Ford 427 SOHC engines

The Galaxy that it was installed in was a test mule,it did get driven,and hard!!The race shop[or what ever it was called] built Cammer powered cars for certain people,it was NEVER installed on a production line built car!!The story on NASCAR's ban is all over the place,many web sites have talked about the Cammer and Ford's plans for it!! ROY.

 

There's also a V-12 version floating around on the H.A.M.B.
Let's see it guys!...

 

I can't really wrap my head around pressurizing carburetors, but DAMN!

Weird how a picture of an engine can affect the size of my pants!

That looks to be almost fast enough.

 

c6ae-6007-359j for 2x4 motor, c6ae-6007-363s for 1x4 from Ford dealer. Page 35 in Autolite Hi-Performance Parts catalog.

 

I remember that they were originally priced at 5 grand. I bought a used one in the fall of 76 for $1250. It came out of a drag car and had the crane cams that were the thing and forgetrue pistons. About 7 or 8 years ago, I sold the owners manual on ebay for $490.

 

Jim Greens is in Monroe now. You Washington guys that havent checked out his new place really should. All of his cars are on display there, and if you like SOHC engines he has more than a few, in cars, and on display.

Its weird this thread came up, I was over there half an hour ago drooling over those engines.

 

I'll have to check all my old Ford paperwork, but I'm pretty sure Connie Kalitta had one in 65 given to him by Ford to " test " drive

 

I believe a cammer can be made on any 427 side oiler block with an extra oil passage return line drilled or something like that correct mee if i am wrong

 

My old freind Walter Knudson(RIP) pictuered back in the early '70's (I think) with his twin methonal injected 427 Cammer race boat! He raced this boat against Alison powered boats of that time and did well from what he told me. During the late '80's/early '90's before he passed away, he wanted to rebuild this boat but update it with twin turbos for the Cammers. I really wanted to see that too.

 

If I remember correctly, only the first two cam bearings were bored on a true crammer block since they only ran a stub. I do remember something about return holes needing to be drilled and the cam journal oil holes needing plugged to run a standard SO block. Been a while, though.

Kevin

 

The number was 500 in production to be allowed to use in a Nascar

 

Once and for all, the Cammer was NOT banned in NASCAR, nor was that the "original story"- it has become the myth that won't die. NASCAR threw a fairly substantial weight factor against it, which would have made it uncompetitive, but of course the average Joe in the stands would only have seen that the Chryslers were winning, not that they were given a weight break- same as NHRA did with Jenkins' Vega, just make the Clevelands haul (a lot) more weight and let the Vega "win"- run 'em straight up, and there'd be no contest. As a matter of fact, I have the magazine coverage of the race when all this went down and the new Cammer was pulled from NASCAR competition BY FORD- not NASCAR. I have a buddy who worked in Experimental Engines building and running the dyno, before getting shipped off to Holman Moody in '68 to build and dyno NASCAR race engines before going back to Dearborn after '72, and they used to build a lot of fun stuff in the Experimental Garage, including some transplants just for fun- 460 into a Cadillac, Tunnel Port 427 into a Corvette etc

 

500 was the production car minimum to be legal in Nascar..... so more than 500 would need to be built from the start

 

Still think there were allot more produced after the first batch of 500 engines....

 

Cammers were beasts. I was at a car show about 15 years ago and I heard something like a fuel dragster pulling in. It was a black Galaxy and it had a cammer in it. A crowd followed it in, like Moses parting the Red Sea or something. Just an awesome car.

