Polishing a turd.

[cleatus12r]

How?

A 400......

Balanced, roller cam, Tim Meyer pistons.
Desktop dyno says it should be pretty darn fantastic compared to stock.

I'll put together pictures and videos but I'm waiting on a cam. I never was alerted that the cam would take at a minimum 4 weeks with no estimated delivery time in sight.

Anyway, the machine work is done but the block is at another machine shop to get the lifter bores drilled out and bushings pressed in to limit the oil going to the lifters. The guy doing the balancing sent me a video yesterday of it spinning up and told me it's ready to go. Once I get the crank and reciprocating assembly back I need to take the rods and pistons BACK to the first machine shop to get the piston pins pressed in.

Anyhoo......

I'll get pictures and videos loaded as progress begins. Not that anybody wants to really see money being thrown at a Ford 400.

[Power Hungry]

Dang! Sounds like an interesting build.

I don't particularly have any issues with the 351M/400 engines. The low compression, open chamber heads always seemed to be the Achilles heel of those. Now, if we were looking at putting a nice set of closed chambered aluminum heads on it, that'd be different. That would probably end up costing more than the entire build is worth, though.

I think it's still a good motor, it just has its own little world of issues. Kinda like the 6.0L.

Post pics and link to the video from the machine shop. Always like watching cranks getting balanced.

[cleatus12r]

I FINALLY got all of my parts in one place again.

Starting with the work I had done to the block. It wasn't cheap, but worth every penny when a guy doesn't have to slap new rod and main bearings in it every 30-40K miles.

[Power Hungry]

That is a super clean looking block. very nice work. Now for a little Q&A session.

What is the purpose of boring and sleeving the lifter bores?

I saw that you had mentioned it was to reduce oil flow to the lifters. Not being very familiar with the 335 blocks, I don't exactly know what the weaknesses are. I'm assuming that the lifter bores would get sloppy and bleed off oil pressure, effectively starving the mains 2 through 5. The sleeves, I assume, would prevent the bleed off even if the lifter bores get worn, due to the smaller oil orifice in the sleeve.

Since the 351M/400 block is basically a Cleveland engine, would standard Cleveland modifications work on these. The only reason I as is that I have a 351M engine at home and I'm trying to decide what I want to do with it. Is it a boat anchor (as most people feel they are), or is it worthwhile to build?

Anyway, keep the pics coming. Love stuff like this. I'm going to post up photos of my FE when I get home tonight.

Take care.

[cleatus12r]

Less turd-ish.

Roller cam and crankshaft installed.

[cleatus12r]

Wow. I have never had this much trouble getting something like this done. The entire valvetrain of this engine has been nothing but a thorn in my side for the past 2.5 months. The short block is done though. The distributor gear is done and the oil pump, pan, front cover, and water pump are installed. The lifter retainer spring plate mounting bolt holes were fun but fits like a million bucks.

Debacle:

First, the wait for the cam. Nobody had one and after ordering directly from COMP, I waited over a month for most of the parts to show up. Mainly I was waiting on the lifters as I had to have them at the machine shop doing the lifter bore bushings. Well, they didn't have the retainers and keepers in stock so I figured (like most normal people) that the stock ones would work. No dice. The new springs are larger diameter and the inner ones don't fit with the rotators on the exhaust valves. Great. Call COMP back and order recently back-in-stock retainers and keepers. Oh, that'll be $90 instead of $34 since the "kit" was broken up initially. Fine. Gotta have them.

The retainers and keepers showed up yesterday so I busted out a head and thought I'd start changing the springs. First exhaust valve.....no issues as it went together beautifully. I pulled the intake valve from the same cylinder............AAAARRRGGGHHHHH!!! 4-GROOVE keepers on the intake valves!

Called COMP again. No stock on the super-locks with 4-grooves. Ran around (as much running can be done on the web) and finally found a set of them although I had to buy the full 16-valves' worth kit instead of 8 for $64. Yep, get 'em on the way as I have to have them...........

So now I will have a full set of spare 10 degree "super-locks" for a 335-series laying around for the next one I do. This has been such a rough experience I think I'll just buy remans or sell off cores to people from here on.

Here is a picture of the valve springs. I have never done a roller cam retrofit in something and I cannot believe the seat pressure difference from the stock flat tappet springs.

Left is the stock spring, center is the new spring with dampener, and right is the new inner spring (that required a different style valve seal that I had to buy separately too). This roller cam better be worth it!

[cleatus12r]

COMP Cams has lost my business forever.

I realize that due to the manufactured shutdown plandemic that there will be shortages and delays but here is a timeline of stuff that has gone down with this company from the onset of ordering to the current time of 2:30 PM 10/12/21.

8/24/21 - Purchased roller camshaft kit direct from COMP.
9/21/21 - Called COMP to see if they had an ETA on the kit. Short lifters, retainers, and keepers.
9/22/21 - COMP called me and miraculously had lifters in stock now. Still no retainers or keepers. The sales person does the order a la carte just to get me the parts. The kit was $910, I was charged $890.


See previous post for filler to today.....

10/12/21 - Jeg's sent me the 4-groove keepers for the intake valves. Got heads assembled and installed on block. GETTING SOMEWHERE!!!! I set out to install the pushrods that CAME WITH THE 351M/400 roller KIT. They're an inch short. REALLY!?!?!? Of course the stock ones are way too long to work with roller lifters. I called COMP AGAIN....waited on hold for an hour and fifteen minutes just to be put on hold and directed to a "tech's" voicemail. An hour later I get a call back just to be told that they don't know what pushrods I need. So, I offer to buy a pushrod length checker and that I want to get an RMA for the incorrect pushrods and when I find out what length I need, I don't want to pay the $200 pricetag for replacement pushrods when I was only initially charged $69 for the ones that came with the kit. "I'll see if my supervisor will go for that." Here I am waiting for a pushrod length tool (out another $48 including shipping) now....delaying my build/install by another two weeks at least and hoping that I don't have to throw away another $200 on pushrods. They've already screwed me on retainers and locks ($100 on top of the already $890 for the kit initially) and two months of time.

This engine isn't for me, either, so I have a pissed-off customer to add to the frustration.

[cleatus12r]

Ended up buying $225 pushrods.

An email from COMP said that the catalog says the pushrods in the kit won't fit a 351M/400 but the ONLINE catalog (as well as all vendors) conveniently left that out. Who buys anything from a paper catalog these days!?!?


Oh, and since I opened the box of pushrods.....I own the wrong ones. Perfect.

The almost correct-length pushrods and rocker pedestal shims (since the pushrods are .020" too long) might all be on my doorstep by Saturday.

Nope. Never again.

[Power Hungry]

Damn. It's a shame that this is where this industry has gone. Comp Cams used to be an industry leader, and now it's just the same garbage as everything else.

[cleatus12r]

The rocker shims came on Friday and the 9.050" pushrods came in yesterday. I had some time to figure out the shim thickness on a few cylinders and came to the conclusion that .010" shims were good to get plunger travel to about .050" .

So......

I'll get the intake put on today and maybe get the run stand pushed over tonight.

Seriously, after 3 months and 4 days since this project started, I am emotionally DONE with this ride. It better run and stay together for a while!

There's also about to be a 7th 7.3L in the stable.