sonic check

I want some opinions on how far this block can be bored and still be ok to use. It's my old C8VE block that my 557 was based on. Broke the crank, but the block is usable I think. It's got a lot of stuff done to it. 4 bolt BT main cap conversion, tall fill w Hard Block and a full slate of oil system mods. With all the stuff done to this block it would be a shame not to use it for something.

It has a gouge at the bottom of one cylinder wall about the size of a thumbnail or smaller. When the crank broke it tried to pull two pistons out the bottom and one of the rods hit the bottom of the cylinder. It would prob be ok to just smooth it up if it was used with a 4.15 stroke for a 514 as I don't think it would pull the piston down far enough to get into it. For a bigger deal like a 4.5 stroke I would either sleeve that hole or perhaps bore it bigger.

I was just wondering how big it could go based on the sonic check below. This will be be the base for Ward's (Dr's Wife Racing) new engine. Most of you saw the destruction pics last week in another thread.

The major thrust is on the left side of the cylinders in the pic. #1 is at bottom left. It has been bored .080 after this check, so subtract .040 off the #'s all the way around. It looks pretty consistent to me.

Looks a heck-of-a-lot better than the 40 year old stuff I'm using! Maybe remain lean on the next bore for future use. If you're block preparation is similar to mine, a lot of time is spent so I like to hang onto a block as long as possible! Especially a good (in my terms) block.

Dave.

some good info here....

and remember for example going .020 over only removes .010 of material ( edit- you already know this)

strike text...lol


http://www.460ford.com/forum/showthread.php?t=145227

what location in the bore where the readings taken? High or low or in zee middle?

First, it probably depends upon how much torque and piston side loading will be expected in the finished build.
Personally, I would offset bore the driver's side .010" toward the rear.
A .110" overbore to 4.470" seems to be OK.

dfree383 wrote:what location in the bore where the readings taken? High or low or in zee middle?

Not positive, it was done before I bought the block, but the guy said they done 1" down from the top.

David Cole wrote:I want some opinions on how far this block can be bored and still be ok to use. It's my old C8VE block that my 557 was based on. 4 bolt BT main cap conversion, tall fill w Hard Block and a full slate of oil system mods.

I was just wondering how big it could go based on the sonic check below. This will be be the base for Ward's (Dr's Wife Racing) new engine.

Wow, if those are positively the thinnest spots recorded, then that's really nice. I would tell most customers that such a block could go 4.500". Knowing your typical racing applications (not sure what DrWife's engine will be) I might err on the conservative side/where Randy settled. (Tall fill, I'd think 4.500" no problem.)

On another note: I know of two other C8VE-F blocks where the owners claimed a sonic check showing 4.500" bore capability and successfully ran them with that bore-size. So what is the primary change for the "F" engineering revision, I wonder? Externally, the block configuration is the same as all the other C8/C9 blocks as far as I can tell. I have a standard bore C8VE-F block myself that has been cleaned and magged, but I haven't sonic checked it yet. It is readily accessible and I'll get to it.....don't get your hopes up, though, I think we all have yet to be convinced that this is the norm.

Paul

I have one of these as well...

might just have to have in sonic tested to see if this might follow the F theory you speak of

138 wrote:I have one of these as well...might just have to have in sonic tested to see if this might follow the F theory you speak of

Just reviewed a C8VE-F block from the 385 Series Block Summit, Sonic Check #28, and wall thickness is less than usual on all the driver's side minor thrust walls:

Wes' C8VE-F Block: http://misn.com/~frd460/sonicdatahtml/28.html

Like I said, don't get your hopes up.

Paul

no hopes here... It doesn't eat much, so it can hang out for a little longer...

The block was checked at :
12 - 3 - 6 - 9 relative to the clock . Reports are that the thin spots are clocked with head bolt[s] ... About 1"-1.5" down....the clocking of the sonic on this block is not checked at those points. The FRPP A460 blocks are measured every 45* not every 90*.......having said this my opinion is; this block is a real good production unit .

Lem Evans wrote:The C8VE block was checked at :
12 - 3 - 6 - 9 relative to the clock . Reports are that the thin spots are clocked with head bolt[s] ... About 1"-1.5" down....the clocking of the sonic on this C8VE block is not checked at those points. The FRPP A460 blocks are measured every 45* not every 90*...

Lem,

Do you know this 45-degree wall thickess deal (ie potentially thinnest adjacent to the head bolt) to be fact with the passenger car blocks? Or is this only correct for the A460 blocks? I can easily see this being factual with the A460 block but I doubt it is correct for the passenger car blocks. Here's why:

The passenger car blocks typically have oval-shaped cylinders on their OD (water jacket side). By oval, I mean that they are usually thickest at the major/minor thrust and usually thinnest at the non-thrust points. That's what my sonic checker tells me, and that's what the cylinder pieces look like that I have broken out of windowed passenger car blocks. (I have been meaning to lop the deck off a cylinder bank of a grenaded D9TE block I have over here so that we can all see this "oval cylinder" design characteristic.) Also, look at the passenger car block deck picture below:



Note in the above picture just how far away the head bolts are from the ~4.39" bore compared to how close the adjacent cylinders are to one another (and this is not a siamese-bore block). The head bolts (and their internal lugs) must be several hundred thousandths away from the passenger car block's cylinder OD's. But, on an A460 block we usually see over 0.400" wall thickness at the 45-degree points (I've seen as high as 0.474" adjacent to head bolt on an A460 block). Add to this that the A460 blocks may be bored to 4.600"+, and suddenly the cylinder wall must be thick all the way around in order to accommodate the overbore capability. And so, when you get that close to a head bolt boss, perhaps the A460 block's cylinder casting cores (jacket cores?) might be ever so slightly "relieved" so as to accomodate the head bolt bosses while maintaining as much wall thickness as possible (<---speculation). This is probably what makes the 45-degree sonic inspection points mandatory on the A460 block.

All that being said, this makes the C8VE-F block in this thread highly unusual indeed.

Paul

138 wrote:I have one of these as well...

might just have to have in sonic tested to see if this might follow the F theory you speak of

Just a thought, sonic testing of a block can be like installing a cylinder head on a flow bench ...... it can be humbling at times! You know, the old saying, "if that one will do that, mine must be as good". I will be the first to admit of such thoughts, but I have learned and my ego has been put into check, not all castings are equal!

Dave.

Lem Evans wrote:The block was checked at :
12 - 3 - 6 - 9 relative to the clock . Reports are that the thin spots are clocked with head bolt[s] ... About 1"-1.5" down....the clocking of the sonic on this block is not checked at those points. The FRPP A460 blocks are measured every 45* not every 90*.......having said this my opinion is; this block is a real good production unit .

That was the point of the question about the locations checked that I asked Dave.

Paul, the 45* thing is not mandatory on an A460 block.....just good process on any block.

David,

On the block that you gave the sonic test for, the minor thrust side (drivers side) looks a lot better than the major thrust side on 7 out of 8 holes. So because it's thicker on the minor thrust side,,,,if I were going to be boring this block anymore, then I would offset bore it some towards the drivers side on a CNC boring machine.

Charlie