HISTORY: Is a 409 a stroked 348?

[DonziJon]

I had a friend back in the day, who had an "Original" 409. 409 cubes..409 horse. It think it was in '61 ..I want to say in a Biscayne..but not sure. The car really did not like to run on the road because it would overheat in a hurry no matter how "nice" you drove the car.

It went to the drags (usually towed) on Friday nights, and most Sundays in Northern NJ and turned in the 11s in the quarter. In those days, if you won your class, you could take home a $100. US Savings bond. My friend used these bonds to put himself through college.

A year or two later, GM came out with a brand new 409. It wasn't the same motor and it wasn't as fast as the original. BUT.... it didnt overheat on the road. :doh:

[Cuda]

I've never been a Chebby guy, but if I remember correctlly, the 348 and the 409 are based on the same block, and had the "scalloped" heads, if I'm not mistaken. Either way, they wouldn't run with a 406 Ford! :)

[ky-donzi]

I've had a few of each (348-409's)

They look the same, but have alot of differences. Same looking block, scolloped valves covers, ect. The bore is totally differet, so is the stroke. Also they use different connecting rod lenghts. The bore and stroke on a 409 is 4.31 X 3.50. A 348 bore and stroke is 4.125 X 3.25. The high h.p. 425 use taller heads too, so if you want to use aluminum intake you have to have the rare high horse power heads. Also its worth mentioning that the overall length of the two blocks are the same as the conventional chevy big blocks. Many people use 454 cranks in a 409 block to create a 472.

These engine were pretty hot in there day, and there is alot of intrest in them now.. eldeebrock is now making aluminum water pumps heads for them.

Cuda,,,,, as far as the Ford 406.....hum??? i'd have to think on that one.

[catch 22]

I've never been a Chebby guy, but if I remember correctlly, the 348 and the 409 are based on the same block, and had the "scalloped" heads, if I'm not mistaken. Either way, they wouldn't run with a 406 Ford! :)
THAT IS NOT TRUE. NEVER HAPPEN.

[bill44]

THAT IS NOT TRUE. NEVER HAPPEN.
I also owned a 409 cu.in. 409 h.p. (2-4bbl,4 spd, gears etc. etc.) Gas mileage 3 in town 6 on the hyway but at $.42 a cdn. gal. back in 1962 life was still great! I AGREE with catch 22.

An aside in canada I drag raced in A/s S/s and AF/x and honestly I occasionally had trouble with the odd 426 hemi or less frequently 426 wedge.

[Carl C]

Ky-donzi got it right. The huge bore and short stroke of the 409 made it a high rpm screamer, making 425 hp @ 6,000 rpm. I don't know how it could be based on a 348 block given the big diff in bores. I've never heard of a 406 Ford. Back then the Ford big block to beat was the 427 which also made 425 hp @ 6,000 rpm at it's peak in the mid '60s. Both had dual quads. Then there was the 460 cubic inch boat anchor........

[ky-donzi]

Carl C

The 406 belongs to the FE family of engines, this includes 352 (not 351) 360, 361, 390, 391, 406, and 427... might have left one out.

The 406 was a pretty hot engine but not as hot as a 409. 406 were in Galixse 500 and big cars until the 427 was introduces circa 63'

Ford has about 5 different V8 engine familes. Lots of step-brother, and half sister....

[Carl C]

Carl C

The 406 belongs to the FE family of engines, this includes 352 (not 351) 360, 361, 390, 391, 406, and 427... might have left one out.

The 406 was a pretty hot engine but not as hot as a 409. 406 were in Galixse 500 and big cars until the 427 was introduces circa 63'

Ford has about 5 different V8 engine familes. Lots of step-brother, and half sister.... OK, I took another look in the old shop manuals and the only 406 I see was in 1963. bore & stroke: 4.13 x 3.78. 405 hp @ 5,800 rpm. Not bad for 1963.

[ky-donzi]

Hum 1 year, I thought it last longer than that, pretty sure it was a worked over 390. it shared the same bore or stroke.... don't remember which tho.

[Lenny]

My Buddy that recently bought the 1970 Superbird also has one of these 348's. In this case a 1959 348 tri-power, convertible, 4 speed, Chevrolet Impala. Very cool and rare car.

[BUIZILLA]

my buddy Oscar down the street had a 63 Galaxie 500 4 speed conv. red/red, 406 tri power, 406 may have been around in late 62 but I can't swear to that...

[ky-donzi]

Lenny

I would love to have the 59 conv. I have a 59 Bel-Air 2 door post, Goin to do a frame off one of these days. Its in great shape but I want to to be excellent. Got a 409/borg warner 4 speed for it (car was original 6 cylinder) Got 58000 miles on it. My grandfather used it to deliver grocery for his IGA

[BigGrizzly]

I grew up in that ERA and raced and built all of them. Everybody is correct. There big differences in the 348 that casused over heating. It was out about 1958 with trips. The overheating could be easily fixed with a better radiator and some exhaust work. The piston design sucked. It was originally designed as a truck engine so high Rpms it didn't like. I won't go into the Ford Vs Chevy Vs Dodge discussion because I had them all and liked most all of them. My Mom had the first 421 Pontiac in the Delaware Valley. Another story in itself.

