Thread: what year 429 is it

Tweet

Again, asssuming the motor is original, then what you have is a 1972 429.

The D2VE-AA heads that are on your engine are single year, open chamber heads. They are the only cylinder head produced for the 429/460 engine family that is a true open chamber head. While they will work on a bone stock engine, they are somehwat detonation prone and will be of little use in a performance build (very detonation prone there). The compression ratio on the 1972 429 is somewhere around 7.6:1...just dismal.

This does not make your engine (overall) a poor one; rather, it could benefit greatly from a different pair of cylinder heads. Assuming you keep/still have the factory dished pistons that came in the 1972 engines, it would be best to switch to one of the earlier heads, specifically the C8VE, C9VE or D0VE castings. With just this cylinder head swap, compression ratio would be increased from 7.6:1 to about 8.9:1, maybe 9:1. Engine would be snappier and rev better, and still run on pump gas.

In your case, switching to the earlier iron cylinder heads mentioned above also requires that you switch to the early-style valve train. (Of course, if you're building a high performance engine, you may be needing new rockers & pushrods anyway.)

I have all the early-style cylinder heads available if you need a pair, and can offer them as cleaned and blasted bare castings all the way to ported assemblies ready to bolt on. PM me or email me if interested.

Paul

p.s.: Also, starting in the 1972 model year, all the carbureted engines had a slightly different cam grind and the cam timing was retarded.