451 went boom


Ferrea or Brodix should have what you need.

You need to verify the ID of the head so you can get the correct guide OD to achieve an interference fit that retains the guide. They are available in .530 up to .534. If all else fails, you get a .545 and cut it down to the exact size you need.

Kevin
 
Ferrea or Brodix should have what you need.

You need to verify the ID of the head so you can get the correct guide OD to achieve an interference fit that retains the guide. They are available in .530 up to .534. If all else fails, you get a .545 and cut it down to the exact size you need.

Kevin


440 Source scared up a set of guides for me. They are supposed to be .530 and now I'm worried they will be loose in the heads also.
 
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440 Source scared up a set of guides for me. They are supposed to be .530 and now I'm worried they will be loose in the heads also.

Use a pin gauge or a snap gauge to measure the guide bore in the head. If it's less than .530 your good to go. You can always remove material from the guide. It's hard to add material.

Make sure your machinist can HONE the guide ID to size. A lot of shops just ream them. Reamers are for woodworking. Lol

Kevin
 
Use a pin gauge or a snap gauge to measure the guide bore in the head. If it's less than .530 your good to go. You can always remove material from the guide. It's hard to add material.

Make sure your machinist can HONE the guide ID to size. A lot of shops just ream them. Reamers are for woodworking. Lol

Kevin
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Here is one of the old guides. They were loose in the head. 440 Source says they are .530, two different guys measured them here and they come out at .542 which is why they can't find any.
 
Well my much troubled 451 ended its career two weeks ago. Got on the freeway, and she began misfiring. Looked in the mirror and I couldn't see behind me the coolant was going out the exhaust so bad. Wrecker ride to the garage where I get it worked on. After sitting a day, the oil became overfull. Pulled the heads and found what you see in the pics:

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From what we can tell so far, I broke a piston and in turn broke the block. Consulted a good machine shop, and will have the heads inspected for reuse. Owner looked at pics and knew right away what happened. The ring gap on the top rings was insufficient for a Keith Black piston, and it expanded and broke out the ring land you see in the pic. A year ago, when I broke one of my built iron heads we'd found that one of the rods hadn't been resized and the bearing was getting ready to spin. We rectified that With new bearings and resizing of the rod, but even then on start up I had to crank for a few seconds before I activated the choke so that you wouldn't hear rod slap on start up. In addition, the engine always made a "wah wah wah wah" sound until it was completely warmed up. In short, my machinist was a crook stealing from his business, his customers, and doing shoddy work. I got screwed. So now here I am with really bad choices. I can sleeve the bad bore, and have a new shop check all the clearances and fix whatever is still screwed. Or, I can put a low mile RV 440 in, utilize the 440 Source heads, my oil pump, water pump, and XE268H Comp cam and runs that. That's probably my best choice as I don't trust that 400 block anymore, but compared to the 451 this 440 will be a slug. Last option, walk away from the car and sell it for whatever I can get for it. I can't afford to rebuild engines once a year. This sucks.
Wow sorry
 
I’m have an issue treating to resurrect a sitting 413 , I have it turning but every 3 or 4 revolutions it makes a block noise The rotating assembly sounds fine any suggestions I pulled the driver side cover and all the rocker arms ar moving I don’t want to pull it out
 
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Here is one of the old guides. They were loose in the head. 440 Source says they are .530, two different guys measured them here and they come out at .542 which is why they can't find any.

My machinist told me he has got them up to .503 or .504. He wasn't sure who he got them from. He thought maybe Ferrea. Anything else he either makes from scratch or turns a larger OD down.

Kevin
 
Ok, sorry for the hiatus in posting, but the 440's done. Valve guides that were sent to me by 440 Source look exactly like Edelbrock 9701's, are a harder material and are .545". They worked perfect, and the machine shop went ahead and did a valve job. Engines in the car, I've driven it 400 miles so far, and in another hundred we'll drop the oil and filter, and re-torque everything. Carb needs a bit of adjusting, but overall it works really well. Installed the PT kickdown while we were at it, and that works awesomely. Hopefully this ends the saga of rebuilding an engine every year. Oh yeah, we also found the 451 was crank walking also, and that my 440 only had 38k on it when it was pulled from the RV.
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