Ford 7.3 LS engine

[Torinoman]

Dr

I was talking about a very generous deck height, longer connecting rods, good camshaft Centerline to crankshaft Centerline distance, very strong for its weight engine block, and really Advanced cylinder heads for their era. The medium Riser 427 has the best brake specific fuel consumption per horsepower that I've ever seen out of a wedge head engine. Part of that comes from a really good rod length to stroke ratio and a good combustion chamber.

Edit: The oiling system was only bad on the hydraulic lifter engines that were never intended for high RPM. Solid lifter engines or the side Oiler engines did not have a problem with oiling. Getting the oiling system up to snuff was also pretty easy.

Edit II: I must admit the sealing an FE intake manifold is an exercise in frustration and kind of an art. It wasn't so bad when I first started working on these engines and the parts were new but years down the road when cylinder heads have been milled along with decks it's becoming a real bitch to do right.

Ok lets examine this. 429/460 vs Fe

Deck height - 10.3 to 10.17
Connecting rod length - 6.605 to 6.54
Cam to crank - 6.078 to 5.044
Block strength - Almost any 429/460 block will go at least .080 over and still support 1000 hp. Most FE blocks are notorious for core shift and limited to 700ish hp.
Cylinder head - valve angle on a 460 is much better but canted vs inline seems unfair. The FE does have a good 12* valve angle for an inline head. Their wedge chamber is pretty common for the era though the medium and high riser heads lack quench pads on both sides like the 460.

You can like the Fe, but lets be honest about it. Overall its a cool hot rod motor but its in no way the pinnacle or benchmark for others. Most of it's unique features are NOT emulated with more current designs.

[svauto-erotic855]

Ok lets examine this. 429/460 vs Fe

Deck height - 10.3 to 10.17
Connecting rod length - 6.605 to 6.54
Cam to crank - 6.078 to 5.044
Block strength - Almost any 429/460 block will go at least .080 over and still support 1000 hp. FE are notorious for core shift and limited to 700ish hp.
Cylinder head - valve angle on a 460 is much better but canted vs inline seems unfair. The FE does have a good 12* valve angle for an inline head. Their wedge chamber is pretty common for the era though the medium and high riser heads lack quench pads on both sides like the 460.

You can like the Fe, but lets be honest its ok. Overall its a cool hot rod motor but its in no way the pinnacle or benchmark for others.

The 385 series of engines came out many years after the first FE and had many improvements over it. I was comparing the FE to its peers. The 385s would have been a much better engine if it had copied the FEs extended skirt and flat oil pan rail.

Having cut my teeth on performance FEs with all of the factory go fast goodies they will always have a special place in my thoughts. I also never really had a chance to have many 385s on a dyno unlike FEs.

[Gasser64]

The 385s would have been a much better engine if it had copied the FEs extended skirt and flat oil pan rail.

So why don't they do things like this? Is it pretty much always the bean counters?

[svauto-erotic855]

So why don't they do things like this? Is it pretty much always the bean counters?

They were trying go reduce weight and more modern designs have brought back the skirts with cross bolt mains like what were first used in the FEs and later in the Hemi.