Project: Midnight Panic

[Skipped_Link]

With the heads on I was able to slide in the Morel roller lifters, then start figuring out rocker arm geometry, & push rod length,

There are several brands out there that make rock arms for the BBF, depending what heads are being run, & what valve length is being used, there are some differences that make some fit/work better than others, I'm a pretty big fan of the Harland Sharp rockers, & they actually make 2 different rocker arms for the big Ford heads,
While I do have several different brands of rocker arms sitting in the shop, including Competition Cams, Crower, Scorpion, & both styles of Harland Sharps, I had read the original HS rockers for standard BBF head would work, So I drug out the brand new set I had set aside for this build, right off the bat I notice the roller tip riding way out on the edge of the valve, so I played around with the other stuff I had, & found the second set of Harland Sharps (actually designed for the SCJ/Kaase P51 heads) fit real nice,

After a little measuring, some calculating, & running a couple patterns, I had a push rod length determined so I could order a set.

They say where the rocker tip lands on the valve is not as critical as the amount of sweep (how far the roller tip actually moves across the valve) So picturing the valve tip as a clock, a .060 sweep at say 8 & 4 would be better than .120 sweep at 9 & 3,
I've also read anything over .060 is to much, (causes valve & valve guide wear) but I think cam lift & general head design plays in to much to actually set a hard maximum number, you can only do so much with certain length arm, & set distance from valve to rocker stud,
I really think if you get the rocker arm perpendicular to the valve at mid lift, that's about as good as it's going to get,

This kind of detail is probably not that interesting to most on a 4x4 page, but if anyone is interested I'll post a link to a real good basic video on figuring out push rod length,
And for those of you "LS swap the world" doods, you could have skipped pretty much this whole post,

I did go ahead with a little more mockup to make sure there were no surprises when I go to button this thing up, & there was one, The distributor I had modified to fit under the blower comes from MSD as a small cap, which is normally needed on a BBF with a tunnel ram like I run in the buggy, when I set the intake on to check out how the ports line up I noticed it looked like there was more room in the distributor area, I poked the distributor in & indeed there was more room, that's only relevant because I just happen to have a " MSD Cap-Adapt" sitting in my distributor parts box, I bolted it on & sure enough, I can actually run the big cap,

All the planning, measuring, modifying, & it's dumb little unplanned stuff like this that makes a guy smile at the end of the day, I think it's only cause there's about a 10:1 ratio of unplanned surprises not working to actually panning out. I'll take the freebee this week.

So that's basically where I'm at on the engine, waiting for another parts order, I did stack a bunch of stuff on the long block so it's looking like something, but I'll probably have most of my next days off wrapping it up, if all the parts show up before then.

 

[Skipped_Link]

Top knotch work, as usual. When you checked the valve clearance, do you just set the head on and turn it by hand? Or do you have the valve out as far as it will go and just set the head on?

I'm obviously not an engine man. I've rebuilt a few engines, but never "built an engine". I've never checked the clearance like that. (All stock parts) Stupid question, is the valve full open when the piston is at the top? I'm suggesting maybe it wasn't going to hit if the valve was timed just so.

So is what you did considered increasing displacement or reducing compression? Lol

I mocked it with a pair of lifters, push rods I figured were close, rocker arms, no head gasket, & zero vlalve, lash, so clearance was going to increase from here no matter what, but even after adding .060 for the head gasket, & .026 valve lash it still didn't have enough radial clearance,

The valves are never fully open with the piston at TDC, timing events in short goes, the piston chases the exhaust valve up just before it reaches TDC the intake starts to open, just after TDC the exhaust valve closes & the intake chases the piston down,

I'm pretty sure displacement stays the same, total volume does increase, & there will be a slight reduction in compression, but that's ok, I started at 12.02:1, no I can just call it an even 12

 

[rattle_snake]

fap fap fap....

 

[ConwayMuddy]

I love the engine tech, all the small details that go into making big power and holding it together. Fords arent really my thing so excuse the noob question, any reason for using a ford block? I realize it's not the same as what you'd find in an ftreefiddy, is the aftermarket limited for block choices, or is a cost/performance deal?

 

[Wisconsinite]

I get unreasonably excited when I see updates to this thread. Thanks for taking the time to post all the tech!!

