volvoclearinghouse wrote:
In reply to curtis73:
Excellent recommendations. Thank you. I don't know the intake CFM of the D3VE heads, but we also don't plan on spinning over 5000 RPM.
Then stick with the D3s. They flow 270/128 at .600" lift as-cast. D0s only bump that up to about 285/150 cfm. As you can see, they would both benefit from exhaust work. The old-school love for D0VE heads was the smaller chamber. The extra couple cfm was just a bonus.
Don't ask for my advice on porting. I suck at it 
I think with as-cast D3s, 8.5:1 in something flat-top-ish, and that XE262 cam should put you easily over 300hp on the cheap. With some port work, probably over 350hp. The rest would be expensive details to get the last 25 hp I listed above.
Look through Melling's catalog. They have good quality cams in thousands of profiles for much less than Comp or Crane or Lunati. Honest thought.... If I recall correctly, the 460 Marine cam (standard rotation) was 218/224 on a 112 LSA. Seems like a nice mix to me. Melling probably sells it for $130. I might let a machine shop pick valvesprings. Most cam manufacturers make 4 or 5 spring rates to apply to hundreds of cams. Whichever springs they recommend will be kind of a stab in the dark guess, and most likely way to stiff for whatever cam you get.
In reply to curtis73:
Thanks for the info, good stuff there. I have read that one way to "fix" the poor exhaust flow number is to use a longer exhaust duration. Crower cams makes one that's around 268/276 (advertised, of course) with 0.050 numbers close to that Melling cam you note. I'll have to check those out, too (the Mellings, that is).
I would think for the RPMs and cam profile we're running the stock springs should be OK.
Nice thing about the D3VE heads is that with the larger chamber (95 cc vs 77 cc for the D0VEs) you can run flattops, get quench down into the mid 0.030s, and still be around 9 to 9.5 static compression.
One thing I would like to do is cc the heads. Any thoughts on how to do that easily? I have a graduated cylinder from when I tried to do it once a dozen or so years ago on a 360 Mopar. My results back then were...unsatisfying.
Robbie
SuperDork
6/27/16 8:09 a.m.
John twist has an excellent video on ccing heads on an mgb motor. I'll try to dig it up later today for the link.
volvoclearinghouse wrote:
In reply to curtis73:
I would think for the RPMs and cam profile we're running the stock springs should be OK.
Probably yes. One of the things stock cams didn't do (and aftermarket cams tend to do) is use aggressive ramp speeds. Its possible that a mild cam upgrade could have pretty dramatic differences in valve linear acceleration, but you're right... probably just fine and dandy.
One thing I would like to do is cc the heads. Any thoughts on how to do that easily? I have a graduated cylinder from when I tried to do it once a dozen or so years ago on a 360 Mopar. My results back then were...unsatisfying.
I just bought a little 6" square piece of lexan or plexi and drilled a 1/4" hole near the top. You can "glue" that to the head with some axle grease with the hole right at the upper end of the chamber. Hit up a pharmacy and ask to buy some big dosing syringes. Some of them have big ones that hold 50cc. If you want even bigger, find a large animal vet and get one for a horse. Then I just made some water with a few drops of dish soap (enough to make it flow into corners but not enough to suds up) and injected it through the hole into the chamber until it was full. Read where the plunger is on the syringe and add it up.
In reply to curtis73:
I wasn't thinking about valve acceleration. Good call. I'll look into some A/M springs as well when doing my cam shopping. I probably won't need them, and I don't want too stiff a spring (lobe/ lifter wear, pushrod bending) but it's worth looking at.