[ky-donzi]

The 58 348 and early 59 were the ones that over heated. The reason was that the cooling water didn't flow close to the spark plug. If you look at a 58 model head there is an area tha is about the size of a half dollar that has no water provesion around it at all, this is around the spark plug. The latter one were redesignd to allow water to flow past the spark plug.

On another note There was also a super rare Z-11 427 version of this engine (w head series). It had a two pc. aluminum intake manifold, was a longer stroke and I believe a slightly larger bore. This engine was developed to race nascar (hince the 427 cid) that was the limit I thnk I read 550 hp. Chevy had to produce 500 of them to be able to race. So I think they produced 501. They also had aluminum front clips pn the car, and everything inside was deleted (no heater, rear seat, ect.)

[DonziJon]

The particular car I mentioned in my first post HAD a Z-11 cam. We speculated at the time, that the reason for the overheating was because the overbored 348 left Very THIN cylinder walls and the cooling water coming in contact with these thin walls would just turn to STEAM and therfore do a really poor job of cooling.

We once DROVE the car to the drags on a Friday Night, to a drag strip that was a FIFTH of a mile (Northern NJ..can't remember the name). We never got there. We had jugs of water in the trunk to refill the radiator if necessary. IT WAS necessary. We could actually only drive about 4 or 5 miles (if that much) before we were at the side of the road filling up the radiator again. WHAT antifreeze?? :bonk: :confused:

If I remember correctly, the Class was AA/SS. I don't think the car was ever beat. :lookaroun:

[BUIZILLA]

they didn't have SS/AA back then in the early 348-409 days.....

and SS/AA was reserved for Hemi car's, which started in '65 and on >>>

'64 Hemi cars were first slated for NASCAR, although a couple sneaked out for street use, no more than 2 or 3...

most SS/AA was for '68 Hemi Cuda's and Dart's...

[DonziJon]

I think we called it AA/SS..."Double A Super Stock". I don't think this car was running as late as 1965 (but close), but I could be wrong. It's been a LONG time. :nilly:

[BUIZILLA]

they used to run the Gas class back then...

A/gas
B/gas
C/gas

and so on

then you moved to Modified

A/MP
B/MP
C/MP

and so on

or you ran an Altered class

AA/A
BB/A

and so on

Super Stock didn't really get rolling until the mid 60's or so and it was always SS first/then the SINGLE class letters...SS/A, SS/B, SS/C and so on if it was a stick, or SS/AA, SS/BA, SS/CA if it was an automatic.... and so on...

[DonziJon]

OK: Now my memory is starting to get foggy. I don't have any pictures of the car WITH the white shoe polish "Class Designator" on the rear quarter window. All I "think" I remember is AA/SS.

What would be YOUR guess as to what class a Z-11 409/409 Biscayne (turning in the 11s) would fall under. It was a Stick, had Slicks and ran on pump gas. I can't tell you what the carburation was.

BONUS HISTORY Quiz: What kind of engine did Art Arfrons have in his "Green Monster"? (1959) HINT: It was NOT a JET. :wink:

[BUIZILLA]

now if you played in AHRA, that was a different alphabet soup altogether...

[Gearhead99]

406 Fords were FE engines. 1962-1963, some had single 4 bar. and the others had 3-2 bar. holley's. The tri power engines also had solid lifter cams, cross-bolted main caps and a cast iron exhaust manifold that looked kind of like a short header.

They would run and run strong at 405 HP. One of the reasons Ford went to 427 was the 426 Wedge and Hemi. And a "Good" running [tweaked] 409/425 was a tough one to get by.

Remember Ford's advertisements were "Total Performance".

[Cuda]

Carl C

The 406 belongs to the FE family of engines, this includes 352 (not 351) 360, 361, 390, 391, 406, and 427... might have left one out.

The 406 was a pretty hot engine but not as hot as a 409. 406 were in Galixse 500 and big cars until the 427 was introduces circa 63'

Ford has about 5 different V8 engine familes. Lots of step-brother, and half sister....
You saved me a lot of typing.:)

My dad had a brand new Edsel back in 58, with the monster (at that time) 361. I remember him telling me about a 55 or 56 Chevy running up on him, which he knew only had a 265 engine in them, and he was going to show this guy what time it was! He told me it broke his heart, when he romped on the 361, and that Chebby still passed him Even though I'm not a
Chebby guy at all, I gotta admit, those mouse motors are some running machines! I think they only made about 10 billion of them. They might sure have been runners, but I'm still pissed the damn engineers couldn't figure where to put the distributor. :mad:

[Cuda]

THAT IS NOT TRUE. NEVER HAPPEN.
You need to send me Papa Catch's email address. I think he needs to be straightend out. Besides, I still owe him some chit, after his "Ford Blue" comments, when I first painted that intake for the 22. :)

He called me and asked me if that intake was for a 352, or a 390. The worse part about it, was, he was right! :(