New to FE's

Good day. I have been reading your forums for quite some time and enjoy them very much. I reside in South Africa and have been busy building a replica AC Cobra for the past two years. At last I am on the point where I am ready to start up the motor for the first time. I got a 352FE for free and decided to rebuild the machine. As most of you guys would know, S.A is not the best place to get parts (for a Ford V8) which means that I had to import every single part from the USA. (Huge import costs!) However, the machine is now ready. I have one problem though: After re-working the motor I calculated by the best possible means, that my compression ratio should be roughly between 10.5 and 11:1. Based on that I bought a Powermaster starter motor spec'ed for a 12:1 ratio. When I have the spark plugs in, the starter really struggles to turn the motor. Can it be that the compression ratio calculation is slightly off or that the starter motor just does not live up to specification. I am now considering bringing in the Powermaster Ultra torque starter for 18:1 motors delivering 250ft lb torque. Looking forward to some experienced replies.

The Ford starter should do the job. Maybe not enough battery or cables?

Make sure you have complete electrical circuits. That means good ground straps that ground everything to everything.

Could be that your engine is just "tight" from ring drag, etc., and will loosen up once it breaks in a bit.

You probably have the timing too far advanced.

An easy and cheap way to correct it is a toggle switch to shut off power to the distributor..... Once the engine is spinning over, then hit the switch and put power to the distributor and fire it up...... Works good on high compression drag car engines in the later rounds when the engine and starter are hot and cool down time between rounds is short.....

Don't feel bad about import costs, alot of repro parts we get here in the US come from China. Like in a previous post, I would bet it's your timing..and honestly what is your exact compression? Do you have stock heads on it? It shouldnt be more than 10:1 and even thats high for an FE Maybe if you tell us what youve modded or added.

Ghostlymo, this is another one. CobraFan made one post in May '09 and never came back. After almost four years it's a pretty sure thing that he's not going to be answering your questions for specifics about his engine.