C8FE block

[shelbydoug]

Royce, I'm not arguing but casting numbers are a way of identifying parts.

Often that number will identify the intended application and purpose.

If there are at least three different C8FE blocks, then how does the poor guy in shipping identify them if they all have the same identification number?


I personally haven't had the privilege of having many Ford "racing program" parts. What I can say that my reaction to any prefix ending in an FE such as C8FE sets off a flashing light in my head telling me that it is not a regular production part.

My aluminum medium riser 427 heads with the C6FE-6049-A casting numbers were another example that I can think of.

I can't swear to it but they likely came off of a "lightweight 427" and that likely was not intended for Taxi Cab or Pickup truck application.


Your point however is somewhat made. I went through this somewhat also with my Pantera. I'm aware that there are at least two "Nascar" 351-c blocks. Both I am told are XE identified.

Then you have this thing with "the Australian block". That one usually is identified with the Gelong casting id.

Well here's MY story on my block. I bought a D2 4 bolt block from Carter Gette. It had come out of a wrecked Pantera race car. It did not have a Gelong logo.

I took it to a friend's friend who was starting his own machine shop not far from here to go 30 over with.

When I went to pick it up, the guy told me that I had swindled him and never to come back. He said it was a special block and he had to resharpen his cutters three times. But he told me $180 to bore it and he would stick to that, just never come back.

It had no other special markings and as far as I know, was a production CJ block. The engine shop claimed otherwise.

Of course it might have been his first Ford block and he might have been just used to the soft iron GM uses?


I'm not always uninformed. Questions by their nature are an attempt at being informed or searching for clarification. My questions have a point and if I can arrive at the information that I was looking for, then it doesn't matter what you think of me.  However, thank you for your interest and kind specifically pointed replies. They often help.

[TA Coupe]

You can't label the C8FE block in any certain way. They were simply a high performance block that came in several different forms. I know of at least 5 different ways they came:
1. Machined with 2 bolt caps if I remember correctly it was for a class of boat racing
2. Machined for tunnelport 302s
3  Machined for Indy with big dry sump mounting ears and the front one was 5 bolt (I will post a picture)
4. Machined for Trans AM
5. Machined for 69 BOSS 302s and there may be others.

       Roy

[TA Coupe]

A front picture of the block plus a few of the Gt40 Mirage aluminum engine I had which I sold to Jay Cushman along with the Indy block and a few other things. The aluminum heads were not the correct ones though.

      Roy

[shelbydoug]

What is the difference between the Boss 302 block and the T/A block? What aluminum heads are those?

If I have a C8FE bare block sitting here, 4 bolt, wet sump, how do I tell what it is for? I should just presume that it is a Boss 302 block and leave it at that?

[Royce Peterson]

Casting numbers might mean something if you are a Generic Motors fan or a Mopar guy. With Ford cylinder blocks from the 1960's they are a way of fooling the tech official into believing he knows something when in fact he doesn't. Race parts were never shipped or stocked like normal parts. I am not the guy who knows how to tell a GT40 block from a '69 Boss 2 block but I suspect they were handled much in the same way 427 Ford blocks were. Parts might show up at a racer's shop at midnight on a Saturday in the trunk of a pool car driven by a Ford engineer named Bruce for example. Maybe a paper tag.

Royce, I'm not arguing but casting numbers are a way of identifying parts.

Often that number will identify the intended application and purpose.

If there are at least three different C8FE blocks, then how does the poor guy in shipping identify them if they all have the same identification number?

[shelbydoug]

Casting numbers might mean something if you are a Generic Motors fan or a Mopar guy. With Ford cylinder blocks from the 1960's they are a way of fooling the tech official into believing he knows something when in fact he doesn't. Race parts were never shipped or stocked like normal parts. I am not the guy who knows how to tell a GT40 block from a '69 Boss 2 block but I suspect they were handled much in the same way 427 Ford blocks were. Parts might show up at a racer's shop at midnight on a Saturday in the trunk of a pool car driven by a Ford engineer named Bruce for example. Maybe a paper tag.

Royce, I'm not arguing but casting numbers are a way of identifying parts.

Often that number will identify the intended application and purpose.

If there are at least three different C8FE blocks, then how does the poor guy in shipping identify them if they all have the same identification number?

I shouldn't have called the Police on that guy then? I thought he was a drug dealer?


Roy: everytime you sign your name I think that you are officer John McClain and you have just dumped Hanz out of the window. Did you find shoes that fit yet?


...am I glad that I didn't pay that guy $5,000 for that C8FE block. He claimed the dirt was from the last T/A race.

[gt350hr]

    I have a copy of the Ford Engineering "SK" log book. In the book there are at least five revisions to the C8FE block for specific racing purposes. Some include "rubbed cores" to allow a 4.110 bore size , others are for machining changes. "Racing blocks" typically have hand stamped reference numbers stamped on the small pad on the front , passenger side. "Some" others have an SK number scratched into the casting in the bell housing area. A "production" non racing block would have the ductile iron main caps which are similar to the look of a HiPo 289 cap.