Here is what Wikipedia says about them:


427 SOHC "Cammer"

SOHC engine showing cam, rockers and timing chains



Examples of racing 427 SOHC's


The Ford Single Overhead Cam (SOHC) 427 V8 engine, familiarly known as the "Cammer",<SUP id=cite_ref-Scale_33-0 class=reference>[33]</SUP> was released in 1964 to maintain NASCAR dominance and to counter the Chrysler 426 Hemi engine. The Chrysler 426 used an extremely large block casting that dwarfed the earlier 392 Hemi. The Ford 427 block was closer dimensionally to the early Hemis than to the elephantine 426 Hemi: the Ford FE bore spacing was 4.63 in (117.6 mm) compared to the Chrysler 392's bore spacing of 4.5625 in (115.9 mm). The Ford FE's deck height of 10.17 in (258.3 mm) was lower than that of the Chrysler 392 at 10.87 in (276.1 mm). For comparison, the 426 Hemi has a deck height of 10.72 in (272.3 mm) and bore spacing of 4.8 in (121.9 mm); both Chrysler Hemis have decks more than 0.5 in (12.7 mm) taller than the FE.
The engine was based on the high performance 427 side-oiler block, providing race-proven durability. The block and associated parts were largely unchanged, the main difference being use of an idler shaft instead of the camshaft in the block, which necessitated plugging the remaining camshaft bearing oiling holes.
The heads were newly-designed cast iron items with hemispherical combustion chambers and a single overhead camshaft over each head, operating shaft-mounted roller rocker arms. The valvetrain consisted of valves larger than those on Ford wedge head engines, made out of stainless steel and with sodium-filled exhaust valves to prevent the valve heads from burning, and dual valve springs. This design allowed for high volumetric efficiency at high engine speed.
The idler shaft in the block in place of the camshaft was driven by the timing chain and drove the distributor and oil pump in conventional fashion. An additional sprocket on this shaft drove a second timing chain, 6 ft (1.8 m) long, which drove both overhead camshafts. The length of this chain made precision timing of the camshafts an issue to be considered at high rpms.
The engine also had a dual-point distributor with a transistorized ignition amplifier system, running 12 amps of current through a high-output ignition coil.
The engines were essentially hand-built with racing in mind. Combustion chambers were fully machined to reduce variability. Nevertheless, Ford recommended blueprinting the engines before use in racing applications. With a single four-barrel carburetor they were rated at 616 horsepower (459 kW) at 7,000 rpm & 515 lb·ft (698 N·m) of torque @ 3,800 rpm, and while equipped with dual four-barrel carburetors they made 657 horsepower (490 kW) at 7,500 rpm & 575 lb·ft (780 N·m) of torque @ 4,200 rpm. Ford sold them via the parts counter, the single four-barrel model as part C6AE-6007-363S, the dual carburetor model as part C6AE-6007-359J for $2350.00 (as of October, 1968). Weight of the engine was 680 lb (308 kg).<SUP id=cite_ref-34 class=reference>[34]</SUP>
Ford's hopes were cut short, however. Although Ford sold enough to have the design homologated, NASCAR, after protests by Chrysler Corp., effectively legislated the SOHC engine out of competition. This despite having earlier permitted the Chrysler Hemi to be used for years even though it had never been installed in a stock production car. The awaited 1965 SOHC versus Hemi competition at the Daytona 500 season opener never occurred. This was the only engine ever banned from NASCAR. Nevertheless, the SOHC 427 found its niche in drag racing, powering many altered-wheelbase A/FX Mustangs (after NHRA banned it from stock classes),<SUP id=cite_ref-Scale_33-1 class=reference>[33]</SUP> and becoming the basis for a handful of supercharged Top Fuel dragsters, including those of Connie Kalitta, Pete Robinson, and Lou Baney (driven by "Snake" Prudhomme). In 1967 Connie Kalitta's SOHC-powered "Bounty Hunter" won Top Fuel honors at AHRA, NHRA and NASCAR winter meets, becoming the only "triple crown" winner in drag racing history.<SUP id=cite_ref-35 class=reference>[35]</SUP> It was also used in numerous nitro funny cars including those of Jack Chrisman, Dyno Don Nicholson, Eddie Schartman, Kenz & Leslie, and in numerous injected gasoline drag racing vehicles



Don

 

Thanks, Don. Lots of interesting information there on Wikipedia. I guess the actual number of these engines that Ford produced will always remain a bit of a mystery.

