Mk 111 Zephyr V8
My Mklll V8 Part2
By Karl Schluter -Low
Zep
At
the middle of last year, I purchased a set of 351Windsor heads to upgrade the
ones on my V8 I run in my Mklll. I had brought the gear and found the web sites
and magazine articles on Porting and thought I would do it myself, as there is
so much money in paying someone to do this. Ford use to recommend this swap of
using the early 69-74 heads of the 351 and installing them on the smaller
Windsor’s. The reason being the 351 heads have the largest early model intake
port and still maintain a small combustion chamber. However, the exhaust port
does have a smog bump which was the first to come out on my heads! It took me 4
days of 3-4 hour periods to do this with very sore arms afterwards! I must have
taken 3 cup fulls of cast iron out in total in the two heads.
James
has taken my 302 heads, which were sort after small chamber heads with no smog
bumps and fitted with Isky springs and exhaust porting done. They had also been
not long reconditioned with very little use since. James got my bare 351 ported
heads fitted with lead free inserts and these were blended into the ports on
the short turn radius. New valves were also fitted. I sent away to the US for
an Edelbrock spring kit, which comes with retainers and keepers to match my
Cam. Imagine my heart attack when I opened the box that contained the much
smaller spring box, to find it had burst open with keepers, retainers and
springs scattered through the layers of cardboard! Thankfully everything was
there and undamaged.
Below
is a picture of a bare ported 351 C9 head.
The
351 block is drilled for 1/2 head bolts, where the 302 and smaller blocks are
tapped for 7/16 head bolts. Therefore I brought special ARP head bolts and
matching Edelbrock bushes, which are hardened and ground to act as reducing
bushes. Ford use to sell these when this swap was more popular (before Alloy
heads).
I
also got ARP stainless intake bolts as these are often abused through the years
and damaged. These were cheap and are of fantastic aircraft quality.
My
last purchase this year was when I saw in the local Hot Rod newspaper, a
company selling steel flywheels. These are a great safety device (those of you
who knew of people chopping and lightening cast iron flywheels for 6's and 8's
years ago will know this) as cast iron factory flywheels heat check easy and
can fly apart taking your legs with them. Below is a link that shows photos of
the damage and even a side view of this while its happening!
http://www.fordmuscle.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?topic=39267&forum=2&80
Below
is a pic of the flywheel which is yet to go in and is also to be secured by ARP
flywheel bolts.
Lastly,
I have purchased a Mallory twin point distributor to replace my Ford Autolite
distributor. Windsor engines run a hex oil pump drive like the Essex MklV V6
and these sometimes twist. Mine has jammed in the bottom of the Autolite dizzy,
so I plan to remove it before start up and install a high performance oil pump
drive (ARP again!) and install the Mallory. I run a Crane pointless ignition
and hope to adapt it to the Mallory, which will require a bit of a rework but
is a very reliable system.
DO
YOU HAVE A STORY ON THE CONTINUING BUILD UP OF YOUR CAR? CAN YOU SEND US A FEW
WORDS AND PIC'S ON THE CAR YOU'RE DRIVING AND THE PLANS OR STORIES OF IT? AVOCALEA@XTRA.CO.NZ