My 460 Build

FordGuy100

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I've decided (aka been wishy washy) on what to do with my 2 trucks. I'm going to focus on tearing apart my F250 and going through it in the best body on rebuild as possible. In the mean time, I'll need a truck to do my weekly truck duties, so I'm going to give the 460 more love.

So far I've rebuilt the carb and bumped ignition timing into the 12-14 BTDC range. It is chuffing out the exhaust, and the old dollar bill trick tells me that it has a burnt valve or two. So I'm pulling the heads this weekend and will have them sent out.

I have a gasket kit ordered up, along with a straight up timing set. I'm thinking about getting a mild (and cheap) cam since I will have this thing apart anyways. Summit sells this K3500 cam with the following specs:

Basic Operating RPM Range:1,200-5,000

Intake Duration at 050 inch Lift:204

Exhaust Duration at 050 inch Lift:214

Duration at 050 inch Lift:204 int./214 exh.

Advertised Intake Duration:282

Advertised Exhaust Duration:292

Advertised Duration:282 int./292 exh.

Intake Valve Lift with Factory Rocker Arm Ratio:0.486 in.

Exhaust Valve Lift with Factory Rocker Arm Ratio:0.512 in.

Valve Lift with Factory Rocker Arm Ratio:0.486 int./0.512 exh.

Lobe Separation (degrees):112




After the heads are gone through I'm thinking I'll try my hand at giving them a mild port job. This motor is extremely low compression, so its never going to be a tire fryer, but that's alright. I'm going to ditch the air injection system, and delete the EGR functionality as well.


If anybody has any suggestions on cam's for this build I'm open to hearing. Low RPM, high idle vacuum is what I would like.
 

Dieselcrawler

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I been reading lots of praise on the comp 268. I also plan on getting stealth intake for it
 

FordGuy100

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I was worried I was going to run into loosing to much bottom end with that cam. I've also read that the Weiand doesn't do as well as the Edelbrock 2166 down low. It seems like everyone has their own opinion on things though so who knows.
 

FordGuy100

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So I got the passenger side head pulled off. Cylinder wear looked decent except for that one spot where the cross hatch looked kinda scuffed.

Valves were pretty carboned up but no obvious burnt valves. Exhaust valve on cylinder 8 is about 10 thousandths down (towards cylinder) compared to the other 3 valves. Maybe that's what was causing my chuffing exhaust, stumble idle problems?

I might just pull the valves myself and hand lap it. I'd be surprised if I put 1000 miles on it between when I get this done and when I swap it
 

FordGuy100

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Note, I'm holding a straight edge on the valve stem tips to see if there is any discrepancy in height. All the intake valves had the same height's, the above exhaust valve is on cylinder number 8 which is lower then the other 3 by about 10 thousandths per the feeler gauge.
 

FordGuy100

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Those are the worst of the exhaust valves. No chunks missing but definitely some pitting going in. Head has some minor pitting in the valve seat area but nothing major. Went ahead and ordered some valves and I'll hand lap them in place and call it good. Going to get the heads hot tanked so I don't get filthy every time I touch them. Also got some stuff to do some minor head porting.
 

towcat

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do yourself a favor and get a degree wheel and check the numbers. I've found consistently a retard of 4* from the factory. was told by the older mechs, ford did it to pass smog. made a night and day difference in my repo truck. mileage still sucked, but the exhaust manifolds weren't glowing after a hard run.
 

FordGuy100

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do yourself a favor and get a degree wheel and check the numbers. I've found consistently a retard of 4* from the factory. was told by the older mechs, ford did it to pass smog. made a night and day difference in my repo truck. mileage still sucked, but the exhaust manifolds weren't glowing after a hard run.

Thats the plan Calvin. I bought a timing chain and sprocket kit that will allow me to run straight up, or even advanced timing.

Found a place to hot tank and magnaflux the heads so I'm taking them there this weekend.
 

FordGuy100

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Got the heads, valve covers, and intake back from the machine shop. Heads checked out good, they were surface 5 thousands. I'm thinking I should throw some paint on everything, but first I'm going to start doing some port work. One head already had a plug in the back of the head for where the air coming from the air pump would go. Kind of odd. I'm going to drill and tap them for pipe plugs to get rid of the air pump system.
 

Dieselcrawler

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yea i am going to seal off the smog holes, my cam and chain set arrived tuesday. maybe one day i will get it on the stand.
 

IDIBRONCO

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Besides the cam timing, one other thing that helps a 460 is to put a pair of "dove" heads on them to raise the compression.
 

Ds2853

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Look at the stuff designed by Harold Brookshire for Lunati cams. The voodoo series. He is the man.
 

FordGuy100

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Got the heads back together and on finally. I just blocked the thermactor inlet at the back of the block with a steel pipe plug that other guys use (last number 4 numbers are 2188 iirc). Got the cam installed with new lifters and plenty of assembly lube so there shouldn't be any problems there. I bought a timing set where I could go +8,4,0 -4,-8. I've heard some guys can run the stock cam actually advanced but I didn't want to run into problems so I just set it straight up. Still needs everything else bolted down on it, but at least there is progress.
 

FordGuy100

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Got it running. I'm having timing issues and can't seem to figure it out.

To set timing on these you take the vacuum advance hose off and plug it, and then set the base timing on a warmed up engine at idle. Well, at a warm idle with no advance it likes in the 22-24* advance range. Less then that and it runs rougher. Before I had it set around 15* and it was fine and liked it. But if I lugged the engine taking off it would fall on its face, as I'm guessing timing isn't advanced enough.

The problem is if I set base timing at 22-24 with the advance hose on it'll idle around 32* of timing, which it does fine, but I know thats just to high. If I set the timing to 22-24 with the hose on, if I lug the engine it really falls on its face about to stall.

I ended up setting it at 24* and plugged the vacuum hose. It goes up to the 36* full timing at some rpm above idle (no tach, have no idea of the rpm). It drives good, but its a bit to advanced as if I give it a low RPM high load situation it'll ping until the RPM's start to pick up.

Why does it need so much timing to run decent?
 

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