   By '68-69 , the C8FE casting was being used in GT40's. Of note is there IS a difference in a Cooper ring block and a "dry deck" block. A Cooper ring block was cut for the sealing rings BUT still used a composite gasket to seal the water passages. A "dry deck" block had "O" rings to seal every water and oil passage, leaving a small gap between the block and head. Tunnel Port and T/A Boss engines were done this way.

    Bruce Sizemore was only responsible for the "Canadian" 428 CJ heads , nothing Boss 302 related. Yes he took a station wagon load of them to the US Nationals in '69. I got the whole story first hand during the three days I spent with him at the CJ reunion a few years back.
   Randy

[Royce Peterson]

He also took a pair to Barrie Poole's shop the next night after Barrie won that event with the production heads. It wasn't a station wagon, Barrie said they came out of the trunk.

Ford had myriad racing activities in 1968 that used various versions of the C8FE block. For example the NASCAR Baby Grand series which Tiny Lund won in 1968 driving a 302 powered Cougar. I sure don't know the details but suspect Bud Moore got some special stuff that made it possible. Of course the C8FE block - probably quite different from NASCAR or LeMans C8FE blocks -  was also used in the SCCA Trans Am series, with the season opener won by Jerry Titus running a tunnel port 302 in his Shelby Racing Co. Mustang notch back.

    I have a copy of the Ford Engineering "SK" log book. In the book there are at least five revisions to the C8FE block for specific racing purposes. Some include "rubbed cores" to allow a 4.110 bore size , others are for machining changes. "Racing blocks" typically have hand stamped reference numbers stamped on the small pad on the front , passenger side. "Some" others have an SK number scratched into the casting in the bell housing area. A "production" non racing block would have the ductile iron main caps which are similar to the look of a HiPo 289 cap.

   By '68-69 , the C8FE casting was being used in GT40's. Of note is there IS a difference in a Cooper ring block and a "dry deck" block. A Cooper ring block was cut for the sealing rings BUT still used a composite gasket to seal the water passages. A "dry deck" block had "O" rings to seal every water and oil passage, leaving a small gap between the block and head. Tunnel Port and T/A Boss engines were done this way.

    Bruce Sizemore was only responsible for the "Canadian" 428 CJ heads , nothing Boss 302 related. Yes he took a station wagon load of them to the US Nationals in '69. I got the whole story first hand during the three days I spent with him at the CJ reunion a few years back.
   Randy

[gt350hr]

    Bruce drove them to Barrie in Canada in a Boss 302 and yes they were in the trunk. Bruce didn't declare them and was lucky the border inspector was a "Ford guy" and didn't ask to look in the trunk or Bruce would have had to do some fast talking! I got that story too and about thirty others.
   Randy

[shelbydoug]

Is there a decipherable code stamped into the race parts?

My aluminum heads were full of $ signs hand stamped and lots of hand stampings x'd over or out.


So if a production block had it's iron main caps replaced with billet steel ones it would be difficult to tell the differences?

[gt350hr]

      Doug ,
         PM me the numbers and I'll sort it out for you. I have spent decades looking at this stuff.
     Randy

[shelbydoug]

I don't have them anymore and if I took pics I don't know what I did with them? That's before digital and on slides...somewhere!

[TA Coupe]

Doug, the heads on the aluminum motor were basically stock 72 or 73 heads I got from Holbrook Racing in Livonia Michigan in the late 70's.

       Roy

[shelbydoug]

An all aluminum small block is pretty neat.

Here's a picture of an all aluminum Cleveland that Jeff Burgy assembled a while back.
Take special note of the block.

It had a 68 casting date and a casting number that did not pretend to be a production block

One of the issues that my Chevy "friends" always had with racing Ford's was that you could not just walk into a Ford Parts Dealer and buy a competitive racing part like you could with Chevy.

This business of the effin' CIA delivering them too you in the back of a camouflaged vehicle unfortunately is par for the course and just too typical.


I'm doing this over 50 years. This business of a guy on the street not being able to get the good stuff and the stereo typical Ford Parts Managers snickering at me, just even to this day, do not bode well with me. The arrogance still just turns my stomach.

Sure, part of this is just the Corporate's that are having "their turn at a 3 year run, to burn, loot and rape", but it continues at Ford and now is simply illustrated with their now too exclusive for anyone Ford GT's. Some things will just never change?

I gotta' give Shelby A LOT of credit for putting up with it. I suppose being pictured in big overalls holding a chicken is sorta' his revenge?


Thank you for everyone's efforts here to make me informed on the C8FE blocks. It's kinda' what I expected everyone to say.

[gt350hr]

   The 351C aluminum block ( SK42617/8)  was the product of one Henry "Smokey" Yunick . It was intended to be used at the '69 Indy race. Some had small mains and dry sump caps and others had "normal " Cleveland mains. Gus Tarrab has one with the small mains and mine is 351C mains. The block was to be used with SK42624 aluminum heads which "looked" like a production 351C 4V head but were improved flow wise. I have three sets of those currently. None of these parts were meant to be "over the counter" parts. Jay Cushman ( not surprisingly) has some of the blocks and heads too.
  Randy