Build Thread 1978 Mercury Cyclone. The pig is in the pen.

tannerc91gt said:

It's Sunday night.
I know by now youve had dinner at 4pm, mumbled about Milk prices and Reagan ,yelled at the neighbor kid to move his bike, taken your Metamucil and passed out in the recliner but we want updates!

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look at biting off more than I can chew.

95BlueStallion said:

And dennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn?

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I got nothing.

Been working on three large jobs for the last three weeks. Leaves me w/ one-two days to do stuff. The trans took up my available free time.

I tell ya. I don't know why I'm even surprised anymore when I encounter the obstacles that keep flying up in front of me like some dumb assed pheasant.

I ordered an adjustable pushrod to be able to dial in my final pushrod length. The one I had for my last 351 was way too short. If you've ever had one, (especially for a 351) than you should be thinking to yourself now:
"Self,...........He had an adjustable pushrod for the much taller 351, and he said it wasn't long enough. I wonder just how long the pushrods will end up being in that crazy-assed time bomb he's building?"

Well I'm glad you asked. The answer to your query is 9.750." .100 longer than a stock tall deck marine 427 c.i. rat motor. I knew they were gonna be long, and because of that have chosen to go w/ a 3/8" diameter pushrod instead of a 5/16" to help eliminate pushrod deflection. What I didn't know was how much of a pain in the ass this mod is gonna be.


So it begins. Using a 5/16 adjustable pushrod set at 9.750 and zero lash, lets see what happens at max lift........

What do you thinks gonna happen?


Boom!!!
And this is the exhaust valve. You don't even want to see the intake, which is canted backwards, opposite of this shot.

I have already ground the pis s outta the back of the rockers (matter of fact, those "dust specs" you see all over everything is aluminum, I'm so gonna have to tear the entire engine back down, and re clean everything and put it back together. That is of course if I can overcome this latest boulder that fell in front of me.)


I have no idea just how much I can continue to grind on these things. All I know is that as much as I have removed,..they finally clear the 5/16 test push rod.
But,
I have to use 3/8" pushrods,.......an additional .070 (.035 on each side) that I'll have to clearance.

tannerc91gt said:

Almost starting to believe this could end up harder than an LS swap.

I can't see needing to tear the whole thing down but I guess being reassured can't hurt. I drilled out my $550 throttle body again today, and had aluminum shavings everywhere. Did you do all that with the rockers mounted?

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There's No doubt in my mind that this isn't harder than an LS swap. Your swap required absolutely NOTHING that had to be custom made.

As for me, Intake, Exhaust, Cam, Cam gears, Block, Head, Rockers, Mounts, oil pan, pick up, distributor, balancer, and timing chain all required some degree of customizing to make it work.


No, thats just micro dust from the one rocker I ground on to clearance the pushrod. The head is still waiting on the gasket, and some different shims under the intake valve springs, so It's coming back off anyway.

It's been my experience that a mega closeup like the ones I took will show junk that the naked eye would've let go by anyway, but now that I know that rocker and the surrounding springs are "contaminated" I'll be sure to clean it up real good before I put it on for good.

Well I think I've figured out the solution for the rocker arm collision dilemma. As usual, it means spending more money, going from the most inexpensive 1.73 ratio roller rocker, to the most expensive 1.75 ratio roller rocker.

Witness my solution:

Svelte, streamlined, lightweight stainless steel'

VS



Portly, bulky, investment cast aluminum.

The price jumps from 166.00 for set of 16, to 383.00 for 12, but if it means that everything will clear, then...........................
Ya gotta do what you gotta do.

95BlueStallion said:

Not that I love blowing money, but I have no problem spending extra if it means I dont have to worry about something in the back of my mind every time I go for a drive. Those new rockers look worth their weight in gold versus having a ground down (possibly overly weakened) rocker splitting into several pieces that fall inside a valve and ruin your engine.

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*****I'm the same way. The Comp rockers were bought as an inexpensive solution to what I thought was all I'd need in the rocker arm department before I even took the block to the machine shop. I didn't even know how much junk I was gonna have to do to try and make them fit at the time. Gotta give Summit credit again though, I bought the Comp rockers in February, they're gonna refund/exchange me in June.

( I just gotta buy a new single rocker to complete the set(@15.00) before I can send them back.)

stangboy said:

They look a lot like my Comp Ultra Pro Magnum rockers. That's what I thought they were at first glance.

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They're Crower pieces actually. I looked at the Comp pieces too, but even they are bigger than the ones I bought. They both ended up being about the same price (35.00 ea.) So it was all about getting the smallest, strongest one of the two. What actually was the selling point for the Crower was the 1.75 ratio they came in, and they were actually spec'd as being for Chevy's old inline six. So, in keeping w/ the "My entire valvetrain is supposed to go on a Chevrolet" theme,....I just had to have the Crower pieces.

