Thread: 460 head help needed

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Excuse me for my ignorance but my son and I are building a 460 for the street/strip and are wondering from this brief discription are these good heads to go with? We are on a bit of a budget.
Thanks a bunch, Chad & Mark

For sale: a set(2) rebuilt Ford cylinder heads. Castings are D3VE.
They have new valves installed. New hardened seats have been installed. They have been surfaced. They have new 460CJ springs installed

Good Lord Richard!
You have come to our rescue and have saved us umteen bucks by buying the wrong stuff. I am following your instructions to the letter and hope you will be around too answer a few more questions as they come up.
Your new friends for life, Mark & Chad

Richard,
I think these would be a better bet eh?
DOVE C HEADS USED AND READY FOR REBUILD
THESE HEADS WERE ON A 429 ENGINE I BOUGHT 2 YRS AGO. NEVER BUILT THE ENGINE, DONT NEED THE HEADS. I HEAR THAT THEY MAKE TONS OF POWER FOR YOUR 460 ENGINE. A LITTLE PORTING AND BLENDING MAKES THEM BREATH EVEN MORE!!! THEY WILL EVEN BOOST YOUR COMPRESSION. HEADS ARE COMPLETE AND COMES WITH A FREE SCORPION, YES I SAID SCORPION

If you want pair of C9VE or D0VE heads, I have them for sale...bare, cleaned & blasted, or competely rebuilt and assembled as oem stock, or ported and with valve upgrades. Price varies, here are some examples:

• Cleaned & blasted bare castings: $250
• Rebuilt with stock valve train and valve job, new keepers and seals: $400
• Cleaned, blasted and bare ported castings: $800
• Cleaned, blasted, ported castings with big valves, 3-angle valve grind & springs: $1200
• (all prices shipping not included)

While you can do a lot with the D3VE heads, portwork is very detail-oriented and getting good compression with a 460 & D3VE's requires heavy domed pistons. I have a 460 motor with D3VE's, for example, that puts out 580HP. But the D0VE's are higher up on the performance head food chain.

D3VE's on a 460 with zero deck and flat-top pistons will give you about 9.3:1 comrpession ratio. D0VE's under the same circumstances will put you over 11:1, but dished pistons can reduce that comrpession ratio.

Do you need to run pump gas? How much HP do you wish to make?

Paul

Originally posted by techinspector1
All 429/460 rods are the same length, but there is a difference in the way they were machined for the rod bolts. Low performance rods were milled with a square cut across the rod, providing a weak point. High performance and truck rods were broached for the bolt and use bolts with a football-shaped head. Start with broached rods and have them resized with ARP bolts.

Excuse me for butting in...just a few corrections here:

The passenger car rods are broached and the HP rods are not broached; they are spot face machined, which leaves more material around the big end (shoulder) of the rod.

That being said, techinically they are no stonger than the standard passenger car rods, because the big end of the rod rarely breaks....it is not the weak link in the BBF connecting rod. The place were most every Ford production rod breaks is mid-beam, and both the HP rod and the STD rod are exactly the same in this area.

For this reason, any production 429/460 rod is really about the same strength. Just do good prep work and inspection prior to their install, and absolutely use good aftermarket rod bolts such as ARP's. If your shift point will be greater than 6000 rpm, then you should probably be thinking about upgrading your connecting rods. (The BBF rods have been known to live at much higher rpm's, but the added security of a good rod is cheap insurance.)

Paul

Richard,
You covered everything I've ever learned very well. Except I've been told the the D0VE heads require less work to clean up the exhaust ports than others. Ford cast a hump in there that for some reason is smallest on the D0VE heads, or so I've been told.

Also, I need to tell some one before I bust and like to make people green with envy, Friday evening I was walking around an old back woods salvage yard and found a pair of D0VE heads laying in the mud. Got to go back for them tomorow. Unless something strange happens this guy will want about $20 for them. Wasn't in my truck or I'd already have them.

Originally posted by Primer
...I've been told the the D0VE heads require less work to clean up the exhaust ports than others. Ford cast a hump in there that for some reason is smallest on the D0VE heads, or so I've been told.

The C8VE, C9VE & D0VE heads all have Thermactor bumps of approximately the same size, but if you want to split hairs, the D0VE casting's Thermactor bumps are a little larger than the earlier castings.

Paul

OK ok OK

Like I said or so I've been told, funny thing is buddy that told me that is running C8 heads. Thought he knew.

Sorry to butt in, I was curious as to the compression ratio produced by the following combo. Dove-c heads, 1975 block, .060 over flattop pistons. Will it exceed 10.5:1?

Neighboorhood of 11:1, depending where your piston-to-deck height is and how many cc's of valve relief you have, etc.

A zero decked block, for example, might have as high as 11.5:1 with your combo.

Paul

Thanks for the numbers guys. Question for techinspector; do I shave the deck to 10.310 or 10.300 for the keith black pistons?How expensive are a set of 15cc dished hypereutectic pistons from keith black? Would flat pistons with a mild deck shave yield similar results or would I lose power because of different quench area with the same compression?

Thank you so much for the tech advice. This area is neglected in my ford big block rebuild book. It only deals with balance and compression issues. My automotives instructor taught me a little about squish area as the only way to produce good combustion in a wedge chamber. I'm curious as to how much additional hp I will gain with a proper squish area?

how do you measure comp ratio? and how do you know what deck block you have? i have a d1ve block. on pump gas what would be good comp ratio?

Yet another question for techinspector. After I get the deck milled to desired clearance will the heads have any problems fitting?

techinspector i have read this thread and i am starting to get caught up with the conversation. in your passage compression 101 you said that the block should have 0 deck but on the 460 you say that you should have .004 deck for squish. can you zero deck and make up the difference in the head gasket. such as a gasket that measures .045 or is that going to be difficult to find.