Ford FE Engine - Replacement

Replacement

The FE had been used in Ford vehicles extensively, across 3 decades. By the mid-1970s however, Ford had developed what it considered to be the successors to the FE: the 335-series engines, commonly referred to as Cleveland engines, and the 385-series engine. These new engines were produced in displacements ranging from 351 cu in (5.8 L) up to 460 cu in (7.5 L) and made the FE redundant within Ford's engine hierarchy. The last FE was installed in a production vehicle in 1976. In the late 1970s the Dearborn Engine Plant that produced the FE engines was completely retooled to produce the 1.6 L engine introduced in the Ford Escort in 1981.

Present-day interest in the FE engine supports the continued availability of parts and engine kits. A number of small-scale parts manufacturers, including Robert Pond Motorsports, and Dove Manufacturing, as well as larger companies such as Edelbrock, offer all the parts needed to build a brand new SOHC or other low-, mid-, or high-riser 427 engine.

Its thinwall casting production method was innovative and forward-looking in the mid-1950s when it was first used by Ford. Thinwall casting resulted not only in a lower weight for the finished engine, but also in dramatically reduced costs of production. Casting methods used by Ford's competitors at the time required thicker castings to mask the flaws and defects that resulted from their processes. Improving quality and allowing thinner walls was accomplished through many engineering improvements, including reducing the number of cores required to cast an engine block. Fewer cores made it easier to assemble the overall mold for casting and reduced the number of potential problems. Overall, the goal was to ensure that the manufacturing process, from pouring the iron to controlling the cooling rate was consistent pour after pour, resulting in few defects and high quality. In the late 1980s when both Ford and GM revamped their V8 offerings, many of the FE's designs and engineering were incorporated in the new engines, including the deep skirt, cross-bolting of the mains and thinwall casting.

In 2010, after spending billions of dollars for engineering and tooling, Ford introduced a completely new and redesigned engine for use in its trucks. Referred to internally as the Hurricane during development, it is now being marketed as Boss. The engine initially displaced 379 cu in (6.2 L), though the potential for larger displacements was engineered into the design. It had SOHC's actuating the valves via roller-tipped rockers, a bore spacing of 4.53 inches, a stroke of 3.74 inches, a bore of 4.015 inches, and a deep-skirted thinwall casting block with cross-bolted mains. The 1950s-designed 390 FE had a bore spacing of 4.63 inches, a stroke of 3.78 inches, a bore of 4.05 inches, and a deep-skirted thinwall casting block. The SOHC version of the FE with cross-bolted maincaps, developed in 1965, had single overhead cams actuating the valves via roller-tipped rockers. A 427 cu in (7.0 L) version of the new Boss engine was put together, and tested. It produced 700 hp, equal to the horsepower produced by Ford's 1965 427 cu in (7.0 L) SOHC FE.