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Saturday, April 25, 2015

Ford 427 SOHC

Here are some images of Revell's 1/6 scale Ford 427 SOHC engine.
These are some of the easiest kits to build. All the parts are pre painted and mostly go together with a screwdriver. They take about an hour or so to put together.
Even for more advanced model builders , though a simple kit the detail is wonderful as to be well worth the purchase.

  From Wikipedia"

Ford's 427 V8 was introduced in 1963 as a race-only engine. It was developed for racing. The true displacement of the 427 was actually 425 cubic inches, but Ford called it the 427 because 7 liters (427 cu in) was the maximum displacement allowed by several racing organizations at the time. The stroke was the same as the 390 at 3.78 inches (96.01 mm), but the bore was increased to 4.23 inches (107.44 mm). The block was made of cast iron with an especially thickened deck to withstand higher compression. The cylinders were cast using cloverleaf molds—the corners were thicker all down the wall of each cylinder. Many 427s used a steel crankshaft and all were balanced internally. Most 427s used solid valve lifters with the exception of the 1968 block which was drilled for use with hydraulic lifters.
As an engine designed for racing it had many performance parts available for it, both from the factory and from the aftermarket.

Two different models of 427 block were produced, the 427 top oiler and 427 side oiler. The top oiler version was the earlier, and delivered oil to the cam and valvetrain first and the crank second. The side oiler block, introduced in 1965, sent oil to the crank first and the cam and valvetrain second. This was similar to the oiling design from the earlier Y-block. The engine was available with low-riser, medium-riser, or high-riser heads, and either single or double four-barrel carburetion on an aluminum manifold matched to each head design. Ford never released an official power rating. Other models were rated at over 400 horsepower (300 kW).
In addition, Ford also produced tunnel-port heads and matching intakes for the FE engine. These lacked the limitations imposed by the other intakes' need to squeeze the intake port between two pushrods by running the pushrods through the intake's ports in brass tunnels.
The 427 FE engine is still a popular engine among Ford enthusiasts, some 40 years after winning Lemans.
The Ford Single Overhead Cam (SOHC) 427 V8 engine, familiarly known as the "Cammer", was released in 1964 to maintain NASCAR dominance and to counter the Chrysler 426 Hemi engine. The Chrysler 426 used an extremely large block casting that dwarfed the earlier 392 Hemi. The Ford 427 block was closer dimensionally to the early Hemis than to the elephantine 426 Hemi: the Ford FE bore spacing was 4.63 in (117.6 mm) compared to the Chrysler 392's bore spacing of 4.5625 in (115.9 mm). The Ford FE's deck height of 10.17 in (258.3 mm) was lower than that of the Chrysler 392 at 10.87 in (276.1 mm). For comparison, the 426 Hemi has a deck height of 10.72 in (272.3 mm) and bore spacing of 4.8 in (121.9 mm); both Chrysler Hemis have decks more than 0.5 in (12.7 mm) taller than the FE.
The engine was based on the high performance 427 side-oiler block, providing race-proven durability. The block and associated parts were largely unchanged, the main difference being use of an idler shaft instead of the camshaft in the block, which necessitated plugging the remaining camshaft bearing oiling holes.
The heads were newly-designed cast iron items with hemispherical combustion chambers and a single overhead camshaft over each head, operating shaft-mounted roller rocker arms. The valvetrain consisted of valves larger than those on Ford wedge head engines, made out of stainless steel and with sodium-filled exhaust valves to prevent the valve heads from burning, and dual valve springs. This design allowed for high volumetric efficiency at high engine speed.
The idler shaft in the block in place of the camshaft was driven by the timing chain and drove the distributor and oil pump in conventional fashion. An additional sprocket on this shaft drove a second timing chain, 6 ft (1.8 m) long, which drove both overhead camshafts. The length of this chain made precision timing of the camshafts an issue to be considered at high rpms.
The engine also had a dual-point distributor with a transistorized ignition amplifier system, running 12 amps of current through a high-output ignition coil.
The engines were essentially hand-built with racing in mind. Combustion chambers were fully machined to reduce variability. Nevertheless, Ford recommended blueprinting the engines before use in racing applications. With a single four-barrel carburetor they were rated at 616 horsepower (459 kW) at 7,000 rpm & 515 lb·ft (698 N·m) of torque @ 3,800 rpm, and while equipped with dual four-barrel carburetors they made 657 horsepower (490 kW) at 7,500 rpm & 575 lb·ft (780 N·m) of torque @ 4,200 rpm. Ford sold them via the parts counter, the single four-barrel model as part C6AE-6007-363S, the dual carburetor model as part C6AE-6007-359J for $2350.00 (as of October, 1968). Weight of the engine was 680 lb (308 kg).
Ford's hopes were cut short, however. Although Ford sold enough to have the design homologated, NASCAR, after protests by Chrysler Corp., effectively legislated the SOHC engine out of competition. This despite having earlier permitted the Chrysler Hemi to be used for years even though it had never been installed in a stock production car. The awaited 1965 SOHC versus Hemi competition at the Daytona 500 season opener never occurred. This was the only engine ever banned from NASCAR. Nevertheless, the SOHC 427 found its niche in drag racing, powering many altered-wheelbase A/FX Mustangs (after NHRA banned it from stock classes), and becoming the basis for a handful of supercharged Top Fuel dragsters, including those of Connie Kalitta, Pete Robinson, and Lou Baney (driven by "Snake" Prudhomme). In 1967 Connie Kalitta's SOHC-powered "Bounty Hunter" won Top Fuel honors at AHRA, NHRA and NASCAR winter meets, becoming the only "triple crown" winner in drag racing history. It was also used in numerous nitro funny cars including those of Jack Chrisman, Dyno Don Nicholson, Eddie Schartman, Kenz & Leslie, and in numerous injected gasoline drag racing vehicles.

2 comments:

Motorsport Modeller said...

Very very nice, being a Ford man this is a beautiful kit. I like the idea of a one hour build...

-Warren Zoell said...

They're pretty easy kits