FE Pressure Check Block

Pressure Checking And Sealing A Sleeved FE Ford Block

And Other Technical And Pricing Advice!

Using A Deck Plate For Pressure Checking Your Block Is a Handy Way to install A Head Gasket And Check The Sleeved Bore For Leaks.

Along With The Correct Sleeving Procedures An Additional Safety Step Is To Impregnate Under Pressure and Then Bake The Sealer Into The Block. This Procedure Takes Several Hours, A Large Electric Oven, But It's Worth The Time!

Installing The Cylinder Sleeve or Sleeves Needs To Be Done With Great Care.

If You Have A Damaged Bore (Cracked) And The Bore Has At Least An Inch Of Good Bore Left At The Top And Bottom You Will Probably Have A successful Repair. It's Important To Have The Block Magnafluxed And Personally Take A Look At The Damaged Bore. A Crack May Appear To Be Repairable But Under A Magnaflux You Will See Exactly How Bad It Really Is. The Block Is Lots Heavier At The Top And Bottom And Bore Cracks Seldom Continue After The Initial Damage When Sleeve Properly.

Installing Sleeves Using Liquid Nitrogen At The Correct Press Fit For The Cylinder Sleeve O.D. And Block Bore I.D. Is Critical For A Good Solid No Leak Installation. Using The Proper Sealer And Block Cleaner/Prep Is Also Important To A Good Seal. We Use Only The Best Quality 3/32" Wall Cast Sleeves And Measure The Outside Diameter At Twelve Points Then Averaging Before Doing The Final Receiving Parent Bore Size Calculations. A Three Axis Digital Readout Is A Nice Option If Your Machine Shop Has One And Will Help Get The Bores/Deck Aligned Correctly.

You Can See The Frosty Look Of The Liquid Nitrogen Seconds After Their Installation. The Sleeve Are Also Protruding Above The Deck Slightly. We Also Do Our Block Decking After The Sleeving Operations. You Should Always Have The Block Deck Height Measured Before Sleeving Or Any Other Operations To Insure You Are Still Somewhere Close To The Original 10.170" Stock Deck Height. It's Important To Know Before You Start A Project This Expensive To Understand The Ramifications Of Having A Block The Is Under The Stock Deck Height. We Generally Deck Our FE's To 10.160".

The Above Image Provides You With A View Of A Large Vertical Bore Machine Used To Properly Sleeve The FE Ford Block. You Can See The Size Of The Boring Bar Required To Keep The Parent Bore Run Out To A Minimum.

Although You May Actually Bore Into The Water Jacket On Some FE Blocks You Can Still Save Many Blocks Using The Additional Sealing And Oven Quick Baking Procedure Shown In The Beginning Of This Article.

Some Additional Insight Into The Pricing We Use At Our Shop On 427's:

(1) Clean Block 54$

(2) Magnaflux Block 48$

(3) Bore & Install Sleeves (8) 400$

(3a) Sleeves Figure On 25$ each(8) 200$

(3b) Liquid Nitrogen (stored in DOT Container) 36$ Min.

(3c) Hot Seal Block Sleeves 160$

(4) Final Bore On Sunnen CK10 W/Deck Plate 192$

(4c) Thread rear Oil Galley Holes and Do Additional Prep To Block 60$

(5) Align Bore Check Block 84$ (168$ W/ARP Bolts)

(5 Option) Install Pro-Gram Engineering Cross Bolt Caps 600$

(6) Square Deck To 10.160" 145$