WENGINE - I am hoping the engine in the T-Bird is salvagable. Probably the crank & a couple of rods are welded together. The first 409 that I put in the T-Bird was the engine out of my 62 Impala. That engine only had about 40K miles (hard miles). It was in the T-Bird a couple of years and served quite well but i found another engine and made a few mods to it and put the first engine back in the corner of the garage. The mods to the second engine that is now locked are my own amature head work on the ports. I bought a Sears electric hand held grinder and cleaned up and streamlined as what look logical to me. I also blocked the exhaust passages from the two center ports on each head to the intake manifold. I did this by shaping a piece of metal for each port to fit in the valve end of the crossover passage and made a plug so to speak so the center exhaust ports would look like the end ports (no crossover to the intake manifold). To hold each plug in place I welded a nut on the intake manifold side of the plug and used a bolt inserted through the crossover passage & screwed into the welded on nut from the intake manifold side. I filled the void from the plug to the intake side with furnace cement. I put in a cam that I sent to Crane for a regrind. An engine man I am not. What I knew back then I got out of magazines. At the time it was advised to restrict the oil passage to the lifters so I used a short piece of a bolt chucked up in my electric drill held in the vice and a file to made the plug fit & drilled a hole in the plug & installed it - worked OK. Also it was advised to use two upper main bearing shells - one in the block and also one in the main cap so that there was an oil groove all way around the main. Probably not good for street use.
Tom K - I plan to be at the Columbia swap meet Saturday morning & hope to meet you.
Clyde
Tom K - I plan to be at the Columbia swap meet Saturday morning & hope to meet you.
Clyde
