Ford Thunderbird 2.3t Head Port Work
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- Опубликовано: 9 дек 2022
- I delve deeper into the 2.3t for my buddy's t-bird. Finding and sorting issues with the cylinder head.
It's going to be a long and slow engine build. Updates coming as and when I think there is something noteworthy to share. The next week or two is simply going to be cleaning and readying the parts for reassembly and possibly more machine work. I'll post updates when noteworthy updates happen. 
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Just found your channel scrolling for 2.3T junk, and wow the quality and frequency of your content FAR exceeds the view counts!!
I hope you get the traction you deserve here on RUclips, keep up the great work.
Thanks. I make videos as and when I'm wrenching. This 2.3t is just a unique opportunity that I thought I'd share. Right now it's 29deg F outside in the UK so I'm not going to be doing the parts cleaning and scrubbing that I hoped I'd be able to until it warms back up.
the 2.3 OHC Ford is a great engine. Super tough, easy to work on and make lots of power. Too bad todays direct injection aren't as simple.
Thank you for sharing your experience! Nice blending work :) !
Just found you. Lovin your vids mate. Keep up the good work.
Good luck on the rebuild. Built and raced a few back in my younger days. Embarrassed a lot of GT mustangs and Z 28s with a 2.3 2-barrel Mercury capri. Inspect the block very good, all the 2.3s I remember dying was always the number three-cylinder imploding
Great video man! Not too many people playing with 2.3T single cams these days . I been enjoying your content. I've had a ton of XR4ti's over the years . Now I've got is a 73 capri with a 2.3t running on a Stinger ecu 👌
had an 86 and 88 Turbobird. Loved them.
Just by looking briefly at the valve lay out, looks like a good head
Back in the day a lot of guys used a 2.5 crank, rods, and pistons to make a stoker out of them
I believe you need main bearing spacers if try to put a factory 2.5 crank into an older 2.3 block. However, the last of the 2.3's had switched to the smaller mains like for the 2.5 crank, making it an easy swap to pick up a little extra displacement.
I’ve been in the automotive machining business for plus 30 years.
That demonstration you gave us was pretty telling.
I’ve checked seats and valves to be light tight several times over the years. It’s quick and telling.
One thing I’m not clear on but thought I heard mentioned was that this engine had already been assembled before these checks were made.
If these heads were in fact torqued down to the block after this valve job was done then I would make the corrections to seal these valves and seats up and mock up and retorque the head bolts again to make sure the head bolts are not distorting the valve seats.
I have seen this happen in some extreme cases. Not so certain that I’ve seen this on these particular type heads or not. Just some advice I think may benefit the situation.
I see too many of these RUclips videos demonstrating how their valve jobs are seals up by using a magic marker on the valve face and seat. That does not tell the tale what so ever.
Another important issue directly associated to this subject is valve guide to valve stem clearances.
It is best practice to try and seal the valve job up with minimal guide to stem clearance. The tighter the better.
If those stems have the common .0018”-.0022” clearance on them and they’re not sealing then there is cause for concern.
Going further down the rabbit hole......
If you correct the seal on that valve job with that much clearance how do you know the level of concentricity between both the valve stem and valve face as well as the valve guide centerline to valve seat centerline?
The potential for eccentricity in that combination is very real. You can in fact seal that valve face to that valve seat 100% @ .002” clearance in the overall package with no way to realize that the valve stem may in fact be completely loaded to one side of the guide with minimal clearance. This may in fact cause seizure. The stem to guide clearance can appear to have been addressed correctly but the eccentricity paid a bad visit.
This is why many machine shops get fussy over valve guides and mandate machining for brand new guides even though the existing were still within spec.
Anyone can seal up a valve job with .002” clearance. There is just lots of room for error that can go unnoticed.
As often as I can I like to perform valve jobs with as minimal clearances as possible.
I use tungsten carbide live pilots to do my seat work with. Meaning my pilot is constantly spinning in the guide while I’m cutting the seat. This means I have to mind guide to pilot clearances especially on cast iron guides. Bronze I can get so tight that I ca use y live pilot to broach with slightly and get clearances so tight nobody would want to believe it and I wouldn’t expect them to.
What all of this enables is and clear understanding in how concentric both your valve grinder and seat and guide machining efforts are.
If you’re sealing up a cast iron guide at .001” stem clearance you know you’re pDG with concentricity. Doesn’t mean that I will run that clearance. I do open them up to specs depending on use.
With bronze alloy guides and beryllium copper or moldstar 90 seats it is a must to run as little as possible clearances. Those seat materials will not handle excessive valve stem clearances for very long.
I'm just a guy in a garage doing the best I can with what I have. Being in the UK has its own unique set of challenges and if I can do everything myself, I can al least trust the work is done to a somewhat reasonable standard.
I have purchased several bits of machine tooling in the past to perform machine shop operations myself. Several larger ones I had to leave in storage in the states such as my own valve grinding machine and a vintage Sun distributor machine. I was able to bring many of the smaller hand tools with me. I certainly do not have any modern equipment at my disposal but I can hold my own paying attention to what matters, then farming out what's beyond my "tooling" abilities to local machine shops. This country is quite far behind the standards to what is available in the USA. When rebuilding the 390FE in my videos I purchased and provided the machine shop with a torque plate as there was none to be had in the entire country. The same will be true when I'm ready to build my next SBF. There is even more to be asked of this place where balancing a V8 is perilous and costs 3x-4x of what you would pay in the US. They are simply not familiar and charge hourly rates due to the excess amount of time they take to perform the task. I've seen some dodgy practices but they have me over barrel when there are no other options.
