And we all know that NASCAR played a big role in the FE development. First with the 352HP and then the later 390HP at the time was the hot ticket. Then as the cubes went up the short lived 406 appeared in 62 1/2 and was replaced in 63 1/2 by the 427. The 406 was the foundation block for the crossbolt mains. Most of the 406's have the crossbolt bosses cast in the block but used 2 bolt caps. There were a handful that were crossbolted and used in NASCAR. Also some 406 blocks used the thicker 427 cyl wall cores. From 63 1/2 on the 427 took over the performance spotlight and the rest is history. First in top or centeroiler design then the 65 sideoiler was introduced for extensive NASCAR use. Also the sideoiler block was designed for the 427 SOHC cammer to run with the HEMI in NASCAR. Unfortunatly it was banned by NASCAR but did see much use in NHRA top fuel. In 66 Ford went to the 428 as a cheaper production car alternative being the 427's were so expensive to produce. The longer stroke offered gobs of torque and performance was close to the 427 at half the cost to produce. Then in 68 1/2 the 428CJ was unveiled after TASCA Ford built a few test mules. Ford was so impressed they adapted the 428 to top level performance with pretty much bolt on parts they put it into production. The 428's did not see any NASCAR action but set records in NHRA. 69 was the year the 428SCJ came out which was built into the drag pac cars standard from the factory. The SCJ used the 427's heavier LeMans rods which were a capscrew rod rather then the std CJ bolt and nut rods. The SCJ cranks were a little differnet missing the balance weight on the 7th counterweight that the std 428 cranks used. They put a counterweight on the front crank spacer to help even out the weight and to balance to compensate for the heavier 427 LeMans rods. Late 69 introduced the 385 series and the Boss 429 which later replaced the 427 in NASCAR until the cubic inch displacments were lowered. I'm not much of a 385 fan so that's another story. There is much more than this. Just a very short summary and most likely missing a few things. Through the FE performance years the 390 remained a good performance engine seeing much use in the GT packages. Steve McQueen made pretty good use of a certain green 68 fastback as I remember?? LOL. The FE had an average weight fully dressed with accesories of around 650 lbs. I have the exact figure somewhere with breakdown of the weight of each part if anyone needs it.

G.