In part one of this video segment, Pete Aardema will explain the development of his 93-year-old Ford Model A engine that is officially in the books as the fastest Ford Model A on the planet with a record speed set at Bonneville in August of 2012 at 238.598 mph. Remarkably a top speed of 240 MPH was measured on the back up run. Several years ago, Pete and Kevin modified this 1929 Model A engine and made special cylinder heads with dual overhead cams and achieved a land speed record of 238.598 MPH at Bonneville. This was all done in a blown gas streamliner in the vintage four-cylinder classification which is designated for pre-1935 four-cylinder engines up to 220 cubic inches in displacement. In part two of this video, Pete and Kevin will disassemble the engine and you will see how this one-of-a-kind masterpiece was constructed.
Randy Breternitz of Midland looks over a 1950 Ford flathead six industrial motor on the grounds of the Midland Antique Engine Association. Dave Shane/for the Daily News
At an early age, Randy Breternitz of Midland became interested in farm tractors and the engines that powered them.
“I grew up on a farm and I was around the stuff early on,” Breternitz said. “I was always working with my hands on stuff.”
Now, after spending 46 years as a truck driver, the now-retired Breternitz is getting all the mechanical challenge he can handle as the property manager at the 13 acres of the Midland Antique Engine Association at 3326 S. Meridian Road. The non-profit club has a mission to spread the history and mechanics of engines, tractors and other large equipment.
The group has about 90 families that are members. Breternitz noted that you don’t even have to own a tractor or engine to belong.
If you like antique engines, “this is the place for you,” he said. “All you have to do is have an interest.
Breternitz has a history of getting old things to work again. He has refurbished both a 1949 Allis-Chalmers Model C and a 1962 Oliver 550. He and his 17-year-old grandson are now tackling a 1953 Ford Jubilee.
He said there are two ways to tackle an old tractor. Some like to make it look almost as nice as it looked the day it was sold. Others like to make it operate, but keep the rust and age just the way they were before it was fixed.
And other club members are more into tractor pulls and competitions.
Breternitz said the club has a refurbished sawmill, a couple of old threshers, a 1913 engine from the Porter Oil Field, a blacksmith shop, a museum and a general store among the many things on its grounds.
The 1960s was a transformational period for the automotive industry as muscle cars became more popularized. The average consumer went from demanding a sleek, high-speed vehicle to requiring more power and acceleration from their cars. It was the dream of every young driver to have a muscle car parked on their front pouch. Those manufactured between the 60s and 70s became very popular because of their exemplary performances on the road. Here are the most popular muscle cars with engines that will blow your socks off
WHAT MUSCLE CAR ENGINES ARE MOST ICONIC?
THE FORD FLATHEAD V8
The Flathead V8 from Ford is among the most iconic old-school muscle cars with an out-of-this-world engine. The first of these ford engines were manufactured in the early 30s, and its improvement spread to the 50s. One of the most significant roles this engine has in the automotive industry is its impact on the hot-rodding culture.
Although the V8 engine featured in this vehicle doesn’t maximize performance, its authenticity and retro style make it outstanding. One aspect distinguishing it from other engines is its intake and exhaust pipes inside the engine block. Most units have these components on the engine’s cylinder heads.
DODGE 426 HEMI
The Dodge 426 Hemi is another high-performance engine featured in several muscle cars. It is a famous unit that guarantees animal-like power under your car’s hood. It was easier to spot a muscle car fitted with this Dodge engine in the 60s and 70s than it is now.
The 426 Hemi compared to other top engines from Dodge, like the 440 V8 manufactured in the same era. The 440 V8 went ahead to replace the 426 Hemi in the market because of its affordability, reliability, and good performance scores.
FORD 302 CUBIC INCH V8
Most of the engines fitted in muscle cars were V8 engines, and so was the Ford 302 engine. It was an outstanding engine dominating the American automotive culture for decades. You can find the engine in modern Ford’s like the Raptor F-150 and Mustang and other Ford units produced in the late 60s.
The 302 V8 engine size is not as substantial as other manufacturers’ units. However, you can achieve higher performance than engines in higher classes with the correct modifications. The base motor reliability and durability of the 302 are forever unmatched.
