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FE D2TE head

5K views 14 replies 6 participants last post by  dwighty390 
#1 ·
Can I bevel the edge to remove the ledge shown in the picture? It would need about 1/4".

FWIW -- I bought this 4 bbl manifold ages ago and didn't realize how poor the match was. I didn't think to look at it before going to the machine shop.
 

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#2 · (Edited)
This may surprise you but you are better off leaving it just as it is. There has been a lot of this type of thing posted over on the SpeedTalk Forum along with examples to back it up.

If it was on the roof of the port, where the airflow stream is the highest, it would need to be blended smooth several inches down into the port.
Being on the bottom, a low to near dead flow area, you don't gain and actually lose flow because you lose velocity, and it has been shown that a lip like that on the floor of the port also tends to disrupt wet fuel flow along the floor and throw it back up into the airstream.

Same thing as running a rectangle port Big Block Chevy intake on oval port heads....mismatch is terrible all around the port but it works despite looking terrible to the eye.

If you really wanted to chase horsepower gains you would actually weld up or epoxy fill the bottoms of the intake manifold ports to match the head. Filling the bottom of the port where airspeed is low increases air speed everywhere else in the port.

That said, if your mind absolutely can't wrap around that and live with it, you can go ahead and grind the head. You need to blend it back a couple inches into the port to do it well.

I'm not totally versed on Ford FE parts, but I think you've got standard Low-Riser heads but a Medium Riser manifold.
 
#3 ·
What product would I use to epoxy the intake port? That seems like the ticket there...I really didn't want to add any volume to the runner for this build since it is going in a pickup anyway. I think a lot of folks have the "it really doesn't matter" mindset but mine is more of "every little bit counts." Since I'm in no hurry, might as well spend a half a day making myself feel better about it.

I can't keep the high/low/medium riser stuff straight in my head for more than the half a day it would take to fix the ports. I bought the manifold about 10 years ago before I had any idea about the complexity of head and manifold combos for the FE. I would have looked for another intake if I had thought to look at the ports before taking everything to the machinist, oh well...I've spent the money getting this one resurfaced and it seems like epoxying up the runners will be a good way to match things up and keep it from being a waste.
 
#4 ·
Z-Spar SplashZone A-788 and Belzona 1111 are the two most common 2-part epoxies used in porting. Most common place to find them is a Marina, they are often used on boat repair is they will set-up underwater and stay stuck.

Amazon also has it. Comes in quart cans and I'll warn you, it is a little pricey for use in a moderate performance engine. $60/qt

Manifold runners need to be spotless clean and roughed up, some guys will even drill and tap a couple short screws into the floor of the port....if the epoxy were to come loose and the engine swallows it, the pistons aren't going to like it, and if it lodges right on the way in and holds a valve open you could hurt them too.

Epoxy filling is really more of a race engine thing, not a daily driver or street cruiser durability thing. Ethanol in gas will soften epoxy over time, some of the race stuff is clearcoated with urethane clear to slow this down.
 
#8 ·
You'll most likely discover coolant. The gasket simply isn't for that head. I'm guessing neither is the intake. The OEMs when they shrink an port for instance they don't just use more iron, they make a new core that maintains a cross section thickness the maintains about 1/8 to 3/16ths inch. Since these are post 1964 production they were converted to thin wall casings so you will find your self in trouble pretty quickly carving a quarter inch from them. If your intake mismatch is this much you need to either fill the runner floors of the intake with a great grade of high temp epoxy, replace the intake, or replace the heads. The only thing I can say about the epoxy is it's hard to get a long lasting fill, iron and epoxy have different rates of expansion so longevity hangs on the quality of the adhesive bond and that requires a pristine runner surface, even then there are no assurances that the stuff will stay there for very long.


Bogie
 
#9 ·
Definitely truck heads. These are on a 74.

I've decided to just use it as is, based on what everyone has said above. I'll try to grab the Streetmaster intake when I'm back in that area and see what I think of it. I do know that it's ports line up almost perfectly with the C8/D2 head based off of my own research and measuring.
 
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