**** I'm only talking about paying more for something that is a critical piece. Most other things I don't mind modifying to fit.
Take the Gi-honkin Summit 2 row universal radiator for example:
It's 19.625" tall. Fully stands almost an inch above the saddle. I got no problem hacking up that perfect lower radiator saddle to allow that monster to drop down an inch, so I can have the benefit of a 3" thick 30.5 wide radiator in front of this goofy assed engine.

84Ttop said:

All this build up..... I was expecting custom rockers of some space age material... Not some stainless rockers that will just show up in the mail, needless to say I am dissapointed!

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And you are the last person I wanted to disappoint.
You are hard to please though, you'd think that cutting the entire side of the engine block completely out so that a set of non spec roller lifters would fit on the roller cam that is only available from a custom cam grinder in a country 13,000 miles away would've been enough.

B itch.

Well.

The rocker dilemma will be solved by using the Crower rockers.

It just won't be solved using "these" Crower rockers.

Absolutely zero contact using the big assed 3/8" pushroods that I ordered based on information gained from the last set of tests.

Now that I have 9.750" long pushrods, and 1.75 ratio Crower rockers, It's all wrong.

The roller tip of the rocker looks like it travels too far from one end of the valve tip to the other. I removed the pushrod, and re-installed the adjustable unit, and no matter what I did, I could not make the rocker contain its' travel to a decent margin on top of the valve.

I think that the 1.75 ratio is just too much for this setup. I'm thinkin that it should be more like 1.7 instead.
I'm gonna call Crower tech, and talk w/ them tomorrow, but to me it looks like I'll be boxing up all of this junk, and sending it back to summit (again) for an exchange.

I'm really getting tired of d icking w/ all of this nit-picky crap. I just want the engine to be done.

On another tangent,

I don't know how many of you have looked into buying new carpet for your car lately, but that has gotten expensive.

I started watching Acc's pricing at the end of the year last year, and fully intended to buy the stuff at that time, especially since they were claiming that there was a price increase due at the first of the year.

At that time, w/ the end of year discounts they were offering, I was looking at having to spend 169.00 on a set of their standard backed cutpile in my color. ( Saddle)

I messed around, and let that slip by.

The next time I ck'd everybody was selling the carpet (including Summit) for 229.00. No matter where I looked, it was pretty much the same.

So when I resigned myself to just bite the bullet, and buy the stinkin stuff at 229.00 I called the standard suppliers looking to get the carpet in the right color, for my bodystyle.
Summit didn't have it, nor did LRS, or American Muscle. (because it had to be for the longer, Fairmont, instead of a Mustang.) Couple that to the fact that I wanted the stuff in a brown tone, and I was turning up empty everywhere.
I went to Acc online, and had the carpet picked out, and was ready to click the "Buy it Now" button, but for whatever reason, chose to close the page, and blew it off.

I got back online a couple of days later, and googled automotive carpet, and a website popped up.

Stockinteriors.com .

They had the carpet in my color, sized to fit my car, and were offering it for the bargain basement price of $129.00 plus 15.00 shipping.

I bought it.

Now I was wondering what I'd end up with when this junk arrived, fully 100.00 cheaper then ACC's price. I expected some thinned down Chinee version would show up, and hoped that it wouldn't be too bad.

This is what shows up



Stock interiors orders their inventory from ACC. This box arrived directly from ACC in Anniston, Alabama. I open it, and it is the exact same stuff that I could've gotten from them for 100.00 more.
Same formed carpet, same Jute backing, same made in America quality.

So,..be advised.

Stockinteriors.com sells ACC's carpet for less than ACC sells it for.

Alot less.

95BlueStallion said:

Damn, and I just paid $169 for the stock sized ACC carpet for my single cab Ranger!

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You spend waay more than I do for everything that we both buy.

Think 4R70W.

Think transmission controller for the above.

Think Nanny, nanny, boo-boo.

Just an update as I'm heading out the door to send back the stuff that I just got yesterday.

Spoke to Crower this morning. Turns out that not all rockers are created equal. There is a significant difference between a BBC 1.7 vs a BBF/351C 1.73 rocker based on length from the stud to the tip of the valve. The Crower 1.75 Chevy rocker was waay too long, and would've never worked, so they are going back in favor of the Ford specific ratio rockers.

I was relegating myself to having to use a copper gasket, and coating it w/ Yamabond in an attempt to try and seal the water passages. After waiting for a month, (and paying for it), I've decided to spin on my heels and go a different route.
As it turns out, there is a company in Lubbock TX that builds a composite gasket w/ an imbedded inconel fire ring similar to a Victor/Reintz piece coated in graphite. Supposed to be good for 300lbs of cylinder pressure (however the hell that much is) but more importantly, will not leak water into my damn engine.
If there is a "best part" I guess it's the price.......95.00.

( This is after the fact that I spent 270.00 on a freakin copper HG that I'll never even take out of the box to look at.)