Rotating assembly recommendations

[inglimer]

Looking for direction on one of the forged piston\rods packages, for the 4.6 3 valve.
MMR has one on eBay for $900 plus shipping, but some of the feedback here on them is pretty scary.
A guy on another forum suggested 03-04 cobra pistons and Boss 302 rods. Not sure if those are compatible with my motor?
Thanks.
Jack

 

[Wes06]

Don't buy mmr
Shirt business practices alone make us recommend people stay away.

 

[palanza7]

Mmr pretty much gave me cancer on my build so no don't do it

 

[stkjock]

What's your goal? What's the intended build?

 

[inglimer]

Thanks for the responses.
I would like to see 500+ whp . The car is procharged with 10# boost now and 420whp.
Just looking for a strong street car and it will probably never see a track.

 

[BruceH]

You should really have the 3v exhaust valve relief on the pistons. It's not required unless your cam has over .500 lift and everything else is of stock specs. Going with a non 3v exhaust valve relief will also require checking piston to valve clearance just to be sure.

I've assembled a few of these motors and imo the h beam rods on ebay with arp rod bolts will do just fine. Almost all of the 4.6 h beams are forged in China (even Manley for the last few years). The finish machining is usually done here in the US and that is a critical process. Another option is to use Boss rods from Ford. They are the same dimensions as 3v rods with the exception of being a little beefier.

If you shop around deals pop up on ebay for pistons. Even if they don't pop up a really good piston/ring combo are the Mahle 3v pistons. Shop around, educate yourself and make an informed decision.

The stock crank is good for a whole lot of power and would be my first choice unless you are shooting for power levels that will stress h beam rods.

I'm a fan of stock or stock material bearings. Race bearings are fine if you plan to do periodic tear downs when you can check clearances. The soft Babbitt layer on a race bearing is designed to trap small particles, the downside is that it can and will open clearances with heavy loading. Stock bearing material is harder and will allow those particles to pass on to the oil filter where they should be trapped. Not everyone is going to agree with my line of thought but we all have different opinions. What I'm suggesting has worked for me.

The machine shop you choose will probably be the most important decision.

 

[loots06]

I used the stock crank, boss rods, Wiseco pistons with a little 127550 cam.

 

[46addict]

I hate to hijack a thread but my question is somewhat relevant. Do phaser limiters/lockouts become necessary at 500+whp? I would assume so if you decide to use a bigger cam & stiffer valve springs? But then again 500hp should be achievable on the stock valvetrain.

 

[palanza7]

I don't think you ever really need to mess with cams until you are into the 1000hp range

 

[BruceH]

I hate to hijack a thread but my question is somewhat relevant. Do phaser limiters/lockouts become necessary at 500+whp? I would assume so if you decide to use a bigger cam & stiffer valve springs? But then again 500hp should be achievable on the stock valvetrain.

Limiters and lockouts are to keep the valves from banging into the pistons. You don't need them with cams below .500 lift.

 

[Wild White Pony]

I put my built shortblock in back in 2010, Still strong as ever, gone through 2 transmissions with this motor. If I build another 3v I'll do it the same, Locked Phasers, VCT Deleted, Good valve springs and a GT500 oil pump with billet gears and charge motion plates removed.
All the hub bub about if you do these mods you will loose low end power and your gas mileage will decrease is all true but your tuner can work in a few more ponies in this area. But I'll swear by doing these things you will have a more reliable timing section that will have a give and take abuse window much larger than if you don't.

If your building a500hp show car, keep all the nice drivability/gas saving devices. If your looking to pound the crap out of this motor and make a street/strip go car, get rid of it. All IMO..

 

[BruceH]

I put my built shortblock in back in 2010, Still strong as ever, gone through 2 transmissions with this motor. If I build another 3v I'll do it the same, Locked Phasers, VCT Deleted, Good valve springs and a GT500 oil pump with billet gears and charge motion plates removed.
All the hub bub about if you do these mods you will loose low end power and your gas mileage will decrease is all true but your tuner can work in a few more ponies in this area. But I'll swear by doing these things you will have a more reliable timing section that will have a give and take abuse window much larger than if you don't.

If your building a500hp show car, keep all the nice drivability/gas saving devices. If your looking to pound the crap out of this motor and make a street/strip go car, get rid of it. All IMO..

At what point did you see the phasers start to fail? Was it with a specific spring? A whole lot of people have seen failure of the cam to follow commanded retard with tfs springs.

Where did you end up setting the cam icl with locked out phasers?

 

[Wild White Pony]

At what point did you see the phasers start to fail? Was it with a specific spring? A whole lot of people have seen failure of the cam to follow commanded retard with tfs springs.