 

[72Pstroke]

I have ran into the same problem with the oil pan gaskets, and have found that a step drill bit works pretty good for opening the corner holes up. You just have to go easy.

 

[Skipped_Link]

Fords arent really my thing so excuse the noob question, any reason for using a ford block? I realize it's not the same as what you'd find in an ftreefiddy, is the aftermarket limited for block choices, or is a cost/performance deal?

It really boils down to not having a lot of choices,
I think only one other company makes an iron 385 series (429/460) block, & that is Eliminator products, they actually make it in different stages, & price points,
Then you have a couple places that make an aluminum block, but that about doubles the cost, & is just not needed,

The A460 is just a great option for a guy wanting really good strength at a reasonable price,

 

[Tjjared]

All I can say is wow bad ass man!

 

[Skipped_Link]

Unfortunately I only had 3 days off this week, What is normally my short 4 day off week was even shorter by having to go the MSHA annual refresher on my first day off,
But with that out of the way I was able to continue on,

Last week I had called Good Vibrations Motorsports & had a conversation on a base tune up for the mechanical injection, After ironing out the details I placed an order for what they recommended starting with for the hat/injector, blower, & port nozzles, & a selection of bypass pills, then I had them add a few other things onto the order, including port injector hoses, the correct length blower belt, & a spacer to get my upper pulley aligned with the lower,
That order was received early this week, so I was able to get the nozzles installed in their respective locations,

These days everyone posts a screen shot from a lap top showing their EFI tune,

Here's what a mechanical injection tune looks like,

Also received this week was the correct pushrods, a few misc. fittings for the coolant plumbing, & a black distributor cap,
The fittings & cap are not critical at this time, but the pushrods were,
So everything from the long block up came back apart, the new push rods cleaned, inspected, measured, & then set in place,
With the actual push rods that I was using in hand, (not the mock up ones & had been messing with) I was able setup one cylinder & check a couple more spot that could have clearance concerns, one of those being the back of the rocker arm to PR clearance & full lift,
I knew this area was tight, & the new push rods had no extra taper & offered no more room than the mock up units,
It's not uncommon the see a little grinding in this area, depending on rocker arm brand, cam specs, etc.

I took a little time & set up the mill so I could run through the whole set fairly quickly,

The way the rocker arm is sitting in the vice, I was able to cut about .045" of material off the rocker where needed without removing much material at all down by the push rod cup & trunnion bearing area,

Before on the left, after on the right,

After all 16 were run through the mill, de-burred, & thoroughly clean, they were lubed up & installed. A rough lash setting was done on each cylinder, then the Jomar stud girdles were cleaned up & installed, followed by checking/setting the valve lash a second time as the girdle can pull things around a bit,

Being done in the heads for now the valve covers could go on, but they needed a little work, (what doesn't on this project?)
I notice since new out of the box the covers were not very flat, so each one went on the mill & about .020 cut off to square everything up.

 

[WaterH]

Stupid question. Is the "Jomar stud girdle" the gold zig zag things on top? I've never seen such. Is that a race thing or am I behind the times?

Always fun watching you.

 

[Grendel]

Stupid question. Is the "Jomar stud girdle" the gold zig zag things on top? I've never seen such. Is that a race thing or am I behind the times?

Always fun watching you.

Yes. It's a high RPM thing. Don't want anything walking around.

 

[Skipped_Link]

On to the intake,
The two center port nozzle bodies on a Blue Thunder blower intake are kind of down in a hole,
I had a couple options here,
1) Run the "short" nozzle bodies I already had, which would require tapping the 1/8' pipe threads deeper on to the ports to the point the holder would be fully threaded into the intake, If the nozzle holder is not in far enough, it would not spray into the port correctly,
Requirements, lots of extra work tapping holes & likely a special tool for holding the nozzles when installing/removing the port hoses,

2) Order longer 2" nozzle bodies so I don't have to tap the port holes, down side is all the extra length is in the part of the body that goes into the port, so they would actually be hanging down in there farther than I would like, only gaining marginally on the outside of the intake, & may still require a special tool,

3) Order 2.625" bodies, which would require the same work as the first set, & likely be to long between the manifold & valve cover,


Holes were tapped & the bodies I had were installed,
Here you can see, 3 sets of wrench flats. The nozzle body, the nozzle, then the hose, the bodies are in tight, with a bit of loc-tite to keep them there, but the nozzles only have a couple little threads & an o-ring, so a guy has to back them when tightening or loosening the hole itself,

A sacrifice to the tool gods was made, & a "Forged in India" 7/16 found it's purpose in life.

