Fox T-Bird/Cougar Forums

My car is down at the shop for an HO conversion, and they're telling me that it's a flat tappet block and won't take the Musang roller cam. He says he pulled the intake and that's what he saw. Then he called the engine shop to verify...they looked it up on the computer and said that T-Birds got the roller cam from '89-up.

WTF???

Negativo -- Stock '86-up is roller block.  Is your car equipped with the factory block or was it swapped at some point?

I'm with V8 Demon.  Also I'd go get the car because they shouldn't be working on it if the car has the stock motor.

I just called them up and asked to check. The motor was rebuilt, so I guess it's *conceivable* that they didn't give me the stock block back, though I highly doubt it. I explained that the roller mounting holes should be there regardless, and he agreed that if that's the case, they should be able to swap out the flat tappet cam and lifters. So here's hoping...

Go down in person with a camera and take some pics.  Some people really do not know the differences even though they work on them all the time.....

Any passenger car 5.0 from 86 up is a roller engine.

mid to late 85 up for most cars. including our cars.

Huh?

They could've used a truck block when it was rebuilt.  And you can't just pop roller lifters and the hold down on if it's a flat tappet block...the lifter bores are too short in a flat tappet block to support a roller tappet.

Good luck,
Don

I just got rid of a 85.5 truck block that was a roller block, it had a flat tappet cam but the bosses for the spider had never been tapped...

The trucks had flat tappet cams until either 91 or 93.......The Frankensteins that they were -----  E7's(from the'87 model year up of course ;), 19 pounders, bank fire, and a flat tappet cam that had the same profile as the SO roller cam in the passenger cars.....

The reman COULD be a truck block, but NO PASSENGER CAR FROM 1986 onward with a 5.0 came from the factory with a F.T. cam.


Simple enough to remedy if the block is out of the vehicle and torn down, however it does not sound as if that's the case.....

I thought all 85 and up 302 blocks were the same? I know that flat tappet lifters can be used in a roller block so I figured that Ford would just use the flat tappet cam and lifters in a roller block and not tap the holes for the spider. Ford really went through the trouble to cast two different 302 blocks (with two different lifter bore heights) at the same time? That just sounds silly.

According to this site:
http://www.ffcobra.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2056722&postcount=3

The difference is the Roller block has the spyder boss tapped as well as having the area between the lifter milled to accept the dogbone.  I assume that the non-roller block lacks the flat spot for the dog-bone to sit.  Its the same block, the roller just received additional machining.

They sell link bar retrofit lifters but they are expensive.  After you buy the lifters, linkbars, and new pushrods, its pretty pricey.  Since the engine is open, maybe you should just buy a nice non-roller cam and some new lifters.  There are some good non-roller cams out there.

My old 87 is on a stand in the shop and it's definably a roller. If your's isn't something had happened.

Here is a Roller and Non roller side by side.  See how the top of the lifter bore has been machined on the roller block to accept the dog bone.
Roller

Non Roller

Yup.  If you aint doin' an entire tear down you'd be better off with a good FT cam, especially when cost becomes a factor.

Hey, Check out this article.  It looks like they just tapped the spyder bolt holes and installed the dog-bones.
http://www.mustangandfords.com/techarticles/mdmp_0909_1969_mustang_coupe_project_engine_build/index.html

-Dan

Whats the outcome on this? Since you never said anything from the first post.

I suppose I am mistaken...I'm so used to playing with 351's anymore, I'm forgetting 302 stuff...lol.