I pulled the pan on the 327 to look at the bearings today and the results were surprising. When I rolled the engine upside down on the engine stand I heard clinking sounds like loose pieces of metal hitting the side of the oil pan which was ominous. This pan is bitch to remove because the kickouts mean most of the pan bolts are inside the pan. When it came off I found the source of the clinking noises I heard, there was the remains of a Torrington bearing and races laying on the pan rail. I have no idea how it got there or what it is from. Of course the needles were all over inside the pan and block and this was probably the source of the metal I found in the filter. I pulled the bearing caps on the front 4 rods and the bearings look great other than 1 showing a single groove where some debris went through. I also pulled #2-3 main caps, bearings look perfect as did the thrust surface. The only unfortunate part of this is that so far there isn't any explanation for the rather large drop in oil pressure unless the oil pump bypass has a piece of that bearing holding it open. It is possible that all that is required for this to be ready to go back in the car is new rod bearings and some oil pump work( and a good cleaning).
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I also measured the width of the rod bearings, they are .7085-.710" wide.

 

Here is a shot of the bottom end. I was surprised to see it has Grade 8 bolts everywhere except where the windage tray bolts on, No ARP hardware in sight. Tomorrow I will take that oil pump apart and see if that is the problem, I have to check the Melling pump from the 388 and make sure it is reusable as well.

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I took a look through the bearing catalogs like nxcoupe suggested. It appears the CB1227HXN bearings are the correct length since the catalog shows them .713" long which is pretty close to the .710" I measured on the bearings that are in the engine. I don't know why the build sheet shows them as being narrowed by the shop and the invoice shows a charge for it. It doesn't matter though, that was 5 years ago and shop is now closed.

I took a look at the Titan oil pump and the bypass appears to be stuck so that might have been the cause of the low oil pressure. I was on Titan's website and they don't show this model of pump anymore which isn't surprising since it is over 20 years old. The plan is to buy a new pickup and replace the Titan with a Melling HV. I emailed Billet Fabrications about a new pickup and they couldn't even bother to email me back so after some measuring it looks like a Moroso pickup will work. I noticed their website hadn't been updated in years and no one answered the phone so maybe they don't exist anymore.

My current thoughts on this engine are I will probably fix it at some point. New rod bearings, oil pump and pickup, maybe a custom ground cam and either a ball bearing 76mm or twin 6262s. With the Victor Jr intake it doesn't have much low end power compared to a 351W and I miss that. I thought about getting a long runner intake for it but there only appears to be the Edelbrock RPM II available and that for a pretty penny. I guess the 5.0L craze is completely over since 10 years ago you could get 10 or more performance intakes.

I really wish that I had listened to the engine builder and built a 9.5" deck engine instead of this one but hindsight is 20/20.

 

Melling all the way, I know what you mean about intakes there is getting to be less all the time but I seem to be slowly building an inventory again! Need to get rid of that high ram I have, interested? you could always sell that 8.2 engine after you fix it and get a boss 351 or Dart block for the future.

 

Your Hi Ram is for a 9.5" deck isn't it? I have been pretty happy with the Vic Jr on the 351W at least when it was a 388". I will have a better idea in a few weeks when the 82 is back on the road.

 

I have to look back on your thread and see how high that Vic jr. sits in your car. I think I could fit one under a stock hood but I am going to stick with the one I have. Yes that Holley is for a 9.5 block.

 

CB1227HN is the std bearing CB1227HXN is +.001" extra clearance, meaning each bearing half is +.0005"
CB1227HN -.001 is .001 smaller bearing for when you have too much oil clearance. You can't go by measurements of the bearing like that. Those are the chevy 2.1" journal bearings. I probably have 10 sets sitting on my bearing shelf from all the engines I assembed that came with the stroker kits but wouldn't work because the journals were always larger than they should have been so I'd have to order bearings in to work.
And Trick Flow still makes track heat, street heat and R manifolds for 8.2 deck engines. I think even Holley still has their systemax.

 

Holley does have the systemax but I consider it a stock replacement manifold like a GT40. TFS has lots of upper manifolds available but no lowers or complete manifolds for either a 351W or a 302. Maybe they will start making lowers again and I can buy one.

 

They are tall with a carb/Sniper and a hat. I had to use offset rack bushings to drop the rack down and then made custom engine mounts that put the pan 1/4” above the rack. After all that I needed to shim the 2.5” cowl hood with 2 washers/bolt on the hinges to get the hood to close.

 

Some good news for a change. The transmission rebuild cost a lot less than I had budgeted for so I ordered a new oil pump and pickup for the 327 with the extra money.

The bearing situation is not quite as good. Although King and Clevite both list narrowed bearings that would fit my crank no one has them or could get them in a reasonable time frame. Several months seems to be the standard response. The ones that need to be narrowed I can get tomorrow. Now I understand why my engine builder chose to buy the ones he did.

 

I wanted to work on the Mustang last night but it was pouring rain all day and evening so I decide to test fit the new oil pump and pickup on the 327. The old pickup bolted to the 4th main cap along with the windage tray but the new pickup bolts on the 3rd main like most Fox chassis pickups. The 3rd main has the bolts that Dart supplied with the block so I had to find a stud or one of those factory bolts that has a 3/8" stud on the bolt head. I happened to have a spare 351W main stud with the dual thread sizes and luckily it was the perfect length. I drilled the hole in the tab on the pickup from 3/8" to 1/2" and everything bolted right up. After measuring the room between the baffles in the pan I was afraid there might be some interference but it all went together fine.

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Take a look in the oil pump pickup under the screen. Mine had the tube go all the way to the screen. They sent me another one that was the same way after talking to their engineer!!! It had to be cut apart to lower the tube inside.

