Thread: New Project 63 Thunderbird!

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Don Jr glad to help. One thing to watch with those heads is matching the stock Tbird exhaust mani's if you are going that way. The C8AE-H heads have the exhaust ports raised .250 higher than the C4 and earlier heads. Might be a problem with stock 63 Tbird exhaust mani's. Also some of the C8AE-H heads don't have all 16 ex bolt hole machined. Some were 14 bolt exhaust patterns for the shock tower cars. Your 63 Tbird mani's will just use the 8 bolt vertical pattern. Just keep these things in mind. The 4bbl 68 intake is the same height as the 69 2bbl. Both of those if I remember right are 5/16" higher than the stock lowriser intakes like the Tbird used. Natch with the wedge'd spacer. So you should be ok hopefully for hood clearance. The last M code Tbird tripower I saw for sale went for $3000. About double what the Galaxie units go for. They are pretty rare as are the original Tbird 3x2 aircleaners that top them. Ford also sold over the counter a flat tripower intake for 58-60 cars. Those are pretty rare to find too. The main difference is the Tbird units had a few extra bosses cast in for the carb linkage the over the counter version did not have. Sounds like a fun car to build. The 390 will make it cruise nicely.

My heads have a 2 bolt per a port configuration (8 bolts per a side) Are there different 8 bolt flanges? All of the stock exhaust manifolds I have seen are 8 bolt for my year tbird. That is what I expected for cost on that darn tbird tripower. Awesome set up for sure. I figure that I can get the car running and on the street on a 4 barrel and down the road hopefully come across a tri power set up. Looks like my 69 390 has 3 bolt motor mounts and the tbirds had two bolts. My Ford interchange book says a 65 and up 390 will bolt into a pre 65 car, BUT not the other way around. Because of the mounts) Has anyone heard that? Thanks again for the guidance. Don Jr

Yep the vertical 8 bolt flanges are all the same. Some of the H heads were only 14 bolt pattern when used with the GT exhaust manifolds. And the 2 lower bolts holes on the 2 center ports were not drilled and tapped. So you had to drill and tap them to use 8 bolt mani's. Just something to watch for really. Trucks used the 8 bolt pattern on those heads and the later over the counter parts had all 16 holes for any combination. On the block mounts the later (65 and up) FE's had 4 mount holes. 2 of which fits the early 58-64 2 bolt pattern. 3 were used the later motor mount applications. Just get the right 63 mounts and you'll be fine.

FFR 427 to the rescue!
Thanks for the great info and help (everyone included) Thanks to you all I feel like I know something about FE engines! (at least I can act smart) Don Jr.

Hey good luck with everything!!! FE's are pretty simple once you understand a few differences they have. There is a thriving aftermarket for them too.

Enjoying building something different. Puts some new wrinkles on my brain

The t bird gonna look cool slammed. You gonna run fender skirts?

Don's at work, so I'll answer for him until he sees this. The T Bird is now in the hands of someone else. He sold it a while back to a guy who is restoring another one. I forget the exact reasons he changed his mind on building it, but I think his heavy 2 job work schedule and the boat project he found left no time to do this one.

It sure freed up a lot of space in the shop when it left........that was one big car. We kind of all decided we were too crowded in there, so I even sold my 39 Dodge project to a nice guy who bought it on Ebay. Now we have some breathing room.

Don

Don:

Whatever happened to the car you guys were chopping the top on?

I know what yea mean about crowed, been there and still doing that

Originally Posted by 37 Caddy

Don:

Whatever happened to the car you guys were chopping the top on?

Well, we chopped two of them. One was the 39 Dodge truck that I just mentioned selling, and the other was Dan's '49 Ford. The '49 has gone to the great car show in the sky. I got tired of tripping over it and having no room to work on our other stuff, so I got Dans permission to cut it up.

I know it sounds terrible to do that, but the body was a 4 door that we would have had a lot of work in to finish it off as a tudor, and it was pretty rough with a lot of flooring and whatever that needed replacing. Dan bought it for the flathead anyway originally and it had no title, so that would have been another hassle.

We did save lots of the good parts, like the dash, and Dan plans on putting that in some future project. We also kept the tudor doors he bought out of Nebraska or somewhere like that as they are rustfree. Someday we will find a better candidate to build a shoebox from and the parts we saved will go to that project. I got a real workout with the sawzall reducing the '49 to pieces I could carry out of the shop, but luckily most of the frame was thin enough from rust that it made it a little easier.

Don

yeah I do like them birds too sorry dude I see a good plat form I just have to run with it well good luck with your project

hey mike that one has a good form too

Originally Posted by Mike P

Well the 64 has been basically a "filler" project that I work on when I hit a stopping point on other projects (like waiting on stuff from the body shop etc.

It's pretty much in the same shape as it shows in the last post I made to the build thread. As my next major project is building a new shop over the next year or so (and currently that is where all the money is going). It will probably come back into the shop for a while after I get back from vacation at the end of the month however. I have all the parts to do the brakes including a front disc conversion, so it's something I can do without sending any money. I do fire it up and move it occasionally, but it's not a lot of fun when I only have the emergency brake

The Plymouth I built was my 57 Plaza. I stuffed and old Hemi with Tri-Power and a 4 speed in it to drive to Tulsa to see them dig up the Buried Plymouth last year. You might recognize the hood scoop on it (hint…. it came off the same car your working on).

As far as the Tri-Power intakes go, the 61-63 Birds had the engine sitting fairly level (but they still use the spacer to finish leveling the carb on the single 4BBL versions. The Tri-Power intakes sit level with all the carbs at the same height. They are also a VERY low rise style in order to have sufficient air cleaner clearance (as it is the air cleaner actually sits up in the hood scoop.

On the full size cars like my 64 the engine actually tilts back at a pretty good angle (if you look closely at some of the pictures in the other post you can actually see this). The Tri-Power intakes for these cars were a high-rise version and the height of the carbs was higher in the rear than the front plus the bases were also slightly angle milled (if memory serves correctly). Basically even though the engine was not level on the full size cars the carbs and air cleaner gave the illusion that it was. A T Bird tri-power can be used on the full size cars (the floats may have to be adjusted down a bit) but the full size car version will not allow the hood to close if used on a Bird.

too bad...I like those t birds about as much as a chevy guy can and the 4 door to 2 project was fun to watch as well. guess we'll have to settle for the great roadster projects instead

John were you the one that photo shopped the wheels on my Plymouth? If you were I got to admit that looks GOOD.

I have been kicking around the idea of updating the wheels, but I was leaning more towards some Torque Thrust D (dark center). Now you've given me something else to think about.

WOW Don sounds like you ahve been doing a bunch of house cleaning. In all actuality I probably should too, but decided to put up a bigger garage instead.