Questions on Ford 427 side oiler

Dick

Dick

Well-known member
Asking for a friend thinking of rebuilding one of these engines

Are all 427 side oiler blocks the same bore and stroke?

Is the 3.784 stroke and 4.232 bore?

Thanks for your help.
 
Thanks Kultulz, nice little read about those big inch guys, too bad the Cammer wasn’t allowed as it really should have been, obviously some manipulation going on there.
 
Yes, thank you! Great information and a site I hadn't found.
It appears there was only one block made.
 
There were different blocks, center oilers, side oilers, and cammer blocks. Two bolt and four bolt engine mounts, but all were the same bore and stroke.
 
If they did use a standard block then they would have had to mill the front flat to clear all the cam drive mechanism. Ford did stuff like that to keep commonality.
 
My understanding was that cammers had an extra drain back oil passage from the deck to the crank case. I have never worked on one, but I thought the front of the block was the same.
 
Builders played with the cam drive so much that it muddies the waters some. The original set up likely just had the steel plate bolted on the front of the block but others built different housings on the front to contain the cam drive or their own versions of the cam drive. Those things had like 7 ft of cam drive chain originally but some of the later builds went to gear driven set up with a reverse idler on the left side to keep the direction of rotation the same.
 
I've been into FE's heavily most of my life. Currently have 3 of them, all in running vehicles, including a 427 MR in my '69 Mach 1.


All 427's have the same bore and stroke (originally), or they would not be 427 cubic inches. All 427 blocks are NOT the same. Early ones have 2 bolt mounts and round cylinders. Later ones use 4 bolt mounts and have clover leave cylinders that improved cylinder rigidity. There are other differences.


A LOT of marine 427's were made. Usually non-sideoilers, although they can and often do have the "hump" down the side of the block, they just aren't drilled. Many of them are reverse rotation, so you have to look out for cranks used in them as the oil slots on the back seal area will push oil OUT of the engine if tried to use in a standard rotation.


SOHC's are not specially machined on the front. The front plate and cover takes care of all the sealing. They DO have an extra drain hole for the oil in the head, towards the lower back part of the deck. They are VERY scarce these days. Usually guys will just run external oil returns to get around that.


There are other differences between older and later blocks. They were racing engines, and Ford improved them as they realized their shortcomings for LeMans and Nascar.
 
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