 

Is this the 66' catalog?
What about individual part #'s? I'm wondering if these engines were available in parts like the other brands?
What if one broke?

This I can say with certainty, for use with gasoline and especially with venturi based fueling, the hi-rise head conversion would run the living h-l out of the other brand which in turn could ran h-l out of this white elephant, and looking at any records (if any) this engine might have made, will reflect that.
Any tunnel ports I ever saw were not worth much more in terms of potential. I will however stand corrected if anyone has evidence, because the one I was personally ever able to build became too valuable for the collector market and was sold before we could complete testing in the new for the time 4 bbl Econo classes in comp.

The Hemispherical combustion chamber only has advantage with slower burning fuels like methanol and other more volatile etc. When running any of those classes a hemi is required and even antique Desotos held dominance in some classes. The drag from an extra cam compounded with several feet of chain clock work simply did not out perform pushrod motors.

I believe FMC realized this and pulled the plug while this engine remained a mystery not at all unlike GM's Mark III whatever.
The next generations were the Mark IV and the ShotGun, which did have potential on gas. One stayed in mass production for decades in everything from pickups to sports cars.
The other was hardly ever known outside magazine articles.
Tom S. in Tn.

 

There are a few cammer threads on here.

I've got a friend who has one in a super nice '61 Starliner. He's got several spares too.

They're being reproduced now by a few companies.

I have the Jan '64 Hot Rod magazine that has a cammer on the front cover running on a dyno with the cast iron headers glowing cherry red!

I've always wanted one, but could never afford one. Maybe one day. Great engine - story in HRM said it went from drawing board to production in something like 90 days.


There was local legend down in S. FLA that a truckload of them was dumped into the lake behind Crane Cams when they were down in Hallandale. This would've been early '70s when Ford 'pulled out' of racing. They were in the motorsports catalog at the time for about $2500 and listed at 618HP

 

Before old was cool
Cammers in there orig. shipping crates where still around and cheap &#8230;. Just like old Willys drag coupes.

 

In 1964 NASCAR changed the rule from 500 to 1000 engines. The camer was killed with a rule that the camshaft had to be in the block.

 

Does he still have the black Model A sedan? I remember it had a little A model running back and forth across the dash.

 

In his book, "The Dust and Glory, a Ford racing History (1901-1967)", Author Leo Levine stated that just over 500 complete SOHC engines were built with another 500 or so sets of heads, intakes, and parts needed to convert an FE into a SOHC.

I think the more interesting question would be: how many did guys like Ed Pink, Connie Kallita, and Don Prudhomme destroy when the had a bit too much fuel in the mix???

From the H-M Warehouse.

 

I recently had one built for my 32 P'up, from parts sourced by Kevin Tully at HRCC and built by Opel engineering in IL. We are waiting on headers to be completed to dyno this beast but, with the stroker crank and Hilborn injectors it should move the P'up smarty. The heads and block on mine are aluminum so the weight isn't extreme. I can tell you from personal experience that if you want to build one today, it will take you at least two years to assemble the parts as the folks who are repoping the heads are doing so infrequently and sporadically. As near as I can tell, they only make them when they have sufficient orders to pay for the run. Pictures attached!

 

That photo from the Holman-Moody warehouse is outrageous!

 

The Wikipedia article was thorough and a great read, however they might have mentioned a guy named Mickey Thompson, and a couple of Mustang Funny Cars !

 

Gene,
hence my post. I have never heard of anything getting banned in NASCAR until the important people couldn't beat it.

I think that this is what spawned the saying, " If you can't beat 'em ban 'em."

Seeing as how it was a legal NASCAR engine then it had to make it into the show room in a production body as my original post suggested. Maybe just making the engine itself available to the public would have met that requirement.

None of this actually means that it ever happened just that to comply it would have had to have happened.

