FF33rod
01-04-2021, 10:39 PM
How a seemingly innocuous decision can bite you in the butt…..
I write this in the hope that in the future a newbie will find it helpful in considering and planning his build and the engine decision specifically. It's not a short and to the point post, it's long, I think I did it partly as therapy :) I am not complaining nor trying to trash any particular vendor and have specifically not provided a name for that reason. That said, under the circumstances I was happy with their cooperation.
When you’re planning a build, there are many decisions to be made; a major one of which is the engine. My decision process for this, about 2 and a half years ago now, was something along the lines of
- Why not stick with a Ford in a Ford
- A ’33 hot rod deserves an older school engine, besides I know how those work and they don’t need a bunch of computers to run (kinda funny given I’m an electrical engineer by trade). Want to keep it simple
- The budget wasn’t super limited but I didn’t want to spend a bunch of money on power that I won’t use. That said, it better do a great burn out if I punch the loud pedal. Ended up focusing on a 347 targeting mid 400hp
- Blueprint was an obvious choice but for some reason I was disappointed with the 415hp spec and they don’t do variants.
- Other vendors had engines in the range I wanted but everything was build to order. A light went on – “build” – heck, I’m building the car, why not the engine. Don’t have the skills, knowledge or machinery to do a block so why not get a short block and add a proven combination of parts in the way of a top end kit.
- At the time, I was reading a build thread and video series from an FFR Roadster builder who put together a 347 from a short block out of California and turns out the same company had a top end kit. Bingo.
In fall of 2018, the short block (machined and prepped OEM from 1991), top end kit and other engine components were shipped up to me in Canada. Over the next couple of months, I put all the pieces together and it went into the chassis a few months into 2019. Of course at that time, the chassis had very little on it; just the basic suspension without the radiator, grill, firewall. Pretty darn easy.
The first start wasn’t too long after that and man it was a great feeling to hear it running. Over the next year and a half, the build progressed well. Go kart and eventual trips around the block with the body on. So cool. At some point around mid 2020 though, I noticed the engine didn’t seem to run as great as I remembered. I attributed it to the fact it only runs 15-20 minutes, hasn’t been driven really so the Sniper hasn’t learned a lot, and probably could benefit from some hand tuning. In September 2020 I decided on a shop that would do the final body prep and paint but they wouldn’t be able to take it until February. In the mean time, it made sense to go through everything and try to get it inspected, registered and insured to work out any major bugs. It went great and was on the road mid October, that’s when “it” happened during the very first legal drive.
The engine developed into a full blown steam engine – once the thermostat opened up, lots of white smoke in the passenger side exhaust. Lots of conversations with various people in various groups on the internet. You always get such sage advice and it was quickly narrowed down to one or a combination of intake crack, intake gasket, cracked head, head gasket blown, cracked block, cracked cylinder. LOL. Don’t use Fel Pro gaskets because someone’s uncle never had good luck with them except the other guy who only uses Fel Pro and swears buy them. The usual internet fun that helps to confuse you when faced with a new problem that you’re not experience in solving. But I digress. After replacing intake gaskets twice, a head gasket once, having the head pressure tested all without solving the problem, I finally pulled the engine. Now I’m sure that any ’33 builder will agree that taking apart the front end of the hot rod (grill, radiator, fiberglass nose cone, etc) is a pain and, due to all the slotted mounting brackets, getting it back in exactly the same position so your panel fitting and gaps are back to perfect is a pretty difficult task. Accordingly, I tried pulling the engine out with tranny attached without removing those components. It did not work and I damaged stuff in the process. A couple of grill ribs are bent from the engine crane hitting it and the firewall that I had brushed and clear coated was badly scratched. In the end, I separated the engine from the tranny and then pulled it out. I took the engine into a local shop, we don’t have many here in Vancouver. They had given me an estimate to build a 347 at what was now looking to be a very reasonable price given the experience I had now gained. With a bit of a tear down they quickly found that cylinder #1 had a crack in the cylinder wall into the water jacket. Knowing that, a bit of a discussion with the California company that supplied the short block resulted in a settlement that made more sense than shipping blocks back and forth over the border at great expense – I was pleased that they agreed to that.
140316
But this is the bottom line, the learning piece. In a buying decision you always think a bit about warranty but I never really seriously considered that the block would have an issue so quickly. But it makes sense now, we’re talking something from the 80s or 90s! Some problems can be obvious at the time the block is machined but there may still be weaknesses that will only show up after running or running a few hours. You need to consider how to reduce the risk of there being a problem and, if there is one, how easily it can be rectified. You don’t save money by buying individual components and putting it together to begin with, trust me. Then when you add an issue like this, even with some compensation, you end up spending well in excess of the initial purchase.
Hindsight is wonderful, so knowing what I know now, I likely would not have built my engine unless it was on a brand new aftermarket block (the cost of which likely would have deterred me). I would have gone with either Blueprint (or Levy maybe) or the local shop I’m now dealing with. Regardless, make sure it’s been run to prove it all works and hopefully any issue shows up quickly. Lastly, consider how you’ll get a problem rectified if it does show up – much bigger chance of an issue using a refurbished block, which gives a bit of an advantage to a local shop IMO. Now I'm waiting for the engine to be fixed up and get back to me, it's taking weeks. My build is looking very sad in a torn apart state in the garage and its difficult to get energy to do something on it. The beginning of February for paint is coming up fast!