Adjustments will need to be made to really refine the tool, but it is functional for now,
Bottom line it's a pain in the ass, (grinding on a wrench was easy enough) but even still it's going to be "hold your tongue just right" operation if I ever need to change anything on the center ports, but the results are worth it,

Optimal nozzle body placement on the inside,

Still clean, & tidy keeping the stick out length to a minimum on the outside,

I'm already scheming on a plan to keep the hoses tied up & not just flopping around, but that's project for a little later,

 

[Grendel]

Spark plug wire holders are what we used in the past.

 

[Skipped_Link]

As seen in the previous post, the intake was then installed for real this time,

No longer needing access to the manifold mounting bolts, I was able to install the blower setback plate, which is sealed buy the O-ring in the above pic,

Prior to bolting it on for good, if you look closely in the above pic you can see where I drilled/tapped a hole in the edge of the plate, (on both sides) this is part if that hose control scheme I was talking about.


At this point the blower can go on, but mostly just for mock-up, because the engine will be installed in the truck, then the blower bolted on for real,

Warning, the rest of this post I'm going to be talking about "roots style blower snout, shaft & couplers" a lot, & I didn't even think about getting pics, if you're really interested, you might copy/paste that phrase in the google image search. Basically the coupler bolts to the front of rotor, & the shaft in the snout splines into that.

Last weeks update where I posted the complete/mocked up engine you can see I had a short snout on the blower, & the upper pulley flipped out, this arrangement lined up perfect with the crank pulley & tensioner, but my gut tells me there is more load on the snout bearing with the pulley flipped out like that,

The short snout was what came on the blower when I bought it, & TBS reinstalled it after rebuilding the blower, I knew it was way to short, but it was plugging the hole & just happed to line up with the pulley on backwards,

A year or so ago I had bought a used 7" snout, knowing I needed a longer one for the project, I wasn't sure even a 7" would be long enough, but it was fair priced & in the ball park for length,
When it showed up I was a little disappointed in it's condition, the bearings were notchy, the internal splines on the shaft were in bad shape, plus it looked like a guy used a hammer to remove it once or twice in it's life,
The snout was stripped down to nothing to see if at least the body could be saved, after some time with a little 220 grit & the lathe it looked like it be ok with a trip to powdercoat,


Good vibrations keeps everything in stock for most stander blower snout arrangements, So while that last batch of parts was being powder coated right before thanksgiving, I ordered a new shaft, seal, coupler, snap-ring, & a pair of bearings. By the time the parts showed up I had a decent looking housing to put them in, which I did & put the snout back on the shelf until needed.

Then with the recent mock-up sessions I found I actually need an 8" snout, unfortunately that length is more common in a "street arrangement" (smaller coupler/shaft size, lighter bearings, etc.)
Shimming pullies to get things lined up is actually so common that a verity of spacers are readily available. So a 1" spacer fixed my fresh rebuilt 7" snout right up.

I figured now was the time to get that installed.
Only after pulling the short snout off did I find that my standard off the shelf coupler that should bolt to virtually any roots style supercharger will not just bolt on & work with my blower,
"Well why the fawk would it" I think was the exact words my dog heard.

Not only does this 14-71 have a bigger diameter register for the coupler, (1.5" vs the 1.25" in my coupler) it is also a "retro/front discharge" blower, so in short the whole snout shaft/coupler combination needs to be .750" longer,
On the short snout that came on the blower they made up the length difference with a combination of shaft & coupler that worked,
I did not have any luck finding a "5.75 inch long coupler" but I did find where RBS superchargers does sell a "Billet aluminum .75 inch coupler spacer" & it reads right in the description "if you have a retro style blower",,,,,, They offer them for 1.5" register (like my blower has) or 1.25 register (like my coupler has) but nothing to adapt one to the other,

Which was ok, 11:PM is to late to be ordering some oddball "WTF you trying to do that for" part anyway. Besides that I had a 1.5" long piece of 3.5" diameter aluminum I wasn't doing anything with, One setup in the lathe, one in the mill, & by 2:AM I had my spacer/adapter thing,

Now, standard readily available parts will fit this blower,

The spacer is sandwiched between the coupler & gear buy simply using longer bolts, unfortunately my 5/16 fine thread supply is pretty skimpy, so I did have to go home for the night slightly defeated because it would be a couple hours yet before anyone in town that carried good bolts would be open.

