New member with 289 potentially for sale

289, FIA & Daytona topics
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289mustang
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Joined: Fri Oct 07, 2016 2:05 pm

New member with 289 potentially for sale

Post by 289mustang »

Just joined up here, thanks for pointing me in this direction catsx11.

Firstly I love Cobras. I also love all things small block ford. I have a 5 bolt 289 currently residing in my 68 mustang. I would love to be able to put it in a cobra. Realistically, that's very unlikely to happen though. So it's very likely that It'll be up for sale over the winter as I've got a 351w to build and don't want to start hoarding engines.

It's a C4OE 6015 C block with standard main caps.
C4OE heads that were heavily ported by I.C.E. many years ago with 1.94/1.60 int/exh valves. Stud mount full roller rockers. Comp hyd FT cam 284/296. Holley single plane intake also worked by I.C.E., port-matched to heads. It has a 302 crank in it not a 289 which is the only snag to originality, although it does gain a bit of extra power in having that. Forged TRW Pistons. Holley 650 dp carb. ARP hardware. Felpro gaskets. Was put together a couple of years ago and has a few thousand miles on it since then. Would come with the 5 bolt bellhousing also.

I'd prefer to just sell the motor complete carb to pan with bellhousing also.

Would this be of interest for an authentic Cobra build?
Maxakarudy
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Re: New member with 289 potentially for sale

Post by Maxakarudy »

Obvious question, how much then?, you might get some interest then.
Martin
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Roger King
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Re: New member with 289 potentially for sale

Post by Roger King »

Given that the intake is a single-plane and has been tuned to match the heads etc., how high does it sit? There's a fair bit more room under a Mustang bonnet than there is under a Cobra's!
Interesting that you have an early engine in a '68, the usual route on engine expiry used to be a 302. The 351W should be fun in there, though - I have a stroked 351W in my '68 fastback and it's all you need, with a 5-speed box on the back. The hardest part is header choice - '68s never had the 351W block from factory, so choice is limited - and it's very tight in there.
289mustang
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Re: New member with 289 potentially for sale

Post by 289mustang »

I'll try to measure the height tonight as of course that would be a concern under a Cobra's bonnet. It's very similar in height to the eddy performer intake I used to have on there before with different heads. Does that intake normally fit ok on an 8.2" sbf in a Cobra bay?

Yep, peculiar that someone swapped an earlier block in at some point in it's life. Was in there when i bought the car, and as it was an early casting I thought I'd continue to work with it as they're supposed to be better than the later thin-wall sbf castings from what I've heard anyway.

I'll get round to putting a proper ad in the for sale section to make it officially for sale, but for a price, I'd be happy to part with it for 3k complete.
That's a price I've come up with after asking around on other used sbf sold prices. I'd be happy to hear anyone's thoughts on that price, but I think it'd be tough to put something similar together for that price. It's not a stock 289. I've not had it dynoed, but i've done the quarter mile sprint in it recently and it managed a 13.69 at 101.6 in a street orientated 68 mustang.
Colin Newbold
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Re: New member with 289 potentially for sale

Post by Colin Newbold »

It's not a HiPo then?
"How you see yourself is all very well, but it's how others see you that will determine the results you get as a leader!"
Paul Blore
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Re: New member with 289 potentially for sale

Post by Paul Blore »

I'm sure Roger will be able to confirm, but I don't think that a HiPo is anything more than a collection of carefully selected standard parts.

Paul
289mustang
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Re: New member with 289 potentially for sale

Post by 289mustang »

From my own research a hipo is a selected block with the thicker hipo main caps. Reproduction Hipo caps are made by the likes of Knight racing services and Cobra Automotive in the US to convert a standard 289 block to Hipo in their own words. This is then legal for FIA racing as a 'Hipo' block. As far as I know only certain block casting numbers were used as Hipo blocks, mine being one of them.
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Roger King
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Re: New member with 289 potentially for sale

Post by Roger King »

Best is to go through Bob Mannel's excellent book to give chapter and verse on Hipo engines, but basically there is no difference between a Hipo block and a 'standard' block. Blocks to be used as Hipo engines were pulled from the castings production line and checked for porosities, hardness etc. and if deemed OK went off to become Hipos. Not every block cast would be subjected to this testing so clearly several thousand 'Hipo possible' blocks were produced which ended up as standard engines. Once built, many (but not all) Hipo blocks were stamped or marked in some way with a number, depending on their intended application. Most also got a blob of orange paint behind the flywheel area.
Yes, more substantial mains caps were fitted to Hipos, which are the same as some Mexican engines reportedly used and can easily be retrofitted with a little height reduction and line-boring.
The differences between a 289 Hipo and a 'normal' 289 come down to the rotating assembly and head machining. In my opinion (and others), most of these changes are now irrelevant from an engineering point of view as modern materials and design renders them pointless to copy except, of course, for originality and provenance purposes. I am prepared to bet that none of the cars out at Goodwood run the Hipo's thinner timing gear set with the extra balance weight inside the timing cover - and if you were building for performance today you could do an awful lot better than the Hipo's cast iron '63-64 cylinder head design, which had exactly the same valve sizes and porting as the stock heads. Then there's forged pistons, which no Hipo ever had... the list goes on.
What 289mustang's engine does have going for it, is that it's a five-bolt block - as we know, no 289 Cobra ever had a six-bolt block from new. But you'll need a narrow-pattern gearbox casting to fit the bellhousing (and it should be a T10, which needs different chassis trans mount brackets)...
Summed up well here:
http://www.mustangandfords.com/how-to/e ... ng-engine/
Roger
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