 

Will do!. Sounds like bad quality control on their part.

 

I ordered rod bearings for the 327, they 'should' be here by the end of July. I have been trying to decide what to do with it once the bearings are here. This is what I came up with. I am leaning toward 1 or 4 though 2 wouldn't be that difficult.

1 – new rod bearings, Comp Cams 286HR-14, Comp Cams lifters, new head and intake gaskets
cost $400 – most of the parts are on hand

2 – rebuild with used 4.145 pistons from the previous 347
rings, bearings, bore and hone, balance, new cam bearings, possibly coat piston skirts
cost is around $2500 - the old pistons have a 043-043-3/16" ring pack which is hard to come by so I would likely have to order the components separately

3 – rebuild as a 347/363 with a new crank – cost is very high but possibly partially offset by selling the old parts - this should solve the lack of torque problem

4 – sell short block with new bearings - I am not sure I could get a reasonable amount for the short block given the rather expensive parts in it.

 

I had a little spare time today so I decided to further investigate the bearing situation on the 327. I pulled all the rod caps and found that the #3 bearing was torn up some. It looks like some debris went through there. Otherwise everything was fine so I replaced that bearing and torqued everything to spec. The mains were all good so they were torqued as well. Looking at the cam bearings was a different matter, they are in pretty rough condition. I am guessing that when the oil pressure went to zero there was still some oil going to the rods and mains but nothing to the cam bearings. Since this is a Dart SHP block it will only take Dart cam bearings so I ordered a set today. They are almost 5x as much as a normal set of SBF cam bearings but I guess that is part of the price you pay when you have an aftermarket block. I will take it to the machine shop in the new year to get them installed.

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Cam bearings affect oil pressure a good bit as well as the rod and main bearings. Glad you figured it out.

 

Just read 34 pages from july 2007 to dec 2023, I like the build, the effort, your work. I expected by page 19 you finally got in the single digits and the rest of the tread would be congrats, questions and replies but that didn't happen.

Now perhaps over the 16+ years you drove the car a lot but it isn't clear in the thread. As far as I am concerned you are the man, in the face of adversity, bullshit and bad luck you have never quit. That being said the amount of money and time you have put in makes me cringe. Time is passion but money is time.

I mean no disrespect, I don't think any of the engine builders have done right by you.
I personally decided over the years that if your HP goals are higher than the factory block can handle in stock form than it's not the right engine for your build.

I feel like you should be posting about a beautiful summer drive into the sunset with a hot girl in the passenger seat not what the next problem to address, thank the stars you have the GT500 to do that in.


I have been through it with one engine (F2T), had it rebuilt 5times it wouldn't survive 500km no boost break in, Finally I tore it down and the crank was not machine properly, brought another crank to the machine shop and another set of used rods, the rods and caps from the bad crank had stretched oval, the caps barely came off the studs, I wanted them to put the oversized pistons on the round rods, they insisted the oval rods where fine, the micrometer said different, I didn't argue with them because I finally found the problem with the engine, I pack everything up and left. The crank, oversized pistons, oval and round rods, cleevite bearings... have all been sitting in my basement for 20+ years now, and the block sits under a bench in my garage.
From then on I ran bone stock factory blocks, just cleaned them up and change all the gaskets. Never had to worry about the engines chewing themselves up again and I could focus on trying to blow them up.

Not saying you should give up on the engine or stop trusting re-builders. I'm just saying I feel your pain and hope all these issues get sorted out and you get to enjoy driving it.

 

To be fair to the engine builders there isn't a lot of turbo SBF stuff up here. It is mostly GM and Chrysler circle track stuff, class racing drag cars and some Pro Mod type stuff. LS stuff is really common but they don't use machine shops just blow up junkyard stuff and try again next week. That said there isn't a lot of local knowledge for building what I wanted and I didn't know anything. I thought I knew a little but I was wrong about most things.

I also am fairly hard on parts. The 347 suffered an untimely demise because I set the fuel cut limiter too low on the Fitech and that cost me. The 393 died partly because of Edelbrock's copy and paste on their instruction sheet giving bad info and partly because I didn't tell the engine builder to pressure feed the crank thrust bearing.

The current 327 was a mistake. When I melted down the 347 I should have listened to the engine builder when he told me to go to a 9.5 deck 374-408" engine. I didn't want to spend the money to replace all the engine accessories so I stayed with the 8.2 deck. Had I followed his advice the car would likely be flying today.

I'm sure my wife would appreciate being the hot girl in the car except she doesn't like either of the cars. She prefers riding in my F-150. Quieter and more comfortable. Fortunately she doesn't really know how much I have spent on the car over the years. Probably less than she spends on clothes, shoes and purses though.

Nowadays I do as much as I can myself because then there is no one else to blame plus it usually gets done quicker. I also found out that buying tools to do the job yourself is expensive but usually a 1 time purchase, using a shop costs you money every time.

I have a new plan for the 327, hopefully it works otherwise it will be parted out and sold.

Anyway it's all good. I learned a lot, had a lot of fun, broke a lot of parts and would do it again if I had to. Spending so much time on the car keeps me out of trouble.

 

Yesterday I started reassembling the 327. I cleaned the crank and checked the bearing clearances. The mains were .002" which was fine but the crank end thrust was only .0037". I moved the crank back and forth a couple time but only got .0041 at best. I wet sanded the front side of the thrust bearing with 400 grit and then polished it with 1500. After that the thrust was at .0051" which is pretty close to the original build which was .0055" so I called it good. The mains were torqued to 100# for the 1/2" and 65# for the 7/16".

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