Alex's 379 Cleveland, Part 2

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Last Updated: 16 Jul 2003

The reason for the lack of oil pressure was apparent when I pulled the intake off. The #6 intake lifter was laying in the lifter valley along with a bent pushrod. The Cleveland routes oil to the mains from one of the lifter galleries, like an Olds, Pontiac, etc. Of course, #6 was on the passenger side, which happened to be the gallery that fed the mains.

I now knew what caused the loss of oil pressure, but not why. My first thought was that I'd revved the engine too high, floated a valve, and so forth. (did I mention it sounded gooood?) There was a print of the intake valve in the carbon on top of the piston. But there was no sign of contact with any other valves; if I'd floated one bad enough to bend a pushrod, they should all have been touching. To top it off, the valve was stuck in the head.

I drove the stuck valve out, ran the spring across the checker, and scratched my head a while. Hmm. Well, time to suck it up and ask for another opinion. I tossed the parts in the car and made the rounds of a couple of local racing engine builders. After the obligatory ribbing sessions, they both were of the opinion that the valve stem clearance had been too tight.

Two of the valve guides had been broken off at the top when I received the heads. It's not an uncommon thing, but it makes it impossible to use the thinwall guide liners I'm set up for, so I had installed solid cast iron guides in... #6 intake and #7 exhaust. I took a look at #7. Hmm, the stem looked a little funny, but the clearance was fine. After much thought and discussion, I had another "learning experience." There are various figures for valve stem clearance, ranging from .0015" to .0045". I usually work down at .0015". It turns out that's just fine for bronze guides, but iron guides need more clearance. A brand new Chevy Vortec head, for example, is .004". The guide had been just a hair too tight. Damn. Those "learning experiences" can get expensive...


Here's the print of the valve. At least I found out JE put the valve notches in the right spot. I was interested to see the ceramic coating was not damaged. Note the carbon patterns; the bare spots are the quench area between the piston top and the combustion chamber.

Note the heavier carbon buildup on the exhaust side; this is a perfect flame pattern, with the flame front proceeding from the exhaust side to the cooler intake side. Head designers and exotic head porters will reshape the chamber, move the spark plug fiddle with the bowl area, and tinker with the piston shape to try to get something like this. The Australian heads have it to start with, which is one reason they make as much power as the 4V heads despite flowing less air.


The carbon was knocked off the valve head. Note the two rear cylinders are still shiny; the carburetor we were using had some bad fuel metering problems.

First off, I'm going to make damned sure no more lifter problems happen. The usual solution is to ream out the lifter bores and press in bronze bushings with small holes to let oil to the lifters. That's expensive and time consuming. I figured if the lifters couldn't come out in the first place, there was no reason for restrictor bushings. So I hacked up some 5/16 x 3/4" flat stock to make a retainer bar. (the round doohickey is a magnet, holding the paper to prevent welding spatter from getting to the driver's side bores)

After the bar was welded up I marked, drilled, and tapped the mounting holes. Being paranoid, I checked to make sure the bolts wouldn't hit the cam. They don't come within 1/2 inch of anything important.

The fancy white paint in the lifter valley doesn't look so great any more, but it's only paint...


The installed retainer bar. Angling the mounting brackets was so I could drill completely through the valley instead of into a main web; I didn't want to run into a cam bearing or something.

A better shot. The bolts have lock washers and Loctite. There's 1/8 inch of clearance between the lifters and the bar at maximum lift, and 1/16" inch to the pushrods. The bar isn't really crooked, for some reason this photo makes it look that way.

During the disassembly I found signs of oil leakage. At first I thought it was the rear main seal, then I discovered it was the two oil plugs at the back of the block. The Cleveland, for some mysterious known-only-to-Ford reason, uses a special pipe thread there; just a hair larger than a standard 3/8 NPT. The difference is enough that they'll screw in tight, but oil will leak around the threads. Well, duh. Another damned learning experience... at least it was easy enough to fix.

I polished the valve stems on the lathe before reassembling. I also replaced all the guides with solid 1/2" bronze guides, reamed them to size, polished them by running a broach through, and deleted the exhaust seals. I really, really didn't want any more stuck valves...

Together again. The retainer is on the water jacket side; the pushrods lean away from it at their various angles.

Back on the run stand. Seems like I've done this before...

All finished! Due to freezing temperatures I just ran it until it got warm and shut it down each time I played with it instead of filling it back up with water. Sounded just as mean as ever.

Unloading over at Alex's. I left the run stand brackets on so it wouldn't have to ride sitting on the oil pan.

Push it up the driveway... it's going into the old Ford with the antique plate.
The engine bay is detailed better than the outsides of most show cars. The new handbuilt aluminum fuel tank has to go in first, to the left, behind the driver. Then the engine and transaxle go in.
We took my black valve covers off and installed the new 'Pantera' cast aluminum ones, then added the rest of the paraphernalia to take some trophy shots before it goes into the car.
Alex will do something better with the spark plug wire routing later. The powdercoated water tube has been replaced with a chrome one, in case you were wondering.
The nitrous lines actually clear the valve covers just fine. The guy who bent them up did a nice job. Besides looking nice, they're well out of the way of the carburetor so you can work on it without bumping into them.
Pantera to the right, Vector to the left... new Jet-Hot coated headers.