Where did you end up setting the cam icl with locked out phasers?

4 deg advance with lockouts AFM F63 cams .544 lift.

I actually have an old style phaser on the passenger side and a new style on the drivers. I locked out the phasers as soon as the PAC 1530 springs were installed, never had a phaser failure, only damaged them when handling.

This whole timing events on the 3v is crazy prone to failure, starting right from the oil pump everything is connected to the oil pressure. Strong springs can overpower the phaser and hunt, tensioners controlled by oil pressure can fail at the seal causing chain slack and possible VTP contact, Jumping teeth is common, VCT's get plugged, Spring centering pins come loose changing timing. Lots of possible combinations can happen.

I think 50% of failures happen when people come in contact with cams, so many threads about failures after cam swaps or people replacing phasers due to codes or replacing timing components cause they get cam sensor errors which many times actually end up being the alternator.

Just 2 weeks ago I had my own issue, when I put my GT500 oil pump in with the TSS gears 2 years ago, I left the GT500 pressure spring in, didn't touch it. Just put the gears in and lock tighted the crap out of the plate bolts.

Had it on the dyno everything seem fine, took it out to test on the street and noticed my oil pressure down to nothin, normally you get the buzzer going off but it didn't, shut it down and took it home.

When I got it apart I found the cap, spring and plunger was missing from the oil pump, this was something I didn't touch during the swap. Over the last 2 years that cap,spring and plunger backed out and was in the bottom of the oil pan. So no oil to the phasers, or tensioners yet the engine seemed to be running fine.
Put it back together, with lots of red lock tight, back on the dyno and a 767 hp pull.

I think having all that oil related timing components removed gave me just enough time and window to save the motor and not have a complete disaster.

 

[46addict]

Limiters and lockouts are to keep the valves from banging into the pistons. You don't need them with cams below .500 lift.

I guess my question is do you need .500+ lift to make 500hp.
I suppose you could build a 900hp dyno queen with a stock valvetrain but for practical purposes it would be more favorable to run more efficient cams and keep boost levels as low as possible.

 

[palanza7]

I guess my question is do you need .500+ lift to make 500hp.
I suppose you could build a 900hp dyno queen with a stock valvetrain but for practical purposes it would be more favorable to run more efficient cams and keep boost levels as low as possible.

From what I researched, having a blower cam doesn't drop boost a ton. It's something I was considering in the hunt to reduce boost as well.

 

[BruceH]

I guess my question is do you need .500+ lift to make 500hp.
I suppose you could build a 900hp dyno queen with a stock valvetrain but for practical purposes it would be more favorable to run more efficient cams and keep boost levels as low as possible.

No you don't. IMO most 3v cams have too much lift. CFM drops off quite a bit over .500 lift, the returns diminish pretty quickly. Add to that the fact that a blower pressurizes the motor and head flow isn't as important as it is with a n/a motor. It's still important, it's just that the blower will push past restrictions that a n/a motor sees.

FWIW I made decent power with comp 127400 cams and a Procharger. Kept the vct active, did lots of datalogging for cam position vs commanded position, all was good but I was running 26113 springs, stock clearances, stock oil pump with a stock spring, and 5w-20 oil. Change any of those things and the cams might not respond as well as they did for me. I also had pretty simple retard commands.

I don't think you could build a 900hp anything with the stock valvetrain. IMO stiffer valve springs are a must with anything more than mild boost even with stock cams.

 

[palanza7]

I don't think you could build a 900hp anything with the stock valvetrain. IMO stiffer valve springs are a must with anything more than mild boost even with stock cams.

welp im over here still with stock heads and 17 soon to be 21 psi lol

 

[05stroker]

welp im over here still with stock heads and 17 soon to be 21 psi lol

I feel like you will soon be upgrading. Lol

 

[Carbuff91]

4 deg advance with lockouts AFM F63 cams .544 lift.

White Pony,
Is there a VCT delete kit, or is it just locking the phasers and programming around them? If I can limit that weak link in my new build I'm definitely going to do it. I just don't trust the VCT when I will be spinning around 7K and pushing some serious boost.

 

[Wild White Pony]

4 deg advance with lockouts AFM F63 cams .544 lift.

White Pony,
Is there a VCT delete kit, or is it just locking the phasers and programming around them? If I can limit that weak link in my new build I'm definitely going to do it. I just don't trust the VCT when I will be spinning around 7K and pushing some serious boost.

It's a Ford part off the Triton 3v motor for the trucks which didn't use variable cams. You can call Steve at Tasca Ford and order them.


3V Plates Triton
5c3z-6n881-aa
5c3z-6n881-ba

http://www.tascaparts.com/oe-ford/5c3z6n881aa