingers. The aluminum sand cores are a bit different than the iron block cores because they pour the metal in very different fashion.

The skirt of the iron block is stronger than any FE block I've ever seen. Granted I've never yet seen a Shelby block, and I can be sure Shelby also has a rigid design.

Note the rumors that the Shelby block do NOT resemble an FE block are apparently false. The Shelby block IS a reasonably authentic facsimile of the FE, though I kinda doubt it comes close to the Genesis block for matching the looks of the original.

The foundry is also ISO9000 certified, so it can be expected that process control will be good here, too.

I expect there will be "shelf stock" of Genesis iron blocks within two months. It'll probably be three years before I can afford one myself, but I'll be dreaming of supercharging and revving the hell outta my Genesis block in the mean time. Hammering around the racecourse will be lots of fun.

Nodular iron 428 cranks and MR heads will be available from Genesis "sooner than you think". I see no reason to spout off anticipated dates right now. Just be assured the wait is not long at all.

While I'm probably not the best person to make a determination of whether the Genesis projects will succeed, I do have a real good feeling about what I see. I like the approach these two guys are taking, and believe that the FE will remain a popular engine on the racetrack for a long time to come.

Shoe.

A/C cars had an actual fan shroud. the guard fits 61-63 and then a different one for 64. i don't have any right now as there does seem to be some demand and i sold all that i had. the part number is C3AZ-8A611-A or C (chrome) for a 63 and C4AZ-8A611-A or B (chrome). the 63 part is 22 1/2 inches long and teh 64 is 12 inches long. hawkrod

i'm going on a "hunting" trip through some yards out west later this month and should be able to find you the part you're looking for. send me an e-mail at carolinac@peoplepc.com and we can discuss further.

A little late but, http://www.dennis-carpenter.com/ has them. Have your radiator demensions and call them up. They are a little expensive. 704-786-8139. By the way, alot of the Galaxies didn't come with a shroud unless they had A/C.

n/m

Earlier this year they ran an article series in "Mustang and Fords" where they had Rousch Racing (Spelling ?) build a 390 for the 21st century. They mentioned that they had the machinist tap the holes for the freeze plugs when the engine block was done. In the article brass plugs were then screwed in with an epoxy as a sealer. I don't think there were any pics of the process itself.

depending on your vehicle, the newer small port jobs will outperform the C-1's on a 352. There is a lot of technical reasons why, but a book could come out of that. If you are keeping it #'s correct, then the compression (or lack of it) is what is killing you. You can install the bigger valves, but will need to notch the tops of the cylinders. This should be done on most any engine built as the flowcone is always torn apart from the walls close proximity. That head has a large chamber, and the compressed mixture is not that excited as if it would be with the smaller chamber styles. The hi rod ratio of these engines need a small intake runner, head port to keep velocity up. What is the car, and intended use?

DOVE MANUFACTURING
P.O. Box 1003
Columbia Station, OH 44028
(216) 236-5169

Yep, the 410 crank is the same as a 428 crank. You will definately need new pistons. The 390 ones will probably stick up above the block deck. 410 pistons arn't always that easy to find and tend to be forged custom units....i.e. $$ Makes a great torquey engine though.

Rich use Sterling 381P piston. I am using that very same piston for my 410 build up.
If you need a set i do have .30 over that I was going to install, however my machinist told me that I would have to use .40 over instead.

Wow! Thank you all so much for all the help so far. I really apprecaite it!
Rich

Crank is a 428/410 unit, rods are just rods, don't know about the heads, but throw the cams away. A used cam without the matched lifters will generally fail pretty quick.

The C8AE-H heads are common on the '68 and up FEs so they are probably stock for the 428.

What''s the date code under the oil filter pad?

Thanks John and Bob. The casting date on the block is 8F19 and there is an E above that by itself. The C8AE-H intake ports match closely to the aluminum intake that I have, but the C6TE intake ports are a lot taller. What would have been the application for them?

If those thermactor-drilled C8AE-H heads have the 8-bolt vertical exhaust pattern, they are very likely to be PI heads from 1968-70. If they have a 14-bolt exhaust pattern they are likely to have come from a 1968 390GT engine in a Fairlane or Mustang.

The 8F19 marking on the block indicate it's an early enough block to get an aluminum intake, as the more cost-effective CJ cast iron intake replaced the aluminum on the 428PI soon after the CJ became available. It would ot have been too many weeks later that iron intakes would have replaced the aluminum on your engine. There are other identifiers which will help assure it's a 428PI/CJ/SCJ type block, but I won't go into them now.

C8AE-H heads with thermactor bosses drilled are not particularly common. They tend to be found on all 390GT cammed engines, and since the 390GT cam also came in the 1967-70 428PI and all 428CJ engines, it follows that these engines also got thermactor. The greater valve timing overlap of the GT cam apparently allowed some raw gasoline to pass directly from the intake valve right out the exhaust valve, thus requiring an exhaust gas reactor to clean things up. Note that in 1966-67 only California GT cammed engines needed thermactor, but the more stringent emissions laws of 1968 required GT cammed engines to run thermactor to

The C6TE heads are probably marine or industrial heads which likely came off 428 or 427 motors. These are the same as C6AE-R heads, and only need to have the "AR" lip ground off the exhaust port ceiling and seats cut and throat dressed to fit CJ sized valves installed to make them perform just like CJ heads. Note that CJ heads were cast for regular FE valves, but were throat dressed to fit the larger CJ valves. Also grinding the thermactor lump off the ceiling of the exhaust runner. Note the so-called "AR" lip is not really an anti-reversion lip, but I haven't yet figured out a handy nickname to describe it's real function of matching the early exhaust runner to the crappy 390 Fairlane/Mustang exhaust manifold, so AR will have to do for now. The nice thing about these heads over CJ heads is that you can likely cut them to "new" CJ valve seat specs, allowing the valve to sit tall for optimal breathing, rather than recessed in the head becuase of numerous valve grinds.

The 1U crank is correct for all 410, 428plain, 428PI, and early 428CJ engines. They are the same as later CJ and SCJ cranks, except they are drilled differently to achieve a different balance.

I believe there are two PI intakes, a C6 and a C7 casting number version. The best I can tell they are identical, and you have the latter. This is apparently the same as a 427MR intake, except the throttle linkage bosses are different.

The rods are standard 390/410/428/427, and were drilled for either 3/8" bolts or 13/32" bolts, depending on application.

Shoe.

Yes it is just a large freeze plug. Any competent auto parts store should be able to sell you one.

n.m.