Fords fron distributor design is superior to chevys rear distributor

I agree with most everything that has been said here, but only on race motors that are seeing high RPM............in a race engine you are always looking for ways to make more HP.............and flex in any component can only be a bad thing...............and at RPM flex can cause harmonics.......

So, just a couple of things to look at a little more closely.
The Chevy uses a cam gear that drives the distributor and uses a pin that makes direct contact with the oil pump shaft.
A Ford uses a cam gear that drives the distributor and then uses a long shaft from the bottom of the distributor that connects to the oil pump.
There is a considerable amount of flex in that shaft, the reason a lot of people have gone to bigger/round billet shafts.

I have driven a Chevy when the distributor pin sheared off...........and the motor keeps running.............without oil pressure.
I have never seen a Ford destroy the pump shaft and keep running, but have seen the pump sieze and destroy the distributor gear and cam gear.

As for flexing....................valve trains in both engines flex, it's just not all about forces at the rear or front, but forces caused by lifters, push rods and rocker arms....................they all contribute to cam flex.........kind of like crank flex at higher RPM.
A lot people have used crank ignition systems, shaft mounted rocker arms, roller lifters, 3/8"+ push rods.......but for a street car I really don't think it makes any difference......unless you are shooting for a 1000hp motor,IMHO

 

I've done it dozens of times on my engines, friends engines, etc. For various reasons, simply trying different manifolds to see what ones perform best, leaks of different types on vehicles I've bought, swapping to dual quad cross ram, remove and glass bead for a show season, swapping cylinder heads, repairing cylinder heads, the list goes on. I would have really hated to have to pull the distributor every time! And the only times you could say I did it because I screwed up an install was when I was a teenager and the stupid cork end seals kept squishing out. That's why I haven't used end seals for probably 25 years or so. And no I don't ever pull the distributor to remove an engine. There's no reason in the world to do it.

 

If you're running a Cleveland ? Never. Which also goes towards that post about the SBC having superior heads, that was true compared with Windsor heads, but so so against the Clevelands. The only reason that Chevy's held the upper hand (when they did) was due to factory support. It had nothing to do with it being a superior engine design as far as the SBC goes. If that were true then it would still be around in production cars. Look at their current offerings in the V8, it's got far more in common with pushrod Fords than the old SBC.

 

Didnt mean to direct the install screw up at you specifically. Just being a wise ass. See too many repeat intake jobs in this trade.

 

Oh I know man! I didn't take it the wrong way. I've got thicker skin than that!

Baddad, yeah I think all of the manufacturers have "borrowed" the good ideas from each other over the years. GM has certainly done something right with the LS motors ( I think that's what they're called ) because for what they are, a pretty simple low tech pushrod engine they sure make respectable power and it's super easy to make a ton more power with simple bolt ons. A true hot rodders dream. Now on the other hand why they keep making pushrod motors us beyond me when it's antiquated technology. Yea I know it works. On the opposite end of things I love the new 5.0 in my 2012 mustang. That thing kicks ass out of the box. Ford has been doing a great job with the modular style motors. Even my sons 2006 mustang 4.6 is a pretty impressive motor for it's size. And responds very well to simple mods. See there, I just patted GM and Ford on the back. I'm a ford guy all the way but I'm grown up enough to see that both manufacturers have done some pretty cool stuff. (I wish ford came out with the duramax diesel!)

 

I had a 3V 4.6 in an 06 GT also. The only thing Ford blew on that engine was it's looks. They completely missed the boat after killing the 7.3 diesel. They should have adopted the Cummins instead. As for supporting anything GM now ? Ain;t gonna happen after the job Obama did in handing GM over to the unions and shafting the stock holders.

 

Forgot, baddad,
You dont need to pull dist. to remove intake on windsors either. Not sure what you meant there. And smallblock vs. Smallblock ( not counting Cleveland) I DO think the chevy advantage was mostly due to the superior cylinder heads. Not saying you're wring about the factory support thing but I just dont think any amount of factory support could have helped the Windsor head design. Cleveland on the other hand whole nother animal. And I do mean animal! Can't remember who it was but there was a famous engine builder who said the 351c engine had the most HP potential of any factory engine ever designed. I think it may have been a chevy guru who said it if I'm not mistaken.

 

im surprised that nobody mentioned setting timing on a chevy is more of a pain. its a pain to check the timing marks with the light then go back and turn the distributor then come back and recheck. where on the ford you can reach the distributor easily as you watch the timing marks.
then i dont know how many hei's have zapped me when reaching for them to adjust.
also they are in my opinion ugly.

