I was having a discussion with a Ford owner when we got on the subject of 427. I thought GM were the only ones with the 427 and that Ford had a 429. What were the tech specs of the Ford 427 and how did it compare to the GM 427?

 

427 was Ford's racing engine back in the 60's. The most famous Ford 427's were probably the 427 R in the Shelby Cobra/ ACE and 427 W in the 68 Shelby GT500.

Ford 427

 

The 427 was fords race engine and it underwent many changes through its life. I've read before Ford would strap a 427 on the Dyno and Rev it to the Redline until it blew then they would see what went wrong and Modify or upgrade the parts to make it bulletproof. The final version was the Sideoiler block which was called that because the oil galleys ran down the side of the block and fed the mains directly and were first priority. The main's were also cross bolted for extra strength. Ford's 427 was a small stroke, large bore motor built for revving. Ford had several different sets of heads that could be put on it. The base heads were Low Riser then later ford added the medium Riser, High Riser, Tunnel Port, and then the Single over head cam heads. The Low, Medium, High Riser refers to the intake port on the head. The low riser had a rather low floor and was a larger port. The Medium riser was a smaller port than the low riser but had a filled in floor so it flowed better. The High Riser is a very tall port and was used to make a better intake shot into the Valve. It looks similar to an LS1 intake port. The High Riser, Tunnel Port and SOHC heads were strictly over the counter Race pieces and never made it into production cars. Although they are race pieces they can be found if you have deep enough pockets. By the way Ford made a 428 too. There were 3 of those Base 428's, 428PI's and 428cj's. The 428 had a smaller bore and a longer stroke to make up all the cubes its more of a torque motor. The 428cj used a Modified 427 Low Riser head and was used in the Mustangs and other "smaller" ford muscle cars.

 

Not that I'm a Ford guy, but I thought the 428 was the side-oiler?

 

Nope it was the 427. All FE's have the oil galleys running down the center of the lifter valley except the 427 side oiler. The 427 started life as a center oiler but after many many high RPM failures of the 406 the predicessor to the 427, and the early 427 center oilers Ford went back and redesigned the oiling system running it down the side of the block to priority feed the Mains. The short stroke, cross bolted main caps, side oiler system, and a variety of big breathing heads made it a killer for High RPM race use. A 428cj is pretty much just a bored and stroked 390 with a set of 427 heads. I'm a pretty big FE 352-428 nut. Check the second page of my sig and you'll see why i'm a big block Ford man.

 

Thanks for clearing that up. Sweet Mach 1 btw.

 

Thanks for the info guys.