65 Comet with 390

The Era of The Square Body Racing Comets
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loman
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Re: 65 Comet with 390

Post by loman »

Here's the latest. I was lucky enough to have a buddy mill the rocker arm stands down for me yesterday. I also went ahead and ordered pushrods so hopefully I will have those by the end of next week. Then today, I was able to get my engine limiter mocked up and tacked in. I bent a diagonal link on my black car a few years ago and then replaced it. So i hacked up the bent link and made the limiter out of that. All in all a good day.
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loman
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Re: 65 Comet with 390

Post by loman »

The 390 is most of the way together. We primed the motor with a drill yesterday and had 75 psi. We did not see much oil come out of the bleed holes in the rockers but we had lots of oil bleed off the rocker shafts. The stock rocker shaft has 2 holes per rocker roughly .150 diameter each (.300 per rocker). The new shafts have 1 hole per rocker that measure roughly .095. Being new to FE stuff, how do you determine the proper oiling of the shafts and rockers? I know with stock and edelbrock heads, a lot of people put restrictors in the oil feed hole of the head. I did some searching but I couldn't find any info on restricting the TrickFlow heads. I thought about this morning, and I think we need to compare the sizes of the oil hole in the TF and stock heads.
Another thing we noticed was when we primed the motor with 5 qts of oil we had no problems. We then installed the factory sheet metal oil retainers that bolt under the rockerstands that go around the valve springs. Then primed the engine again and after a little bit we ran the pump dry. It seems they slowed the return of the oil back to the pan. We were planning on running 6 qts anyway but maybe we need to think of 7 qts or remove the sheetmetal oil retainers and go with 6. I'm glad we are doing all of this testing on the engine stand instead of in the car. Its a pain in the butt and very messy.
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vicegrip
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Re: 65 Comet with 390

Post by vicegrip »

Wow!! Pumping the pan dry on the drill...don't know if 7 qts will be enough. You definitely need to look into the restrictor thing as you really don't need that much oil on the top end. Are the drain backs big enough? Where was the oil collecting when the pan went dry? Is the pump sump close enough to the bottom of the pan? Is the shaft to rocker clearance correct? You really don't need the tins if it they're hurting drain back. I know you know this but the shaft oil holes go down...just in case!

fair67
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Re: 65 Comet with 390

Post by fair67 »

Do not use a high volume oil pump I made that mistake.

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loman
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Re: 65 Comet with 390

Post by loman »

Vicegrip, do you know what the clearance is supposed to be for the shaft to rockers? I remember reading somewhere of a minimum of .008" and I believe our tightest clearance at any one spot is .010. We also double checked to make sure we had the oil holes on the bottom. As for the pan and pick up, I believe they are ok. They are the ones that were on the motor when we got it. Doesn't mean they are right but we are assuming they are correct for each other.

Fair67, we are using the Melling M57-B pump. That's what the machine shop recommended for us to use.
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vicegrip
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Re: 65 Comet with 390

Post by vicegrip »

Just so we're talking about the same thing...the clearance between the shaft hole in the rocker and the shaft OD. If your tightest is .010,that's way too much. Should be .002,.003 at the most. With that much clearance,when the oil is hot,you won't have decent pressure when running and none at idle. With restrictors,maybe .060, .070, it would help the oil pressure problem but the rockers would still be too loose with all your oil ending up under the valve covers.

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loman
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Re: 65 Comet with 390

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Ok, my mistake we are not talking about the same thing. Actually, I never thought to measure the rocker arm shaft diameter against the rocker arm shaft OD. It was purchased new as a complete assembly so I figured it should be right. Since you mentioned it, I will make sure to do that.
The .008 & .010 that I mentioned refers to the amount of space between the rockers, spacers & shims have between the stands.
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vicegrip
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Re: 65 Comet with 390

Post by vicegrip »

I kinda thought that was the case.

fair67
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Re: 65 Comet with 390

Post by fair67 »

Fair67, we are using the Melling M57-B pump. That's what the machine shop recommended for us to use.[/quote]

Ok It looks pretty standard my problem was I used a high volume pump and it filled the valve covers with oil way too fast and sucked oil into the cylenders due to no posative valee guide seals.(had umbrella type) I installed valve stem seals and put in a carb jet restrictor in the oil passage to help with it sucking oil through the valves. If I would of just got a completely stock oil pump I believe it would of saved alot of headache for me.

popscomet
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Re: 65 Comet with 390

Post by popscomet »

we came to the conclusion yrs ago...do not use a HV oil pump....the stock oil pump will let a race motor live,,,some of our oil pans hold 8 qts,,,we still use a stock pump...….and a wix filter or a fl1a motor craft
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pop/glenda

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loman
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Re: 65 Comet with 390

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Motor is in and headers are on. The picture is before we installed the headers and they are a lot harder to install now compared to when I was using the mock up block and stock head. It took us a couple of hours to get all the bolts started. I also started mocking up the alternator and water pump motor brackets. Hopefully by the end of the weekend we will have a radiator mount fabbed up and installed unless I decide to go racing on Sat.
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loman
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Re: 65 Comet with 390

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Getting closer. Got the alternator and water pump motors mounted. Mounted the starter and that was a bear. There is no way to see the top mounting bolt. Since the radiator was out i was able to use all of my extensions and sneak behind the headers and tighten it. Once the radiator is in, I don't know what I will do. Cross that bridge when I have to. Got the shifter, cable and brackets mounted just need to adjust it. Replaced the 3/4" header bolts for 1" bolts. Carb is mounted and I still need to paint the coil bracket. I made a aluminum plate to mount the msd box on and I just need to tack a couple of bolts to the floorboard for mounting.The biggest thing to still tackle is the fan situation. We were going to go with the pusher fan idea but decided we would go to the pick n pull and see if we can find some late model dual pusher fan setup that we can make work. If we can't than we might go back to the pusher fan. Once the fan is figured out, make some trans lines and we should be really close to attempt firing it up. It was nice to get a lot small things accomplished this week.
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loman
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Re: 65 Comet with 390

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We picked up a set of fans from a Taurus and a Mazda from the pick n pull. The Taurus fans will definately not fit. The Mazda's I think i can cobble something up. Won't be the prettiest but it will be functional and tight. No idea what the CFM will be but we will try and watch temp gauge cIosely. If nothing else hopefully it will keep it cool enough to break motor in. I don't know how soon I will get going on this since the brake pedal on the other car shot craps yesterday at the track but we will see.
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lavron
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Re: 65 Comet with 390

Post by lavron »

Did you find any Ford Contour fans to try, they are a dual fan but I have no idea if they are slimmer or not, I am going to try and find some for my build.

See Ya,
Mike
Mike's build thread
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loman
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Re: 65 Comet with 390

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Mike, we looked at just about everything in the junkyard. I'm sure we saw a Contour or Mystique but don't remember positively.

I was able to massage the Mazda Protege fans to fit on the radiator and clear the water pump and the water pump electric motor. So I think this is what we are going to go with. If it doesn't keep it cool we will address it at that time. I just need to make a couple of more brackets and I think we should be good to go.
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