Ford Small-Block Building - Pump Up The Volume

Around the spark plug openings, the Newen machine cannot be used. No worries, Ben smoothed out the area the old-fashioned way.

Once the work has been performed, the cylinder heads were cleaned in an Alkali tank, which removes the aluminum shavings from the heads. After removing the heads from the tank, Ben used compressed air to speed the drying process.

To fit the valves in the aluminum cy-linder heads, Ben first used synthetic as-sembly oil on the valves.

Tony utilized a pneumatic valve spring compressor to install the valve springs and valve spring retainer stems in the heads.

Pistons with wrist pins awaited assembly to the connecting rods.

Ben attached the connecting rods to the piston wrist pins.

As used in racing applications, Ben installed double Spirolocks in each side of each piston to hold the wrist pins in place.

Next, Ben installed the two piston rings. The bot-tom ring is designed to yield 24/1000 of an inch of clearance to the cylinder wall, while the top piston ring yields 21/1000 of an inch. Notice Ben used a piston ring tool to install the piston rings. Doing it by hand will distort the piston rings and rob the engine of up to 10 horsepower.

Ben measured the big-end opening of the connecting rod before insertion of the connecting rod bearing as shown.

He also checked that the opening was to spec after installing the connecting rod bearing.

Before installing the crankshaft bearings, the bearings had to be chamfered to clear the racing stroker crankshaft. That explains why Ben has a chamfering tool in his hand while he installed the crankshaft bearings. Synthetic assembly oil then went on the crankshaft bearings, as it did with the camshaft, which Ben already installed (not shown).

Ben installed the crankshaft. Before tightening each crankshaft cap bolt, he squirted some assembly oil along the shaft.

With all the crankshaft cap bolts in place, Ben torqued the bolts to 427ci-stroker specifications.

To prevent any oil leaks, Ben used Loctite sealer to install the one-piece rear main seal. Woodruff Keys were used to align the balancer onto the crankshaft end, which Ben already installed.

The gear of the timing chain was also located with Woodruff Keys.