But before I called it a day, I had enough 1" long bolts to make sure the pattern in the spacer matched the bolt pattern in the gear, ( I reamed the holes in the spacer to size so they actually fit the bolts snug)

,,,

 

[Skipped_Link]

With a quick trip to town the next day I was able to get the bolts I needed, everything went pretty smooth with assembly,

By the time I finished bolting up the snout, & filling the case with oil, then doing some much needed cleanup around the shop, I had about enough time to stack everything back on the engine so it looks about the same as last week, only now it has a few more parts, a few different parts, & some parts installed for good,

I know pics are worth a thousand words & some of these posts get a little long winded, it's just part of the story with this project,

 

[Skipped_Link]

Stupid question. Is the "Jomar stud girdle" the gold zig zag things on top? I've never seen such. Is that a race thing or am I behind the times?

As Grendal said, keeps thing from moving around by tying all the studs together as a unit, not necessarily just at high RPM, heavy spring pressure can put quite a strain on the rocker studs individually,

 

[JR4X]

Here’s a concise short video to describe why you need girdles for big lift cams and high pressure valve springs. This vid is of a small block but it does the same job. Since no two valves next to each other are open at the same time, you’re using the static strength of the idle studs to brace the one at full open.

https://youtu.be/Z7kfCxj_yAo WaterH

 

[Grendel]

I have a bunch of blower snouts if you want them?

 

[Provience]

well the story sounds like a little bit of a pain in the ass because of the expectation that things should work or that people should already make the things you need, but hell, i appreciate you taking the time. it makes for a great picture in the end

at least it looks like it was a quick and easy adapter and not something with mystery offset bolt spacing or oddball shapes

 

[Skipped_Link]

well the story sounds like a little bit of a pain in the ass because of the expectation that things should work or that people should already make the things you need, but hell, i appreciate you taking the time. it makes for a great picture in the end

I was probably just moody, it was late, figured I'd knock out this little project real quick before calling it a day, I mean how difficult can it be to swap a snout on a blower, literally a dozen bolts & one O-ring involved,

 

[Provience]

I was probably just moody, it was late, figured I'd knock out this little project real quick before calling it a day, I mean how difficult can it be to swap a snout on a blower, literally a dozen bolts & one O-ring involved,

random question, because you use big heavy things and steer really fast

did you end up changing the steering hydraulics around? I pulled up the thread on the other site because i know it was mentioned over there, but turns out there wasn't a resolution to the thought of adding a flow control.

 

[Skipped_Link]

did you end up changing the steering hydraulics around? I pulled up the thread on the other site because i know it was mentioned over there, but turns out there wasn't a resolution to the thought of adding a flow control.

I decided against flow control valve that I was looking at, If I remember correctly resistance to flow would divert fluid, steering/work would create resistance, I just don't think that valve I was looking it is the proper one for the task,
The vast majority of guys running this same pump in the same application are running -8 lines or smaller, I think I have convinced myself to try it as is, unless I run across something that makes me question or re-think it before finish work starts,

 

[WaterH]

"Well why the fawk would it" I think was the exact words my dog heard.

Hmmm, I didn't know my dog was listening.

 

[Will Scarlet]

Here’s a concise short video to describe why you need girdles for big lift cams and high pressure valve springs. This vid is of a small block but it does the same job. Since no two valves next to each other are open at the same time, you’re using the static strength of the idle studs to brace the one at full open.

https://youtu.be/Z7kfCxj_yAo WaterH

Embeded:

 

[Chkn]

Damn.
Looks like a hell of a good time.