Now onto bigger and better things that has nothing to do with Cammer history the Tunnel port in the vette would have been a slap in the face twice, first to the died in the wool Ford enthusiasts for putting a good engine in a crappy old plastic wonder and then to the Corvette crowd for not leaving the iconic Corvette completely and entirely stock the way that they were intended.

So back on track rather than quote this article and act like it is informaton that I know here is a link to an interesting article that I noticed while I was just out and about. I donot know how much of it is gospel but it is interesting reading:

http://www.mustangandfords.com/tech...sohc_427_mightiest_of_the_mighty/viewall.html

 

WWW.MIKESCLASSICCARS.NET might be a good source. He specializes in early big-block Galaxies and I know he's sold a few cammers in the last few years. He had one in a glass case with zero miles that he sold for above $50,000. I never heard the official selling price.

 

From a friend who's a NASCAR historian and owner/ restorer of HM cars- when I get time I'll dig out the race coverage from the particular race when Ford finally told France to stick it and pulled the Cammer program- note that the Chryslers were going to be allowed to run the Hammy in their lighter intermediate bodies, but Ford would be forced to run the heavier Galaxies with a Cammer, and only be allowed to run the MR wedge in the intermediate Fairlanes


"I have a copy of a Ford "Intra-Company Communication" To J.H. Cowley (cc L.C. Bebe and J.H. Passino) from D.A. Wahrman that reports on the result of a test of a 1966 H&M Galaxie powered by different versions of the SOHC as run against a prototype 1966 Fairlane powered by a 427 wedge (which I assume was a MR). It is dated 12/13/1965

Results:
Galaxie SOHC 427 8V 626 HP 177.514 mph lap average;180 straightaway.

That sounds pretty good

The report notes that the SOHC was 7 mph faster than the best Fomoco wedge that could then be built.

But, that performance was with dual four barrels which were then not legal in NASCAR competition. The same document estimates that trap speed with a 4V would have been appx. 176.

Keeping in mind that Petty qualified for the Daytona 500 in 1966 at 175.163 mph, the test results sound competitive. But note, the test weight of the vehicle is not mentioned and one would assume was set optimally by Ford. The NASCAR mandated weight penalty is not mentioned and may not have been a promolgated rule in December of 1965.

As history records, it was Ford's decision (rather than Bill France's) not to campaign a Cammer powered Galaxie. So we must assume that folks like Passino, Cowley and Beebe concluded that such cars would not cut the mustard against the Mopar Hemi intermediates.

BTW, the best the wedge powered Fairlane could manage with a 530 HP MR 4V was 170.77 and 172.41 (average and back stretch). And that was with a .589 lift cam that, at that time, could only last 150 race miles.

Pretty clearly, Ford wanted and needed to run the Cammer in the Fairlane and when NASCAR said NO, the company walked out.

As a final aside, the '66 Galaxie that was used to test the CAMMER in December of 1965 was Fred Lorenzen's rebodied 1965 Daytona 500 winner, chassis number C5HM-10047. That car used to sit in my garage. I sold it recently and miss it still. Luckily I still have my '64 H&M Galaxie (C4HM-10041) and my '68 H&M Torino (HM8-033S) to fool around with. "

 

From my buddy who was at Ford/ Holman Moody-

"(his friend) worked in the Experimental Garage & I was in the Experimental Engine Build Section. We had some great times playing with the goodies back then !!!!!! There wasn't a single vehicle that came thru the doors that was left original, 460 in a Cadillac DeVille, 429 SCJ in a GTO, 427 TP in a 'Vette.........and the list just goes on. "

 

I've posted these pics elsewhere a few months ago, but here they are again. This 63 Galaxie is one a friend of mine has been building for a couple years now. It was a nice car to begin with, it just needed "the look" and the entire engine rebuilt. It has turned out to be a really awesome machine.
I recently found this youtube video of that somebody took earlier this year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjcXTZISgbc