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Original Message
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| Not in the same class..........reality vs dreams ! |
| By P - 11/28/2001 4:32:22 PM; IP 66.89.75.42 |
The FE series absorbed untold millions of dollars worth of Henry Ford’s research and development. It was raced until it broke. Every time something broke, it was fixed, such as the internal web reinforcing and the cross bolted mains. When the engine wouldn’t win, design changes were made to keep it competitive. However, it did win, and it won a LOT. In the three years of 1963, 1964, and 1965, the FE racked up 101 NASCAR wins compared to nine (9) Chevrolet wins and something like 35 Chrysler wins. That, my friend, is one COMPETITIVE motor.
Did the 395 series win any NASCAR races, well, yes in the Boss 429 trim, but the present day 385 is a mere shadow of the Boss design. And did the 385 ever win LeMans, or an American Sports Racing Championship? Well, the FE won Lemans twice, and had 4 cars cross the finish line in those two races before a competitor finished (and the competitor was 35 miles behind at the time).
So what you have in a FE motor is gazillions of dollars worth of thinwall casting technology, metallurgy, tooling, design, and real world racing experience, that proved itself against the Chrysler wedge heads and hemi, and whatever (tee hee) Chevrolet could muster in those days. The FE dominated for the years noted above, then fell into a second place for 1966 and 1967, still winning a respectable number of races against the hemi, and then in 1968 was responsible for putting a lot of wins in the “W” column for Ford when the Boss 429 was getting it’s R & D down well enough to win on it’s own. The Boss 429 was one heck of an engine, but it was the cylinder head design that made the engine noteworthy.
There were many high powered engines of the day, some of which existed primarily in the marketing brochure, but many with high power ratings. Few, however, could step up to the plate and run at WOT in a NASCAR type competition. That's where the big dogs ruled, and they did so in front of millions of people. Many of those so called "high power" engines would have been toast if they had to run with the big dog on the NASCAR circuit. Chrysler knew it, and for a while Chrysler was the only real competitior for Ford, and they did win some races primarily in 1966 and 1967. NASCAR is where the FE earned its respect. It kicked ass. Few engies were ever run so hard as to determin that they actually needed a cross bolted main, LeMans rods, and steel crankshafts in order to survive the race. Certainly, the Pontiac engine of the day never went through this type of development, although they certainly did their share of bragging via ad agencies.
The 427 block is still considered to be the “ROYALTY” of American big block engine design, cast of very thin but special mix cast iron to very high tolerances, cooled slowly in large ovens, and then machined so many times it would make your head spin. Compared to a 385, we’re looking at the same difference as a United States member of the Delta Team, next to a tough high school football player, ahem! (no contest). As far as POWER, the 385 can be had in good power trim these days, but, and this is a LARGE “but”, how long would it survive in a full race endurance environment? The LeMans engine was run at racing RPM for 48 hours at Ford. For knew EXACTLY what it would do with it’s detuned (499-HP trim and aluminum head design) power, down from the “short track” 540-HP NASCAR version. RPM was limited to 6,000 for longevity, and they finished in first place two years in a row, until Enzo Ferrari had to resort to politics to outlaw engines over 5-liters. So Enzo was duly thrashed by Henry, and thought he outfoxed him by outlawing the “unbeatable” 427, but alas, the uncompetitive small block GT-40’s that couldn’t win earlier ended up winning again the following TWO years in the hands of independents (with strong Ford support).
So what you have with the 427, is a well documented racing legacy on both sides of the Atlantic, where the proof was pounded out on the race tracks of the world. What you have with the 385 is more of a marketing brochure. Like Royce noted, “not in the same class”, and I totally agree.
My three cents,
P
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