Melling Catalog
Looks like the following cams are available for a 460:
24206 - 214/224 @ 0.050, 292/302 adv, .511/.544 lift, 107/117 deg lobe cntr, 112 Lobe sep
24213 - 216/220, 308/312, .493/.502, 109/120, ?? Lobe sep (also listed in the Marine catalog)
24406 - 244/254, 294/304, .58/.614, 107/117, 112 Lobe sep
MTF-3 - 204/214, 282/292, .485/.512, 107/117, 112 Lobe sep
These specs are interesting. When I've gone over and looked at CompCams and Crower and Lunati, the advertised durations are lower for many cams. Melling doesn't offer anything less than that 282/292 cam. Everything I've been looking at was in the 260's and 270's range. I need to compare valve lifts and durations at the 0.050" lift to see what the differences are there.
Robbie
SuperDork
6/27/16 9:20 a.m.
a few hints in measuring chamber volume.... a piece of plex/lexan works nicely as a "top". I like to have 2 holes, one to fill by, and one to "chase" the air pocket with - sometimes air pockets form that will cause poor readings. I prefer to use Vaseline to seal the plate. I also use a thin skim of grease around the valves to help seal them.
I prefer to use a coolant mix as my measuring medium.
Doing this before your valve job may be a waste.... after the valve job will be far more accurate.
Also you may want to do some research as to which angles work best on the 460. For example if the exhaust is so poor, a radiused seat may "allow" more flow.
volvoclearinghouse wrote:
In reply to curtis73:
I wasn't thinking about valve acceleration. Good call. I'll look into some A/M springs as well when doing my cam shopping.
I would think the worst that would happen on stock springs is you'll get float in the upper RPMs, but since you're on a budget it might be worth the gamble to just leave them there. If you're doing a valve job, though and new springs are $80, might want to upgrade since they're already off.
Try to find out how the cam manufacturer measures advertised duration. Some use seat-to-seat values for big numbers on paper. Some use .006" lift, others .010" lift. Comparing the advertised and .050" values is a quick and dirty guess on ramp speeds, but you really need to know where the advertised is measured.
How does a $135 cam and lifter kit with free shipping float your boat? .486"/.512" and 204/214 @.050 should fit in with the build pretty well.
You'll need a new timing chain set, how does $7.85 for a Cloyes sound?
They are just stock, but $22.46 for a set of rocker arms is a good deal if you need new ones.
You'll need spark, too, so how's $51.99 for an HEI unit sound?
Combine that with a JY set of EFI pistons, some home porting on the heads, and a decent carburetor (easily score an Edelbrock 1406 on CL for $50 and then clean it and tune it properly) and you might have something for next to nothing. More CL and Amazon scrounging might pick you up an old Performer or Weiand Stealth intake, some Chinese roller-tip rockers, and maybe some rusty truck headers you can bash into the car. I don't think there's any reason you couldn't keep the whole engine build at less than $500 of actual budget with receipts/CL printouts.
In reply to curtis73:
I thought about that (what you said re: how duration is measured) after...for example, CompCams has a cam nearly identical to the Melling 24206, but the advertised durations are about 30 degrees less on intake and exhaust. I know Comp measures their advertised at 0.006". I bet Melling is doing seat-to-seat.
PISTONS:
Looking through The Silv-O-Lite Catalogue - page 46 and 47 - there's basically three different stock-ish 460 pistons. There's two big differences between the pistons: the Compression height, and the dish depth. (The dishes are all essentially similar geometry, just different depths)
This is the dish on a 68-88 model-year piston (0.26" deep):
And this is the dish on a 88-92 model year piston (0.07" deep):
The 93-97 piston is, conveniently, about halfway between the two - about .17" deep.
The first two pistons use a 1.760" compression height. The last one uses a 1.770" compression height.
So...go for tighter quench with the later piston, with a bit deeper dish, or less quench and less dish with the 88-92 piston? The early piston is basically the worst of both worlds.
Originally I was all about the squeeze, but now I'm thinking higher compression height, and better quench with slightly lower CR might be better. If you look at the piston, and where the dish is, and where the quench zone is on the head (basically, the flat part, right?) they don't really intersect. Plus, more dish will allow a bit more valve-piston clearance, which may come in handy with the higher-lift aftermarket cam.
