have learned about crankshafts, cylinder heads, and intake manifolds.
The FE Ford engine is blessed with a strong and enthusiastic following on the Internet. The Ford FE forum, Jay Brown’s FE Power forum, and a Wes Adams’s FE Fanatics Facebook forum are all great places to invest time before starting out on an FE engine build. Numerous folks are willing to freely trade historical information and firsthand experience in every facet, from racing to original production data to proven repair techniques. Without their help and shared knowledge, this engine would not be as popular in the market as it is today. As it is, the FE enthusiast will benefit from one of the best cases of documented cumulative history and assembled knowledge of any automotive engine new or old.
The engine featured in this particular book is mostly original. But the FE engine has greatly benefited from the aftermarket parts supplier community. After an extended period of inactivity, Edelbrock was perhaps the stimulus of the renaissance of the Ford FE when they released the Performer RPM cylinder head. Scat followed a few years later with the release of stroker crankshafts, and then others followed with a steady stream of new and improved FE parts. Today, we can choose from hydraulic roller cams from Comp and Crane, blocks and heads from Pond, BBM, and, of course, Survival, and a huge array of cosmetic and performance items from every major brand-name supplier.
One last note is something of a dedication to my father, Seymour Rabotnick. He could not turn a wrench or identify a single engine part. But he understood my enthusiasm and gave me a set of tools and an old junk car to get me started along this path.
Building, or rebuilding, an engine is a significant task to take on under any circumstances. There are plenty of great reasons to do it, ranging anywhere between financial necessity and the personal satisfaction of completing a complex and challenging job. Once you’ve made the commitment to build your engine, a broad range of possibilities (economic, cosmetic, and performance) must be considered.
This book is targeted toward the more basic engine-building project. It could be a completely stock rebuild for a cruiser or daily driver, a restoration-style build for a muscle car, or a comparatively mild hot rod engine build. I anticipate the reader of this book to be working in his or her home shop or garage and to contract out the more sophisticated machine work. As your projects get more complex, or as performance needs grow, I suggest acquiring the Max Performance series of books for additional information.
At points in the building process you will be handing off the parts to a machine shop to cover work that you either cannot or should not try to handle at home. Discussions of the process with your chosen shop are important, and you will want to establish a good working relationship with them. How much of the work you have them take care of is predicated upon your budget and desired outcome. If you choose to do some of the work yourself using home-style techniques, just be cognizant of the potential impacts to your results. Throughout this book I list certain processes or products as “need to do,” “nice to do,” or “do if you wish.” Sometimes saving a few bucks simply is not worth it.
This book is dedicated and directed toward the rebuilding of the Ford FE series of engines, but many of the procedures and concepts can be applied to any engine-building project. Throughout the book I try to point out and compare some options in terms of relative need versus cost or benefit. Often, several different acceptable methods can lead to a successful end result. I usually use a couple simple euphemisms to describe and evaluate choices for the task at hand. The guys at my shop hear the following sayings frequently.
This book will illustrate the processes for rebuilding your FE engine, but at some point, you will need the help of a machine shop or engine builder to complete the task. While not a requirement, it is always best to try to find a shop that has experience in building the same type of engine that you are working on.
The first one is “good enough really is good enough.” I’ll use this phrase to indicate that certain parts, processes, or methods may be inarguably better than other choices while not being at all necessary for a given engine build. You can view this as being a “good, better, or best” selection process, or as insurance, or as an investment toward future plans.
Another frequently used comment I make is that a particular part represents “a solution looking for a problem.” In the world of marketing there will always be folks trying to differentiate their product by making claims of better cost, performance, or longevity. If you read claims of huge benefits from a rather mundane and well-established product, it’s usually a good bet that they are overstating their case to make the sale.
The last one I’ll mention here is my use of the concept of “risk versus reward” as applied to engine building. Risk can be viewed as excessive cost, missed opportunity, or inadequate parts for the intended use. The “reward” has to be viewed in the context of the engine we are working on. In the racing world, engines have been refined to the point that any incremental gains are coming in very small increments. A $1,200 piston ring set that delivers 4 hp more to a professional race team has no real significance to a guy freshening up the engine for his pickup truck.
FE Engine History
The following is largely taken from the Max Performance FE book published a few years ago, and serves as a useful introduction to the history of the Ford FE engine. Throughout these pages you will occasionally find a comment or photo from that book, which makes sense, given they share the same author and publisher.
The FE Ford engine was released into production in 1958. The earliest applications included use in the short-lived Edsel program. The FE was not a replacement for the Y block; it was a larger companion engine family sharing some design features. In 1958, the Y block was still considered a current design at only four years old.
Starting out at 330 ci, the FE quickly grew in displacement through its first five years of production, with 352-, 390-, and 406-inch variants followed by the now-famed 427 in 1963. By 1966, the release of the 428 and the short-lived 410 completed the variety of basic passenger car combinations. A lot of high-performance history was written in a very short time. The 352 and 410 were dropped after 1966, and the 390 and 428 continued as the only FE engines in passenger car production from 1968 through 1970.
The FE had been dropped from passenger car use by 1971, but the 360 and 390 versions remained extremely popular in pickup trucks through the 1976 model year. Some commercial applications, notably U-Haul trucks, had FE power through the 1978 model year. Throughout the 20-year production run, the FE saw use as a marine, commercial, and industrial engine as well.
While the high-performance factory engines were responsible for all the glory, most production was for more mundane applications. Certainly the most popular original FE vehicles were full-size family cars and pickup trucks; they serve as the source for most of the engine blocks we start with today.
The beginning of the FE performance program had its roots as Ford split the car lines during the late 1950s, going from one basic platform to many as the market developed. The emergence of the bigger cars coincided with a gain in popularity of motor racing. The NHRA U.S. Nationals were held at Detroit Dragway in 1959 and 1960, and auto executives were exposed to the rising popularity of the sport. At the same time, NASCAR began the transformation that would take it from the local circuit group to national popularity.