 

[Ranch Hand]

I have a novice question for you. Why is the blower belt routed outside the idler pulley as opposed to inside? It appears that there is room to route it to the inside and you'd gain quite a few more degrees of contact on both the crank pulley and blower pulley. Would you not get better torque transfer with less tooth force and possibly be able to run less belt tension to reduce the amount of axial load on the crank and blower? I'd think the belt would be happier too running the smooth side against the pulley instead of the toothed side. Look at the hellcat belt diagram: the blower pulley has a little over 180 deg of contact and the crank pulley has something like 200 deg. Something I don't get?

 

[WaterH]

I have a novice question for you. Why is the blower belt routed outside the idler pulley as opposed to inside? It appears that there is room to route it to the inside and you'd gain quite a few more degrees of contact on both the crank pulley and blower pulley. Would you not get better torque transfer with less tooth force and possibly be able to run less belt tension to reduce the amount of axial load on the crank and blower? I'd think the belt would be happier too running the smooth side against the pulley instead of the toothed side. Look at the hellcat belt diagram: the blower pulley has a little over 180 deg of contact and the crank pulley has something like 200 deg. Something I don't get]

What you say makes sense to me, but when I DuckDuckGo "engine blowers", they all seem to do it like Leroy.

 

[Skipped_Link]

Hmmm, I didn't know my dog was listening.

Mine is usually the only one around to hear anything that I say out loud,

I have a novice question for you. Why is the blower belt routed outside the idler pulley as opposed to inside? It appears that there is room to route it to the inside and you'd gain quite a few more degrees of contact on both the crank pulley and blower pulley. Would you not get better torque transfer with less tooth force and possibly be able to run less belt tension to reduce the amount of axial load on the crank and blower? I'd think the belt would be happier too running the smooth side against the pulley instead of the toothed side. Look at the hellcat belt diagram: the blower pulley has a little over 180 deg of contact and the crank pulley has something like 200 deg. Something I don't get?

First thing to remember is the hellcat is running a serpentine belt, it requires tension to work, even then under load the work is actually helping by pulling the belt into the top pulley, & the tensioner is mostly controlling slack & stretch at that point, more wrap is just more traction, which is a good idea on a belt with little traction.

The 14mm drive belt in the pics does not have to rely on tension, it has enough "traction" to start with, & again load is going to pull the belt into the top pulley, (as long as slack cant be thrown over the top) & the belt adjuster is going to control slack, both keeping the belt from flopping around, & keeping it engaged with the bottom pulley, but not by shear tension, Does that make sense?

It is not the initial tension on a 'cogged" style drive belt, weather is be a 1/2", 8mm, or 14mm belt like pictured that is pulling on both snouts, There are actually two forces at work in this case,
First is the load of the supercharger is causing the crank pulley to try to climb up the belt, the harder the resistance/load, the harder it tries to climb, same goes for the blower snout, the more load the more its pulled down,
Second, when this thing is running full tilt, say 7000 RPM, centrifugal force is trying to make that belt go from the tringle shaped pattern in to pic to more of a "backward D" pattern, that force itself is adding tension & pulling both snouts together. This I also believe is why running the cogged side of the belt on a smooth tensioner/adjuster is not a big deal, once on the throttle it's not hardly touching it, the flanged edges keeping the belt from running off the drive pulleys probably it's most important job at that point,

Like you I have wondered why not route the belt inside the adjuster, would this help keep the belt from from trying to run a "D" pattern & lessen the load on the shouts? or would it try to bunch the belt up under that pulley & cause a wreck?
I would imagine someone at some time has tried it, but the results must not have been very spectacular or everyone would have that setup by now,

In my case the belt would be awful close to the fuel pump drive.

 

[SLOWPOKE693]

Maybe I missed it..... Why did you have to set the blower back so far? Seems like the longer the snout the more leverage the belt has on the whole assembly trying to rip it off the manifold.

 

[Skipped_Link]

Maybe I missed it..... Why did you have to set the blower back so far? Seems like the longer the snout the more leverage the belt has on the whole assembly trying to rip it off the manifold.

This is what they call a “retro” blower, & the discharge opening is right at the front of the case,
if you look at the pic with the setback plate mounted you can see how close the opening is to the front of the manifold,
if I were to bolt the blower on in the standard location, the opening in the bottom would hang out over the mounting surface by about 2”