Ronstang saves day....Roller 5.OOOOOHHHH conversion

Wednesday: I arrive at 8am sharp. Today's planned events: Cam, lifters, intake, carb. Rip it all apart, slide the cam out. We noticed that the cam bearings were a lil worn, but we thought it might be ok. Slide new cam in and well, the cam just falls in. No effort necessary because the cam bearings were worn so far you could take the came and ring the motor like a bell. Bing Bing! "everybody ashore!!!" Now theres a choice to be made. Pull the motor and do cam bearings, OR get another short block. After all, worn cam bearings, lifter ticking, no oil pressure and hugely leaking rear main, replacing cam bearings just wont do it , so we opt for the short block. So we go pick up a fresh rebuilt 86 Roller 5.0 0.060 over, a set of fresh rebuilt E6 heads and a descent set of E7 heads. Find the dog bones and spider for the roller stuff. Drive 1.5 hours to pick up the proper heavier imbalance flywheel to mate the Roller motor to the C4. While there Ron's buddy gave me a 95 Cobra roller cam and a complete set up roller lifters and pushrods outta a 90 tbird. Finish pulling motor out, day is over. 15 hour day

Thursday: Mainly a cleaning day. Clean all the lifters and heads and take the old stuff off the old motor and clean it to go on the new motor which is now sitting on an engine stand. Pretty much got everything for the roller motor except the steel distributor gear. The problem with this is, the late model gears are .531 (i think, bigger lol)diameter and the early model is .461 shaft (again, i think, smaller) diameter. End up calling the huge Ford place in Houston after spending hours at o'reilley trying to figure it out to no avail. So now we got the gear thing figured out. 14 hour day

Friday: go get gear and start assembly of motor. clean every bolt and start building roller motor. We used the early 302 oil pan, valve cover gaskets, timing chain cover, waterpump. Check 50 ounce balancer and old pulleys on the engine stand. They wont line up. Early model 302's use a 28 ounce imbalance which is bigger, plus the 50 ounce balancer has a cast in spacer. Ron takes the balancer to a buddys machine shop and grinds off the spacer. Makes a 3/16" spacer to put on the water pump up top to push the water pump pully out a bit. It all lines up . Bolt it all up, drop it in the car slowwwlllly. Get motor in and fight with the motor mounts. Day ends with block, heads, and intake all bolted in the car and to the tranny. 18 hour day

Saturday: Start putting front of the motor on when its evident, the alternator nor power steering pump are going to bolt to this motor. Apparantly the previous owner ghettoed it to work on the early 302. Get all this worked out eventually, wire everything up put everything else back on and start it up. CLANK CLANK CLANK! motor fires and runs fine but is making a HUGE awful sounding noise. Flywheel weight was hitting the tranny cover plate. Fix that, start it up, clank clank clank. Water pump was apparantly hit too much, put a new one on. clank clank clank, passenger side timing pointer is hitting the balancer so we revert to the original driver side pointer. start it up and purrrrrrrrrrr. best sound you ever heard. adjust it, put the hood on put all the old parts in my parents truck and im off to home again. 18 hour day.

I now have this:

86 Roller 5.0 0.060 short block
E7 heads
95 Cobra roller cam
90 Tbird pushrods and roller lifters
67 oil pan, timing chaing cover, water pump, valve cover gaskets
new 600 cfm edelbrock carb
new performer intake
original small diameter shaft distributor with the correct steel cam gear

Things needed for the swap:

Proper thicker flywheel with the thicker imbalance
50 ounce balancer (either the special ford one, or shave the front spacer off another one)
Steel small diameter distributor cam gear
351W spark plug firing order
New spark plugs (smaller diameter than early model 302)

And you need a whole lotta patience

p.s. im sure if i said something wrong, ron will correct it.

Many thanks to Ronstang who knew what he was doing, I tried my best as grunt work and tool hander

Glad to hear it only took you a few days I stil lhave yet to fire my motor up but mine is more a money thing. Any who I have a friend like that. He turns the wrench most of the time and I change the station on the radio and hold things lol.

cobra roller cam is garbage to say the least. Best to keep a stock HO one.

86 block I hope it's notched with valve relieves since stock ones didn't.

A 95 Cobra cam is identical to the 95 HO cam....there is no difference (plus the important thing was FREE) and the pistons were notched as this was a rebuilt shortblock form one of the local rebuilder shops.

And BTW Jason......Dawnstang wants to know why you didn't mention her feeding you and providing you with a clean bed for for 4 days.....I told her this is a car forum and such details are unimportant.

Ronstang is great for things like this. I can always count on him for help during major projects like what you mentioned. I remember late nights banging on my floorboards to make room for the Tremmec cross member and having the neighbor across the street come and yell at us...

Ah.. Those were the days...

Thanks again Ron...

John

ya, i would think they put a HO cam in a cobra, atleast I would hope so since a cobra is a high output motor lol.

And yes, room and board was wonderful, except for the sugarless tea , oh and a word for the dumb, if you ever want Ron's help, DONT and I repeat DONT ask for it during the olympics

right.......If you guys say so

well im curious, if you say it isnt, do you got duration numbers?

Don't listen to him Jason. He can't provide a reliable source because there isn't one. SVT doesn't even list the cam specs because they are the same as the GT. The cam has the HO mark on the end just like the regular GT because it is the same cam. This argument has been raging for years but no one who claims the cam is different can provide reliable credible data to back up their claim.

Yeah listen to him because he has the cam specs.

Good luck Better than a T bird cam oh wait it's basicly the same other than the firing order. oooppsss.

marks what marks?

I don't have the cams specs, never claimed that I did but I can look up the HO camspecs if you like but that proves nothing. If you have a reliable source that shows the cam specs for the HO and the Cobra cams that can be verified then please share them, if not then stop spreading misinformation.

dont worry ron, im happy with how it is even if it is a worse cam, i was just curious for informations sake.

I know people that have checked them and to me they are reliable sources but to others that don't know what it is they do may not believe them.

One of these gentlemen is dubbed mr. valve events. Best Cam installer around.

It is true though the degree tolerances was great as much of 13 degrees in same HO cams and to rely on just one came is foolish.

So he has tested several different ones and from time and time again the cobra ones come up shorter than HO cams.

BTW install it 4 degrees retarded.
Really helps out the power band. Especially if you have aftermarket heads.

Yeah it's not like that bad though but if I had the choice i'd go with the HO cam.

The HO cam is really good and the cam narrowly favors exhaust also so thats a plus.

If I was building a nice street beast it would involve a stock HO cam AFR heads and a tubular gt40 intake with ported lower. Or stealth carb intake.

That may be true, I am not going to dispute what you say but it is not proof in any way shape of form. It really doesn't matter anyway as the cam was free and that is what he has. If I cared I would go out in the garage and get the degre wheel out and verify it myself....once again no provable source. I could call the head engineer at Ford for the answer but I can't prove that either. Like I said, this argument has been raging for years but noone seems to be able to provide any reliable proof.

Yeah you need a little more things than just a degree wheel but just install it 4 degrees retarded.

I can measure every event of the cam with a degree wheel, fake lifter, a dial indicator, and some knowledge. It would be rather easy to compare two camshafts if I really cared and the cam is already installed so your "4 degrees retarded" suggestion is a little late, but I wouldn't do it anyway without a source more reliable than some anonymous internet person unless you can provide a reliable source that backs up your info.

Oh wow some people are so hard headed.

I guess you are referring to yourself?