Steve
I write this in the hope that in the future a newbie will find it helpful in considering and planning his build and the engine decision specifically. It's not a short and to the point post, it's long, I think I did it partly as therapy :) I am not complaining nor trying to trash any particular vendor and have specifically not provided a name for that reason. That said, under the circumstances I was happy with their cooperation.
When you’re planning a build, there are many decisions to be made; a major one of which is the engine. My decision process for this, about 2 and a half years ago now, was something along the lines of
- Why not stick with a Ford in a Ford
- A ’33 hot rod deserves an older school engine, besides I know how those work and they don’t need a bunch of computers to run (kinda funny given I’m an electrical engineer by trade). Want to keep it simple
- The budget wasn’t super limited but I didn’t want to spend a bunch of money on power that I won’t use. That said, it better do a great burn out if I punch the loud pedal. Ended up focusing on a 347 targeting mid 400hp
- Blueprint was an obvious choice but for some reason I was disappointed with the 415hp spec and they don’t do variants.
- Other vendors had engines in the range I wanted but everything was build to order. A light went on – “build” – heck, I’m building the car, why not the engine. Don’t have the skills, knowledge or machinery to do a block so why not get a short block and add a proven combination of parts in the way of a top end kit.
- At the time, I was reading a build thread and video series from an FFR Roadster builder who put together a 347 from a short block out of California and turns out the same company had a top end kit. Bingo.
In fall of 2018, the short block (machined and prepped OEM from 1991), top end kit and other engine components were shipped up to me in Canada. Over the next couple of months, I put all the pieces together and it went into the chassis a few months into 2019. Of course at that time, the chassis had very little on it; just the basic suspension without the radiator, grill, firewall. Pretty darn easy.
The first start wasn’t too long after that and man it was a great feeling to hear it running. Over the next year and a half, the build progressed well. Go kart and eventual trips around the block with the body on. So cool. At some point around mid 2020 though, I noticed the engine didn’t seem to run as great as I remembered. I attributed it to the fact it only runs 15-20 minutes, hasn’t been driven really so the Sniper hasn’t learned a lot, and probably could benefit from some hand tuning. In September 2020 I decided on a shop that would do the final body prep and paint but they wouldn’t be able to take it until February. In the mean time, it made sense to go through everything and try to get it inspected, registered and insured to work out any major bugs. It went great and was on the road mid October, that’s when “it” happened during the very first legal drive.
The engine developed into a full blown steam engine – once the thermostat opened up, lots of white smoke in the passenger side exhaust. Lots of conversations with various people in various groups on the internet. You always get such sage advice and it was quickly narrowed down to one or a combination of intake crack, intake gasket, cracked head, head gasket blown, cracked block, cracked cylinder. LOL. Don’t use Fel Pro gaskets because someone’s uncle never had good luck with them except the other guy who only uses Fel Pro and swears buy them. The usual internet fun that helps to confuse you when faced with a new problem that you’re not experience in solving. But I digress. After replacing intake gaskets twice, a head gasket once, having the head pressure tested all without solving the problem, I finally pulled the engine. Now I’m sure that any ’33 builder will agree that taking apart the front end of the hot rod (grill, radiator, fiberglass nose cone, etc) is a pain and, due to all the slotted mounting brackets, getting it back in exactly the same position so your panel fitting and gaps are back to perfect is a pretty difficult task. Accordingly, I tried pulling the engine out with tranny attached without removing those components. It did not work and I damaged stuff in the process. A couple of grill ribs are bent from the engine crane hitting it and the firewall that I had brushed and clear coated was badly scratched. In the end, I separated the engine from the tranny and then pulled it out. I took the engine into a local shop, we don’t have many here in Vancouver. They had given me an estimate to build a 347 at what was now looking to be a very reasonable price given the experience I had now gained. With a bit of a tear down they quickly found that cylinder #1 had a crack in the cylinder wall into the water jacket. Knowing that, a bit of a discussion with the California company that supplied the short block resulted in a settlement that made more sense than shipping blocks back and forth over the border at great expense – I was pleased that they agreed to that.
140316
But this is the bottom line, the learning piece. In a buying decision you always think a bit about warranty but I never really seriously considered that the block would have an issue so quickly. But it makes sense now, we’re talking something from the 80s or 90s! Some problems can be obvious at the time the block is machined but there may still be weaknesses that will only show up after running or running a few hours. You need to consider how to reduce the risk of there being a problem and, if there is one, how easily it can be rectified. You don’t save money by buying individual components and putting it together to begin with, trust me. Then when you add an issue like this, even with some compensation, you end up spending well in excess of the initial purchase.
Hindsight is wonderful, so knowing what I know now, I likely would not have built my engine unless it was on a brand new aftermarket block (the cost of which likely would have deterred me). I would have gone with either Blueprint (or Levy maybe) or the local shop I’m now dealing with. Regardless, make sure it’s been run to prove it all works and hopefully any issue shows up quickly. Lastly, consider how you’ll get a problem rectified if it does show up – much bigger chance of an issue using a refurbished block, which gives a bit of an advantage to a local shop IMO. Now I'm waiting for the engine to be fixed up and get back to me, it's taking weeks. My build is looking very sad in a torn apart state in the garage and its difficult to get energy to do something on it. The beginning of February for paint is coming up fast!
Steve