I will never claim that my way is the only way or the right way, but only that I'm correcting an issue and to make people aware of what's out there. Using the flashlight to ensure the seal was light-tight was simply an easy visual for the RUclips masses to wrap their heads around. I don't have a valve seat concentricity(runout) gauge or the camera gear to show the watchers any other way.
But if I find it interesting, I'll probably try and make a video about it to share.
Every bit of what you say is true - right up until running tight stem clearances on boosted engines. (Like this Turbo 2.3)
The extra exhaust heat/temperature from boost or nitrous causes more expansion (just like the top ring gap 'closing up'), and the stem is right in the middle of the lions share of that heat, and need at least an extra .001 to .0015" clearance. I replaced exhaust guides on Many sets of heads (some with under 1000mi) that the exhausts were clearanced correctly for a N/A, but the owners went to Nitrous or a form of boost and gauled the exhaust guides & stems, a few even stuck open.
The intakes seem to stay cool enough.
Otherwise, you nailed it dead square, and put out a lot of good information.
Final valve guide clearances always come down to applications and materials used.
Manganese Bronze Alloy guides mated up to molybdenum coated titanium valve stems I’d run no more than .0017”-.0018” stem clearance on the exhaust with moldstar90 or beryllium copper seats in a boosted drag racing application.
Same application same scenario on the intake side I’d be around .001”-.0012”.
N/A with that same material same racing application I’ve ran them at .0006” on the intake and .0012” on the exhaust.
Circle track road race type engines. .0012” intake .0019” exhaust but only when there are siamesed exhaust ports.
Symmetrical ports Ill run less on the exhaust side.
Start removing the optimum materials start adding clearance.
The valve guide can be just as effective at removing heat from the valve as the valve seat is. Open the clearances up too much and you can over heat a valve by that alone.
By no means would I run any of those clearances starting off with that amount while performing the valve job. Key point made is to seal the valve job up as tight as your equipment will allow.
So if that same head came back in 2 weeks later that I had just performed these methods on I would not make an attempt to remachine those seats with those clearances. Always seal that valve and seat with less than you’re going to run. Otherwise you’re introducing eccentricity that you have no way of seeing.
I never trust a valve seat runout gauge. I’ve witnessed too many arguments over those contraptions over the years. I will say that it’s been several years since I’ve even seen one and the may be better than the ones I’ve seen in the passed. They just serve to defeat the second point I’m making.
It’s not just the valve seat to valve guide centerline concentricity we’re all concerned with its both the valve guide centerline to valve seat centerline coupled with the valve stem center to valve face center. The entire package.
So it would be outlandish to attempt any of these efforts with a standard ball bearing adjustable chuck on a typical Sioux valve grinder. I know that my new Sioux Valve grinder wouldn’t hold anything the same way twice. Sure it was good to seal up at .0015”-.002” but that doesn’t lend me much comfort with what I have to work on.
At a minimum you need high quality ER32 collets to get to that level and at that you’re at the mercy of the valve stem quality itself. Most valve stems are not there even some nice name brand valves lack and will only yield so much accuracy to the collets clamping accuracy. All the more reason to understand where you’re ability to seal a valve job up is.
Not saying that I do not run valve jobs with standard accepted clearances like any other normal shop. Sometimes the quality simply isn’t there to use.
I worked for a machine shop that built racing engines that competed in national and world events. Several numerous national event winning engines. Several world titles.
We would see all kinds of crazy set ups come through the shop. Intake valve to piston clearances that only what what the valve lash was lending. (And they were living fine that way).
The owner of that shop had a .002” valve stem to guide mandate on all engines for years. Didn’t matter it was not up for discussion.
That was until copper alloy seats started fading rapidly mid season with the rest of the field not suffering.
Our shop owner had us disassemble cylinder heads from some cylinder head companies that were world class in both NASCAR and NHRA.
We would see these crazy numbers I’m speaking about. They were custom set up for our customer’s racing category ready to go.
I made some phone calls to the responsible shops and got educated.
Yates, MBE were just a couple. Those clearances were mandatory and were not to be altered.
It was a lesson learned.
It does stress and does tell the accuracy of what you’re machining with.
It is an aim small miss small mindset that needs to be adhered to.
Those are the points I’m making.
Sure there are exceptions to the rule. There always is.
Just don’t correct a valve job with .002” stem clearance without adding another .0001” or .0002” to the guide. That should keep eccentricity from biting when you have no way of seeing it.
Chatter. I always check everything after it comes back from the machine shop. I've seen part's that looked like they were wiped with a grinder that I know did not do anything to balance the rotating assembly. I told a friend that you've got to get trusting relationship with whoever does your machine work. The shop that always did mine is gone now. And it's hard to find anyone who you can trust to do this work anymore.
Not only does the 2.3 T5 have a smaller diameter input shaft tip but the length of the input shaft is different than the V8 version.
Excellent!
Waste of time and money 🤣💰🤣💰🤣💰..
To each their own.
The GOOD 2.3....not that troublesome disaster Ford makes now. They should have stuck with this design.
Just wanted to share info with you. Anyway I think maybe give Summitt Racing a call to see if they can help you with your bearing delimi Anyway thanks for sharing your video with me have a great today.
Hate to break it to ya, but with that 3/16" wide valve seat those oversize valves arent going to help you much. There was no reason for the lousy exhaust seats. If the shop needed to they could have spot faced the guides so the cutter runs true.
🥝✔️
What did they use to face the head, chainsaw?
That would have left a better finish
Remove rust /corroion by soda blasting.
Drop that head altogether and use a much superior Volvo head for that engine.
Now I am intrigued.
There’s a reason almost no one does that swap. It’s a massive PITA for negligible gains. It’s cool for sure, but not really worth it