CHEVROLET LS V8
The Chevrolet LS V8 is an engine featured in several vehicles, including numerous muscle cars. These engines are more compact and lighter than most V8 engine replacement units, making them popular across the United States. Despite its compact size, the power generated from this engine is enough to power your mid-sized SUV. It is an ideal replacement consideration for any V8 Chevrolet engine if you want to save money, although others find it uncreative
A free-flowing intake and heads, aggressive cams and high compression did a lot of heavy lifting while the exotic flat-plane crank grabbed headlines and helped make lyrical exhaust sounds
The engine produced 526 naturally aspirated horsepower at 7,500 rpm and 429 lb-ft of torque at 4,750 rpm, while making beautiful music up to an 8,000-plus rpm redline. At the heart of its howling exhaust note was a flat-plane crankshaft — so called because its connecting rod journals (and weights) were positioned 180-degrees opposite of each other, instead of at 90-degree intervals like the cross-plane design used in most American V-8s. Flat-plane cranks are not new or unusual. Four-cylinder engines have them and Cadillac’s 314 V-8, which debuted in 1915, used one.The flat-plane crankshaft from Ford’s 5.2-liter Voodoo V-8.
In theory, the flat-plane design delivers a V-8 with less reciprocating mass, and superior breathing, which should make an engine lighter, more compact and capable of building rpms very quickly. But it also delivers a lot of what’s known as “secondary vibration” and that paint-shaker quality increases in proportion to the size of the pistons and the speed that those pistons are moving. In a race car, it’s a reasonable tradeoff – especially if there’s a performance advantage to be gained. In a 21st-century street car, stickering north of $60,000, customers are likely to complain about shaking steering wheels, buzzing shifters, blurry rearview mirrors, etc. So, Ford incorporated bits on the GT350 that you wouldn’t find on a race car, like exhaust dampers and a dual-mass flywheel, to help smooth things out.
While the Voodoo’s flat-plane crankshaft grabbed all the headlines, this engine would’ve made tremendous horsepower if it had been built with a cross-plane crank. It inhaled through an 87-millimeter throttle body, the largest ever used on a Ford engine. The cams were aggressive, producing .55 inches of lift with 270 degrees duration and using low-friction roller followers to bump the valves. Compression is key to making power and, with a lofty 12:1 compression ratio, the Voodoo had plenty.
Has there ever been more universal engine solution than the Chevrolet LS V-8? It’s compact, it makes a lot of power even in stock tune, it’s reliable, and General Motors made a number of different variations in vast quantities. LS-based power has become such a default engine swap choice that it almost seems like cheating. There is a reason for its popularity, though, or even many reasons. Primarily: the Chevy Small block can fit in almost any engine bay. From junkyard finds to brand-new, emissions-certified plug-and-play crate engines from the GM Performance Parts engines, there’s one for every budget. And there are plenty of tune-up parts.
Ford’s family of big-block engines encompasses a wide variety of cylinder heads and applications. Ford engineers stayed busy focusing on engineering changes that drive enthusiasts crazy. Most of these engineering changes are hard to see on the surface, but each had a purpose. Few of these changes have any effect on power. Port size variation is something having little, if any, effect because ports are generally too large or too small, depending upon which engine family you are addressing.
FE Series port sizing is befuddling because there’s very little difference in port size across the board unless you’re talking 427 cylinder heads. The 385 Series big-block employs four basic cylinder heads even though there are a number of casting/part number differences. The MEL was a low-revving luxury car engine. However, it achieved fame in powerboat cruising and racing. Despite both factors, Ford produced one basic cylinder head for the MEL with slight variations.
FE cylinder heads are identifiable by their casting number and date code. This is a C0AE-6090-D cylinder head for 1960 352 and 1961–1962 390. The casting number (bottom arrows) is almost never the same as the Ford part number. The alphanumeric casting date code of “0E6” (top arrow) indicates the exact date the part was cast: May 6, 1960.
The real beauty of Ford big-block heads is easy identification and broad selection in each engine family.
FE Series
A big plus for FE big-block buffs is a plethora of factory head castings, with the added bonus of OEM-style head castings from Blue Thunder, Robert Pond, Bear Block Motors, Survival Motorsports, and Edelbrock that give an FE build a stock demeanor without revealing what’s inside. These manufacturers offer more choices than ever and that means unprecedented power gains.
FE cylinder heads have 10 head bolt holes and 4 rocker arm pedestal attachment bolt points. Each end sports 3/8-inch threaded bolt holes for accessories. What makes the FE cylinder head odd is that it shares the valvecover with the intake manifold. That makes the FE head narrow compared to the 385 and MEL series heads. All valves are on a common plane of 13 degrees in relation to the block deck. Combustion chambers range in size from 58 to 88 cc, depending upon which head you’re thinking of.
Most FE cylinder heads have the smaller chambers at 58 to 74 cc. High-performance cylinder heads such as the 427’s traditionally have larger 77- to 88-cc chambers, with compression regulated by piston dome configuration. Exhaust port passages jut way out from the valvecovers as they do on a Pontiac or Oldsmobile cylinder head.
It is well known that massproduction FE cylinder heads don’t vary much across all castings. Port sizing across FE production history varies little despite dozens of part and casting numbers. For example, the GT High Performance cylinder head doesn’t have enough of a port/valve size difference to be worth its distinction. It is basically the same head found on Galaxies and pickup trucks with only minute variations.
The C0AE-D cylinder head has these terrific 59- to 62-cc chambers, which offer great quench. One issue could be valve shrouding, which can be improved with the talents of a seasoned cylinder head porter. Valve sizing is 2.020/1.550-inch intake/ exhaust. This is considered one of the best FE heads Ford ever produced due to its smaller chambers
Vast distinctions exist among overhauling, rebuilding, restoring, and blueprinting engines. As a customer, you should know exactly what you are seeking from a machine shop. Communication, clarity, and a clear understanding of terminology are critical to achieving the desired result.
Basically, an overhaul could include deglazing cylinder walls,re-ringing existing pistons, a possible bearing change, and installing new gaskets, just to get the engine running. Rebuilding may include new parts but not necessarily complete machining of cylinder bores or crank grinding; it might require only a polish. Restoration usually includes all new parts and complete machining to factory specs as outlined in the factory manual. Blueprinting includes installing all new premium parts, complete machining to specified tolerances, balancing, and more to achieve optimum performance and durability.
Depending upon where you live, finding a machine shop to tackle your block may or may not be easy. The flathead is not a complicated engine, but it does have its idiosyncrasies, and a shop that typically rebuilds small-block Chevys might not be the place to go. We mean no disrespect, but the shop needs to know flatheads. If it doesn’t, don’t pressure the shop into learning or experimenting on yours. It might be a costly mistake for both parties.
Be sure to take plenty of photographs of your block and any little identifying marks it may have. You don’t want to hand over a fairly good block but receive a different and perhaps poorer-quality block after the work is done. You might even want to put your own mark on the block before handing it over or shipping it out of town.
I heard one story of a guy shipping a complete, brand-new rotating assembly to an engine builder. When the engine came back, however, it soon seized. Tearing it down revealed that the builder had switched out the good internals for a set of not-so-good originals. It pays to be aware of such possibilities.
It’s always smart to do plenty of research before you settle on a machine shop. You can learn a lot about a shop by checking the Internet, where people are quick to air their grievances. You can also ask fellow enthusiasts about their experiences. Caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) is the phrase to keep in mind
Blueprinting and Balancing
These words hold much mystique, and summon images of a black art. However, they mean nothing more than making sure that parts are balanced and that the engine is assembled to certain specifications and tolerances recommended by the manufacturer for optimum performance for the desired application, such as street use, racing, or touring.
If you are rebuilding a stock engine, it’s fairly easy to follow the Ford specifications found in the various service bulletins. Most people building hot rod engines use components from a variety of sources. Nevertheless, you should still follow specs for main bearing clearances, ring gap clearances, cam timing, head port and chamber volumes, torque for bolts, and so on.
Factory specs are parameters that suffice for mass-production engines (taking into account time, labor, materials, and so on). They meet the driving needs of the general public with a broad range of driving styles. A blueprinted engine meets and exceeds those factory parameters.
Theoretically, there is no tolerance for a blueprinted engine. It either is or it isn’t, and there’s no in-between. If you build two engines to factory specs, there will always be variances between rod and main bearing clearances, variances in piston clearances, deck height differences, valve-spring pressure differences, and intake and exhaust port and chamber volume differences. If you blueprint an engine for racing at Bonneville, for example, there should be no variances. It should be built to a specific race spec.
Properly blueprinting an engine takes many hours, a lot of patience, and a lot of skill. To achieve a properly running, reliable engine, you need to follow procedures and not just throw it all together.
Balancing is also worth worrying about, because a well-balanced engine is like a well-balanced checkbook: Keep it on the good side and life will be good. Theoretically, to do it correctly you should preass emble the engine before balancing the components, so that any subsequent machine process or task does not affect the balancing act. The order of the day is: pre-assemble, machine if necessary, and balance.
If you are running a mixture of aftermarket components (crank, rods, pistons, and so on, all from different suppliers), it is essential to balance the parts. Of course, you can avoid this work if you buy a rotating assembly from one manufacturer. Even if you do, it is still worth checking the parts for quality. I was a crank grinder in my youth, and there were days when I ground good cranks and days when I was in a hurry and just wanted to get it done. Those grinds were within tolerance but were not my best work.
Weight matching and dynamic balancing are the two steps to balancing an engine.
Weight Matching
To weight match, you weigh the pistons and the rods individually on a balancing scale to determine the lightest of each. Then, remove a little metal from each, until all of the pistons weigh the same as the lightest piston and all of the rods weigh the same as the lightest rod. Parts are usually measured within .25 gram.
A balancing fulcrum is also used to determine how heavy a rod is at either end. If a rod is a little heavier on the big end (the main bearing end), a little weight is removed from that end to balance the rod. (The procedure employed at H&H is outlined in this chapter.)
Dynamic Balancing
Dynamic balancing is the process of balancing the rotating assembly, including crank, rods, and pistons. Although the crank itself is put in the balancer, bob weights are installed to replicate the rod and piston assemblies. Be sure to record all of the weights for the rods, pistons, and associated components; they will be needed later when you balance the crank.
Almost no factory production engine comes precision balanced. Even some so-called performance engines aren’t balanced to within 1 gram, as are the engines balanced by H&H on its Hines electronic balancer.
Does balancing make any difference? The answer is yes. According to Mike, “A well-balanced flathead makes for a smooth-running car. It produces efficient power by eliminating power-robbing vibration and imbalance.” A flathead is balanced internally, as opposed to a 454 Chevy, a 400 Chevy small-block, and 460 Ford trucks, which are balanced externally; each uses a harmonic balancer.
Balancing and Honing the Rods
Although the rods produced by companies such as Scat are extremely well balanced, Mike likes to double-check them because balancing flathead internals is important to a smooth-running engine. In addition, Mike suggests that if you’re reusing stock rods, you should definitely resize the big ends, because years of wear will have forced them out of round. Moreover, you should definitely balance them, because Ford’s tolerances were more liberal. Ford service bulletins give an acceptable weight of 451 to 455 grams; with a little care, all of the rods can weight exactly the same.
Assuming that your desire is a smooth-running, long-lasting engine, then taking your time and being careful will be rewarded. Precisely honing both rods is paramount.
You can balance connecting rods at home, and with a little care, you can match them exactly. You will enjoy a feeling of satisfaction for a job well done.
Just as the original Ed Cole-design Chevrolet small-block V-8 launched an era of American performance upon its introduction in the mid-Fifties, so did the LS-series third-generation small-block Chevrolet V-8 when it launched a quarter-century ago. And just as the original SBC spawned dozens of variants over its decades-long lifespan, so did the LS – enough to bewilder all but the most dedicated of enginespotters without a comprehensive reference guide to the engine family’s various displacements, codes, and ratings. So let’s dive into it
What Sets The LS V-8 Apart
Every history of the LS calls it a clean-sheet design – that is, a design that carries nothing over from its predecessor, the Generation II LT-1. Indeed, engineers Tom Stephens and Ed Koerner retained only two parts from the LT-1 when designing the LS series: the rod bearings and the lifters. It’s a thoroughly modernized small-block, with deep side skirts, cross-bolted six-bolt main bearing caps, no provision for a distributor, no coolant passages in the composite intake manifold, cathedral-port heads, and perhaps most important, all-aluminum construction.
Yet, it’s no cutting-edge engine. Even at its introduction, critics derided its overhead-valve design – complete with the single camshaft located in the block, just two valves per cylinder, and pushrods and rocker arms in between – as antiquated. Overhead-camshaft and dual-overhead-camshaft designs had long become the standard for performance engines, after all.
As Will Handzel related in his book, How to Build High-Performance Chevy LS1/LS6 V-8s, GM engineers did have the option to continue development of the Lotus-derived LT5 dual overhead-camshaft derivative of the Generation II small-block. However, consensus at the time – and Koerner’s long and successful background in NHRA drag racing – led them to choose the pushrod design for its simplicity, its dependability, its inexpensive construction, and its compactness. Those attributes not only set the new LS engine apart from its competition, they also (in conjunction with the standard SBC bell housing pattern) led to its widespread adoption by hot-rodders in the ensuing years.
Despite those criticisms of the LS engine’s design, it has proven adaptable to use in high-performance cars (developing as much as 638 hp from the factory), front-wheel-drive cars, police cars, trucks, and SUVs. With a mid-2000s refresh – which GM dubbed Generation IV – the LS was also able to incorporate more advanced technologies such as cylinder shutdown (in GM’s nomenclature, either Displacement on Demand or Active Fuel Management) and variable valve timing and operate as a flex-fuel engine or even in mild hybrid applications.
Car Engines
The LS story starts with the 1997 model year C5 Corvette, in which the LS1 debuted. Like the outgoing small-block (which remained in production through 2003 in full-size vans and which GM still builds for aftermarket sales), the LS1 displaced 5.7 liters, though a smaller bore and longer stroke meant the engine now displaced 345.7 cubic inches. In the one-horsepower-per-cubic-inch tradition, it surpassed both the previous generation’s LT1 and LT4 with 345 horsepower.
As the standard-bearer for the Generation III small-block family, the LS1 provided power for the entire C5 Corvette run, made its way under the hood of the Camaro and Pontiac Firebird from 1998 through 2002, and came back for a curtain call in the 2004 Pontiac GTO. It also provided the basis for the hairier LS6.
Another 5.7-liter V-8, the LS6 came along in the 2001 Corvette Z06, boasting 385 horsepower and 385 pound-feet of torque. A year later, GM cranked that up to 405 horsepower and 400 pound-feet. The added power in the LS6 largely came from old-fashioned hot-rodding know-how – a higher compression ratio, more camshaft duration and lift, freer-flowing D-shaped exhaust port heads (stamped 243 next to the rocker cover, replacing the 241 oval-shaped exhaust port heads on the LS1) and a higher-flow mass-airflow sensor – though the LS6 also benefited from sodium-filled valves and engine block and oil system improvements. After wrapping up the C5 run, the LS6 went on to power the 2004-2005 Cadillac CTS-V.
Just as the C5 Corvette ushered in a new engine, so did the C6 with the LS2 – the first of the Generation IV small-blocks – in 2005. For the LS2, GM enlarged the engine to the 6.0-liter displacement previously used by the Generation III LS truck engines (see below), bumped the compression ratio to 10.9:1, and added the LS6’s 243 heads (albeit without the sodium-filled valves) to crank output to 400 horsepower and 400 pound-feet. Compared to the LS1 and LS6, the LS2 powered a much wider variety of vehicles: It remained in the Corvette through 2007, it finished out the Pontiac GTO’s run in 2005 and 2006, it went under the hood of the 2006-2007 CTS-V, and it served in the 2005-2006 SSR, the 2006-2009 TrailBlazer SS, and the 2008-2009 Saab 9-7x Aero.
Last week you saw us pull in our most recent shop addition, a 1993 Jeep XJ with a 4.0L. Davin got it all pulled out and this week he wasted no time tearing into it. Things went fairly quickly as the pieces flew off this straight-six. Davin had his detective hat on as he uncovered a little more about this engine with every bit removed. You never know what you’re going to discover.
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