rare ford engine

[c9zx]

I saw this engine today (tunnel port 302). It is the first of it's kind I've seen since 1977. Chuck

 

[Mikes73]

That thing looks like a beast, I'm sure it has a ton of top end power.

 

[c9zx]

That thing looks like a beast, I'm sure it has a ton of top end power.

It was good idea gone wrong. The heads liked 8000 RPM but, the bottom end didn't. Slide a 347 under the heads and intake and it might work well. I just thought it was cool.

 

[secluff]

Chuck, I'm glad some of us "Old School" guys are still around that remember these engines . If not, a lot of the younger members here would have no ideal just how serious Ford was about the "Total Performance" effort in the 60's and early 70's. Some of the outrageous things Ford actually had built or had in the works would blow peoples minds. I had never seen a tunnel port 302 in person, but had heard of them. Was in tech school in Wichita Falls, Texas in early 71 and had taken a friend to Dallas to catch a flight. On the way back I stopped at a road course track and talked to a couple of guys that were running Boss 302 powered Mustangs. Remember him saying he was not impressed with the tunnel port 302. Said they screamed on top end, but had no bottom end power coming out of slower turns and experienced a lot of blown engines.

I have a first printing 1968 Mustang brochure that does show the tunnel port 302 and the W code 427 in the available power train line up. Thunderbolt 427 Fairlane's, lightweight Galaxies, SOHC 427's, those were indeed some good times. Sleeper of the year award would go to a retired Air Force E9 friend of mine who ordered a 66 LTD with a R code 427 (2 4bls) with a 4speed. Those were the days when you could go into a Dealership and they would ask you how many carburetors would you like with that 4 speed!! And....something the 429 fans will like, we almost had a 460 CJ. I had gone to Charlotte to a pre-launch meeting on the Super Coupe T-Bird and XR-7 Cougar. Was talking to one of the engineers on how much I liked the 429 CJ and the one I had built to replace the N code 429 in my Gran Torino. He told me that they had actually built some 460 CJ's and were testing them in a 71 Mercury Cyclone. About the same time Henry Ford II made the famous declaration "No Further Development on High Performance Cars or Parts". All departments had their budgets cut, and course the 460 CJ program was one of the causalities.

 

[Mikes73]

That thing looks like a beast, I'm sure it has a ton of top end power.

It was good idea gone wrong. The heads liked 8000 RPM but, the bottom end didn't. Slide a 347 under the heads and intake and it might work well. I just thought it was cool.

Yeah, I read all about them in my Ford high performance interchange book.

 

[donkost]

I recall reading somewhere there was even talk of a 500 cid or larger big block by '72. Of course the rug was pulled out from all of that as described above. It would have been interesting to see if they did anything to stiffen up the chassis for that monster. Even the 429 cars should have had subframe connectors. No one cared much about the rigidity of the chassis on the street as long as it went fast in a straight line. heh

 

[Bill73Ragtop]

Nice! I read about them back in the day, but never seen one. As noted, I also heard it was one of the 'Nice try - no dice' efforts.

Some of the big block high performance engines Steve mentions brings kind of a sad 'could have been' feeling since many of are well aware that the 71 body style was designed to accept those monsters without issue.

 

[c9zx]

I think 514 SCJ has a nice ring to it. Chuck

 

[DK73]

Wow that is so awesome photo [THUMBS UP SIGN] Well I would say that too much RPM is not good! But dame it is a awesome enginen [sQUARED COOL][THUMBS UP SIGN] Regards Lars

Sendt fra min E2303 med Tapatalk

 

[Carolina_Mountain_Mustangs]

We had one of these go through our shop back in the 60's. They had rocker arm shafts instead of studs. The valves were too big. Carol Shelby did a good job keeping his together but those that took the engines straight from Ford had issues. Some think they were sabotaged to make the Boss 302 win out to be used for racing. I seem to recall that Ford sold about 800 of them when they cleared them out and went the Boss route.

I have looked for years and only found the rockers and they were $1,800.

The guy that owns the mustang junk yard in N.C. Scotty Strickland has one of the 427 tunnel ports in a 69 CJ Mustang. It shakes the ground. He was surprised when he opened the hood and ask me if I knew what it was I said 427 tunnel port. GM tried to copy the tunnel port in the 303 Pontiac trans am Ram Air V engine. We built one for GM that Buck Baker ran for them in NASCAR Trans Am racking for 2,000 miles and did not blow. My boss would not give GM the engine back so they did not know what we did to make it live none other had lasted a full race. We did not use the Tunnel port heads they laid in the dirt in back of shop for years. Don't know where the heads, two sets and intake went but they are like gold to collectors now.

I have said a few times the W 427 mustangs keep showing up here three now in collectors hands.

Would they sell the 302 tunnel port eingine? Is it complete or just a stand engine?

One of our Australian members said some made it to Australia.

 

[c9zx]

We had one of these go through our shop back in the 60's. They had rocker arm shafts instead of studs. The valves were too big. Carol Shelby did a good job keeping his together but those that took the engines straight from Ford had issues. Some think they were sabotaged to make the Boss 302 win out to be used for racing. I seem to recall that Ford sold about 800 of them when they cleared them out and went the Boss route.

I have looked for years and only found the rockers and they were $1,800.

The guy that owns the mustang junk yard in N.C. Scotty Strickland has one of the 427 tunnel ports in a 69 CJ Mustang. It shakes the ground. He was surprised when he opened the hood and ask me if I knew what it was I said 427 tunnel port. GM tried to copy the tunnel port in the 303 Pontiac trans am Ram Air V engine. We built one for GM that Buck Baker ran for them in NASCAR Trans Am racking for 2,000 miles and did not blow. My boss would not give GM the engine back so they did not know what we did to make it live none other had lasted a full race. We did not use the Tunnel port heads they laid in the dirt in back of shop for years. Don't know where the heads, two sets and intake went but they are like gold to collectors now.

I have said a few times the W 427 mustangs keep showing up here three now in collectors hands.

Would they sell the 302 tunnel port eingine? Is it complete or just a stand engine?

One of our Australian members said some made it to Australia.

I doubt he'd sell it but, you never know unless you ask. It looked complete and I suspect it is as everything on display is operable.

Chuck

 

[4Vforever]

Great pic of one of Fords (not so) great racing engines. Unfortunately it was not a great racing engine, as has been said, they had to ring the neck out of them to do anything and at those high revs, the engines became unreliable and constantly failed.

As David said, some of these engines did find their way to Australia. Bob Jane purchased one of the ex Shelby T/A cars and kept blowing engines sky high. I think that deal soured his relationship with Ford, because after this his racing efforts went with GM. Infact the car that replaced that Mustang was a 69 ZL1 Camaro, actually he purchased two of them. One manual and one auto that his brother drag raced for a while. Before selling the auto car, he pulled the engine from it and this engine now resides in the restored race car today, as for the auto car nobody really knows what happened to it.

The closest I've come to seeing a tunnel port 302 was a bottom end in bits and a pair of NOS heads still in boxes nearly 25 years ago. This guy had heaps of very rare Ford racing stuff and quite a lot of NOS parts. I'd love to know what's happened to it all or even if he's still alive. Would be worth an absolute fortune what this guy had in his collection.