montego malady

i have a 75 montego with a 77 engine i built several years ago before i really knew much about engines. i am not sure if all my components are balanced out with one another. my goal is to run a quarter mile in less than 14 seconds. here is my build info. stock heads D3VEA2A, stock exhaust manifolds with two and a quarter inch pipes with no catalytic converters and a crossover pipe and dual flowmaster mufflers. i have a crane cam with 487 lift on the intake and 518 on the exhaust advertised duration is 260 and 272 duration at .050 is 204 and 214. keith black hypereutectic pistons .030 over. supposedly 9.7 compression but am not sure if that is correct. edelbrock performer intake with holley 4160 750 cfm. stock duraspark ignition. 370 gears limited slip. 26 inch diameter tires. saturday night special converter. c-6 with a shift improver kit. i have never taken it to the drag strip but have taken another car at 14 flat and know this one is not as fast. any help is greatly appreciated. thanks!

Engine is a 460. .030 over

I may be the only one on here that will tell you this but supercharge it, when I was young I had a '56 chevy pickup with a pretty much stock 350 motor & 350 automatic, I installed a 6/71 blower in a day and took it to the drag strip and never turned over 5300 rpms and knocked out a 14.00 with a heavy refrigerator shaped pickup, many people think superchargers are expensive & exotic, when if you put a pencil to adding 150+ horsepower per dollar they can be the cheaper expense (except nitrous), and after 30 years I can sell my blower setup for more than the 2000 I paid for it in 1989 (thats right a performance add on that actually appreciates!) Don't let people say the motor has to be "built" to add a supercharger (read Pat Ganahls Street Supercharging book) I ran 6 lbs on a stock motor for many years! Best of luck and this is only MY opinion! Best of luck Matt

First welcome to the CHR. Nice to see you here.

Next, I suppose we're discussing a 302 SBF??? Or perhaps a 351??? A C-6 trans while a great tranny, it's a HP eater. But if your doin' street and strip, don't sweat it. And it will be "beefy" enough to handle nitrous.. or supercharging.

Cool! I always loved those mid 70's bigger cars; lots of character and usually a pretty comfy ride.

What motor?
What casting number on the heads?
What cam part number?
What piston part number?

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Forgot to mention, the engine is a 460 .030 over.

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Originally Posted by techinspector1

What motor?
What casting number on the heads?
What cam part number?
What piston part number?

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The engine is a 460 .030 over
Heads are casting # D3VEA2A (stock valve train and no porting)
Cam is a Crane Part # H-260-2
Pistons are Keith Black "Silv-o-lite" Part #3191H-030

If you have a stock timing gear set/chain-change it to a 69 or 70 one--the cams were retarded 8 degrees at the crank gear in 74 0r 5-------you'll pick up lots of bottom end tq/hp

and I assume u got a ford 9er in rear-----go to 411 or 4 57 gear set for 1/4 miles and holley 850-950 carb

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Originally Posted by jerry clayton

If you have a stock timing gear set/chain-change it to a 69 or 70 one--the cams were retarded 8 degrees at the crank gear in 74 0r 5-------you'll pick up lots of bottom end tq/hp

and I assume u got a ford 9er in rear-----go to 411 or 4 57 gear set for 1/4 miles and holley 850-950 carb

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A question for you Jerry. I'd heard about the built in retarding of the timing as part of the CAFE response, but instead of replacing the gears could a guy put a degree wheel on it and ignore the "dots" on the gears? Just wondering if there was any other difference besides the reference marks.

Every time you change the cam and or timing set in a motor, the cam should be degreed, but I'd bet that maybe 1 in 50 hot rodders do it if they're not dedicated 1/4 mile buffs or competitors in another venue of racing.

I'm thinkin' that the retarded sprockets are maybe half a tooth off from the standard sprockets, so jumping a tooth probably wouldn't do it. A fellow could drill out the cam pin hole in the cam sprocket to use offset bushings, but the only ones I found were from Crower and had 0-1-2-3-4 bushings, so if the sprocket is off by 8-10 degrees, these would do you little or no good, unless you wanted to jump the sprocket by one tooth and then back it up into the desired range with bushings.

When push comes to shove for a fellow who probably will not invest in the tooling to degree the cam, best thing to do is purchase a timing set for a '68-'70 429 and call it good.

I calculated his static compression ratio at 8.96:1, using 0.028" piston deck height, 0.040" head gasket and 96cc chambers, so it ain't gonna be a world beater anyway. At least he chose the proper cam timing to go with the SCR. :o

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Thanks, Tech. That's the info I was interested in understanding better. Much appreciated.