 

No it's not that hard, just an extra step to take up your time.

 

ive always hated trying to get the chevy distributor to line up with oil pump shaft. i would consider that another minor thing with the chevy distributor design.

 

I do know I wouldnt want to mess with a chevy dist location in a maverick. I bash my damn head on the hood enough as it is. Also dont like leaning on our pop can fenders. Glad my dist is in the front.

 

As much time as I spend leaning over the fenders..........even making sure I am careful and putting padding on the fender..................up close and personal the tops look like other people haven't.............just a little wavy.

 

Not much. I was just thinking about working on them when I was a kid.Long time ago.

lol No trailer Queen here. Their ment to be driven and I do. I do park them for the winter.

 

I have to say that I'm really enjoying the "bench engineering" discussion much more in this thread as everyone get's along and checks the ego at signin a bit better. A few highlight's I picked up on in no particular order of importance:

Cleveland's canted/splayed valve layout was what all the hubub was about(particularly the effect of unshrouding the intake at higher lifts) but that motors exhaust port design hardly even compares to an out of the box SBF inline valve head these days much less to any Chevy. That and the 385 series motors exhaust port actually HOWLS on the flow bench(never would have believed the stories that it was so loud until I actually heard it for myself) when the ass rips off the cone at higher lifts. Heck.. even the junk chinese SBF heads can best them with very small amounts of basic work. It's not until you cut the exhaust port off to plate them to make those Cleveland castings into high-ports that you can truly start to unleash the potential. They respond quite well to the stingers/port plates too which lends credance to how bad they are in stock form. Even then though.. the canted layout is still far from perfect and some aftermarket shops are moving them around even moreso to better the designs inherent shortcomings. And I won't even go into who copied who on that deal since it's often been speculated(normally in Ford vs Chevy threads just like this one) that the big Chevy mystery motor came along with heavily splayed valve designs first. However we got them though.. is fine by me and all the raciest heads use similar designs with some trickle down effect making it into some of the stuff that I can afford to run on the street.

The mod motors heads SUCK tortilla chips! Sure they can be mod'd(heh heh.. "mod mod's") and massaged to be better than stock config's.. but until you start moving valves and changing the angles like the trick flow castings do?.. they are far from even remotely close to what most engine builders will call "good" for what Ford left on the table. It's almost as if Ford engineering doesn't even own a damned flow bench or know what a pitot tube is. Pretty sad stuff.

Yeah.. Chevy finally wised up and went towards the Fords intake port layout and was really no big surprise there. But in their defense(why do I feel like a "Chevy guy" lately?.. lol).. they had already been using it for quite some time with their SB2.2 racing design. Wasn't until more recently that they came the rest of the way back towards normal with the LSx to finally quit pairing the exhaust ports to eliminate hot spots and equalize flow patterns.

I do like the ease of mod's/maintenance with the Fords front location.. but it sucks for aesthetics. I like the aesthetic's of the Chevy.. but as I get older it's more of a PITA to mod/maintain. Also very valid to assume that you can pull a Ford without engine leanback crushing the cap all to hell as the trans comes off its mount.. not so easy on the Chevy which usually forces me to pull it first. Another good point brought up is engine setback potential and that's another no-brainer checkmark added to the Fords "pro" column.

Not sure if I'll get in trouble for posting this here since it's a Chevy motor and not in a Maverick(and yes.. I actually did think about it too!.. mainly because it's already built, tuned, and paid for.. LOL) but I like this "clean look"(and I damned near polished my ass off to get it this way). Tough to see all this detail work on a SBF. Hopefully we see fit that it's still on topic enough to be relevant to the discussion.


No hate mail please. The truck was bought for slightly more than a song and a dance many years ago only needing transmission work because the idiot didn't know how to adjust a TV cable correctly. Also had huge .130 holes in the primary throttle plates along with monkey rigged air bleeds because he was trying to tune out the massive intake leak caused by an incorrect gasket/phenolic spacer under the carb. 2nd to last build this little puny 2.02 valved RPM headed 383 motor dyno'd at 563/496 with a little 242 degree solid roller pulling 15 inches of vacuum at idle.

Anywho.. I love talking about this stuff so keep it coming. And we need more Ford pic's!

 

What's ugly about this ? (Other than the engine compartment itself hey it's a $400 car ! )