We'll still need a REALLY thin head gasket. Any opinions on copper head gaskets?
THESE sit deeper in the hole (1.752") but are essentially flat tops with little valve reliefs. $250 for pistons and moly rings.
Hey Volvoclearinghouse....
Maybe you have a use for these...?
Cam is a Mellings MTF-3 3839, Mellings M84 oil pump. Sealed Power MS1039p-10 mains and Sealed Power CB-818p 10 rods. Mellings 3-491S timing set and a Ford C8SZ-6306-A crank sprocket.(Does anyone know what is special about that crank sprocket?) Dura Bond F-30 cam bearings. whatever brand they are #296k .040 over rings. And a set of lifters. Says "high performance" so it must be true. If you have any use for this stuff let me know and we can work out a deal. I am even sort of local since I am near Annapolis.
BTW, here is a link for the specs on the cam... I thought it might help.
Mellings cam specs
Later...
In reply to noddaz:
Wow, cool! From what I know about 460's, the deal with that timing set and that cam sprocket is the timing set is 8 degrees retarded, as that's what Ford did to make the 460 meet smog. The way they did that is with a differently-keyed cam sprocket. That other cam sprocket you have is for a pre-smog 460, to advance the cam timing and let the engine build some compression.
Since everything here is a bit of a shot in the dark anyway, that cam's probably as good a bet as any, if the price is right 
. We can use the cam, lifters, oil pump, timing set and cam sprocket.
PM me and let me know what you want for that stuff. I can meet you somewhere down your way and pick up during the week (I work on the south side of Baltimore).
In reply to volvoclearinghouse:
You are right on the crank sprocket. And I know you are on a tight budget with this build. And this IS GRM... So unless you have VW parts I can use. Or 1/32 slotcars I can use. I will take a case of beer.
NOHOME
PowerDork
7/6/16 7:43 p.m.
No lack of good advice on the engine build, but I have to wonder if the rear gear would be a more fallow field to plow?
With 4000 lbs, a 3.25 rear gear, a C6 and a 26" tire (no idea what tire size you are running)you are only turning 4300 rpm at 100 mph. Do lemons cars even get near 100 mph?
NOHOME wrote:
No lack of good advice on the engine build, but I have to wonder if the rear gear would be a more fallow field to plow?
With 4000 lbs, a 3.25 rear gear, a C6 and a 26" tire (no idea what tire size you are running)you are only turning 4300 rpm at 100 mph. Do lemons cars even get near 100 mph?
As absurd as it may sound, we've actually hit 4100 or 4200 RPM with the 3.00 gear and 245/50R16 tires (about 25.65" diameter). This corresponds to about 105 mph. (Note: 105 mph in a 1975 Ford LTD Landau is incredibly fun. I highly recommend it to anyone.) Along with this engine build (since we blew up the Ford 9" at the last race - yes, don't ask me how we blew up a 9") we got "permission" from the judges to overhaul the 9"...so we'll be putting in 3.25 gears. This should put us right around 4600-4700 RPM for about 5 seconds every lap. Most of the grunt work coming out of turns will be around 2000-2500 if we don't shift, or 3000-3500 if we knock it down into 2nd.
Spinning a 460 with a stock cam over 4000 doesn't particularly make sense. There's noise there, but not much extra power.
So on Friday I met with...
To exchange
for
think noddaz needs some "sponsor" space on the LTD 
I checked the Melling cam specs exhaust side has more duration and more lift... wondering if the added amount "fixes" exhaust flow/flaw issues?????
intake is 282 duration.... what is stock?
Tape that yellow sign to the side of the LTD.
curtis73 wrote:
Tape that yellow sign to the side of the LTD.
He will definitely get some sponsor-space. But that sign was the size of half a sheet of plywood. The LTD's large, but I don't think that would fit any of its sheet metal.
