This engine project will be a 514 Stroker topped off with a Dyers 8-71 blower. We will be building this completely and running it on our dyno. Due date is mid-March where it will find its home in a jet boat.

The first steps we take with any engine is stripping the block bare.  We then bake the block and caps in an oven at 700 degrees for 2-1/2 hours. This process makes grease and paint turn to dust.  The block is then blasted with steel shot.  This cleans the block and gives a nice cast look. The baking and blasting helps a little in stress relieving also. After the block has been cleaned it is magnetically checked for cracks.

Pictured are the splayed caps that will be used in this project.  They are a flat bottom cap and require machining of the block to fit. The next picture shows the machining process used to machine the block for the flat bottom cap.  We are installing the 4-bolt caps on the center 3 only. Once the block has been machined, the main studs are installed and the caps are pre-fitted.  At this point the block is then drilled and tapped for the splayed bolts. We align bore the main caps after all the studs and bolts are torqued in place. We leave about .003"-.005" material for the final align hone.  Picture shows the process at this point.  As you can see the caps are much  larger, extending out to the oil pan rails. The splayed bolts have a lot of material to be threaded into at this area. The next step is to resurface the block.  We measure the block to confirm our starting point.  We will be shooting for a 10.300" deck eight. This block required .017"-.020" of machining.  The picture shows the difference in the end to end height. Most blocks are off bank-to-bank and also end-to-end.

In one of the accompanying pictures you will see a thrust bearing and washer set. For this application we have machined the cam gear to fit the bearing between the gear and the thrust plate.  We have seen in some of our race engines that the front of the thrust plate is usually worn severely.  Ford cams have one bank of lobes tapered one direction and the other bank tapered the other direction. This should keep the cam pretty centered, but we feel the cam gear and oil pump is causing the cam to "work" its way back into the block. Using a high volume oil pump just makes this condition worse. We then will "massage" the oil passages and machine some extra passages to get more oil. The main bearings have small oil slots.  We install the upper bearings and mark the oil feed hole location.  We then take the bearings and machine a matching hole to allow oil to flow more freely.  Because the #1 main bearing really has 2 feed holes we did not machine that bearing.  In some cases we actually restrict the oil to the #1 main to help even the supply to the entire engine, but in this case we felt the blower belt might demand the oil supply.