Roger-------don't have any easily available gears to show but when they retarted the timing they relocated the keyway in the crank gear for the retard----------an early gear the keyway/dot were perfectly aligned(in the lower gear)-afterwards the keyway was offset an amount that was very easy to see----with an early gear set, timing back where it was prior

I have also use several of the timing sets that come with adjustable upper drive gears but on the fords with single bolt and dowel pin it was hooky-----

I actually had several lower gears built especially for me with several keyway notches for setting the timing-maybe I can find one for a pic.
I used to do the cam timing forward, Edelbrock manifold, Holley carb, drill out the cats with flat blade drill, limit dist advance so could run more static ting, and put a Canadian fuel tank filler pipe on a lot of CHICAGO culture(M) Lincolns

On more serious builds,I'd go .015 oversize (4.375)(rings were available!) custom pistons with Chev wrist pin size with brass bushings in the Ford rods for full floaters, and raise the compression ( Sunoco 260-270 everywhere), custom cam using popular BBC grinds and bigger valves with pocket porting and bronze valve guides-

Verifying Jerry's statement that the crank sprocket was the change, I went to Cloyes website and gleaned the following info....

1975 Mercury Montego 460
S420T cam sprocket
C493 chain
S421 crank sprocket

1968 Ford Thunderbird 429
S420T cam sprocket
C493 chain
S493 crank sprocket

I also found that the cam sprocket is 36 teeth, so one tooth of the cam sprocket is 10 degrees at the cam, but 20 degrees at the crank where cam timing is figured from. The crank sprocket is 18 teeth, so one tooth at the crank sprocket would be also be 20 degrees at the crank. So, even an 8 degree offset bushing wouldn't put you where you need to be. Use an S493 crank sprocket or a complete C3037 timing set for a '68 Ford Thunderbird 429.

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An issue with degreeing a cam in the Ford engine at the camshaft dowel is that the gear only has a center bolt and the dowel is stepped size and goes thru the gear and into a plate that drives the fuel pump. Just not as reliable as the 3 bolt and short dowel like in the chevies

I'd never buy a stock timing set for a smog engine and Richard is right, I've never degreed a cam as I didn't think it was necessary for a basically stock engine. California started all of the smog crap in the 60's so when I rebuild the engine in the Vette I'll probably order a timing set for a 57 283.

Ok. I am using an aftermarket double roller timing set. So it isn't a stock style with retarded timing.

Is there a thinner head gasket that I can use to bump up the compression ratio a bit? Mine is .040

I am planning on doing a few things to the motor soon. Looking for a few suggestions on what I should do. I will be on a $1,000 budget, so I am not sure if I can afford any head work. I will also be keeping stock exhaust manifolds to keep original appearance.

Should I just get it dyno-tuned?
Put a slightly bigger cam in?

Just looking for a few ideas, before I decide what I'm going to do.

Any input is appreciated. Thanks!

Tuning is always a good idea. You gotta know if the motor can pull through the whole range.

If nothing else, do the gears as suggested by Jerry. but right now you don't even know how many rpm's you'll be turning when going through the traps.... You really need to do a couple runs so you'll have a baseline to work with.

Who knows... maybe it's faster than it feels to your "butt dyno"!

aftermarket double roller set does not mean anything--where the timing is what matters-what are the manufacture and part number of the set and any pics of it?
Have you got rid of the cats? Do you have adjustable valves? or just the oem solid bolt downs? If so , there are bearing centers you can use but will still need to have correct pushrod length. put an ign retard system in it so you can pull the timing back in high gear on the quarter mile and use around 40* total and retard it 3, 4 degrees when shifting into high.

best gas you can get-----

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Originally Posted by jerry clayton

aftermarket double roller set does not mean anything--where the timing is what matters-what are the manufacture and part number of the set and any pics of it?
Have you got rid of the cats? Do you have adjustable valves? or just the oem solid bolt downs? If so , there are bearing centers you can use but will still need to have correct pushrod length. put an ign retard system in it so you can pull the timing back in high gear on the quarter mile and use around 40* total and retard it 3, 4 degrees when shifting into high.

best gas you can get-----

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Timing set I used had 3 keyways. I installed it with the 4 degree advanced setting.

Ignition timing is set with 14 degrees initial 36 degrees advance. With full advance at around 2800 RPM (I installed lighter springs)

Valve train is stock.

No Cat converters.

I don't think there is a dist cam with a 11* slot-do you have a part number off it???
Over the years I have welded up the slots on many stockers and then with porting tools ground out the length to what I wanted-back in the days of the big truck engines the short slots were easy to get---some of those concrete delivery, garbage trucks, etc that you are passing going down the road had a few of the best parts out there-short ignitions, long stroke cranks and rods---