Aluminum Heads and Driveshaft

Vernon said:
Iceman, it's been stated several times in this post and I assure you it's correct, NO FORD 3.8s WERE MADE WITH IRON HEADS much less steel. If you want to check use a magnet. If you can get a magnet to stick to a set of 3.8 Ford heads I salaute you.

Ya, what he said. :)

As for Vernon's other points, I agree. we just answered the question differently.

It's all a balancing act. Loosing weight helps, so does more HP. It's all a matter of what is the best bang for the buck. Personally, I think a good set of heads, good exhaust system and a late style blower are the best bangs for the buck. Especially when you start adding more bolt ons later. With those basic mods (and the glass hood), mine made 260RWHP, 350 RWT and would run 14.5@95mph all day long.
 
Are there other manufacturers for aluminum fly wheels aside from Fidanza? Or are they the fly wheel manufacturers of choice? S'pose at 85k miles I might have to replace the clutch one of these days (especially with the way I've been driving it ;-)

Paul
 
Aluminum flywheels

Do we have 11" flywheels? If I get an 11" 164 tooth aluminum flywheel, will it work or is the SC unique? Could I get a 10.5" flywheel to work?

Dan
 
The flywheel/flexplate bolt pattern of 3.8s is the same as SBF so
any 302/351 flywheel will bolt up. You can bolt up any aluminum
zero balance SBF flywheel 157 or 164 tooth from RAM, SPEC, etc

Furthermore the bellhousing to block bolt pattern is the same as
SBF. Now I dont know if SC's use a weird length tranny or what
but I have a C4 with SBF bellhousing (and stock supercoupe
flexplate) behind my 3.8L V6 in my
Mustang right now and later will probably switch to a Tremec
with 157 aluminum SPEC flywheel.

Gaston
'98 v6 mustang
 
No Pony!

Sorry Darryl, No Pony for you.
Life is hard, and you have not been THAT good this year.
 
lol

Aint bursting my buble, cause i happen to have a set of them imaginary steel heads sitting off a 3.8 thunderbird sitting on the shelf over there that we did a valve job on it and got stiffed on. Not sure of the year but we've had them from about 85. Any buyer seem to be very opened chambers. and small valves.
 
stranger things have been found

I seen a 4 4 bble intake for max wedge dodge two on each bank on bob mazzolinis car , everyone said it didnt exist but he took fastest max wedge title with it. so steel heads not so hard to beleive but then again ive drank alot of egg nog.
 
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Re: lol

Icemanmd said:
Aint bursting my buble, cause i happen to have a set of them imaginary steel heads sitting off a 3.8 thunderbird sitting on the shelf over there

Post a pic of those nonexistant heads with a magnet hanging off of it. and don't
put the magnet on a guide, seat or freeze plug.
 
humm

didnt think of that, I guess they could be 3.0 Ill have to check them out when the holidays are over.
 
cougarsc great post

very informative its a keeper for me . put it on my favorites list , I learned a few things. thanks.
 
Gaston, your saying that a flywheel from a Small Block would bolt up. I have a 5-spd SC which wouold I need 157 or 164 tooth and would it need to be the stock 11"? Thanks
 
May this is why the motor mounts wear out so often.

From the above article:

"There was one other notable difference compared to the 1988 RWD block though: The balance shaft wasn’t used in the RWD motors in 1989, so the bearing bores weren’t finished, and the oil holes weren’t drilled. Apparently, Ford decided they could mask the primary imbalance in the RWD cars by underbalancing the engine and tuning the motor mounts, so they saved both the weight and the expense of the balance shaft for the RWD cars until they finally put it back in the Mustang engine in 1999. These blocks were either E9SE or F1SE castings. "
 
mn12sc35th said:
Gaston, your saying that a flywheel from a Small Block would bolt up. I have a 5-spd SC which wouold I need 157 or 164 tooth and would it need to be the stock 11"? Thanks

yes. 164 is what you have stock. i'm guessing they don't make a
157 flywheel for an 11" clutch (without going custom) but I could
be wrong. You can always go with a 157 and a new clutch, and if
you do that you'll need to make sure the input shaft length and
bellhousing height all work together.
 
But are the stock FSB flywheels also 164? If I understand you correctly, using a 164 I could retain the stock clutch size.

One last question: Would using a FSB flywheel cause any balance issues? Or would I be better off using a zero balance fly wheel and having the crank balanced? I'm alreday planning to purchase a new crank pulley/balancer that are also zero balance. Thanks
 
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Say SBF.

SBF flywheels are either 157 or 164, through the years and diff
sizes Ford has used both types.

I wont comment on the stock supercoupe clutch because I dont
know for certain if it has any weird things about it (i.e. extra
long input shaft, irregular size).

Using any zero balance SBF flywheel or flexplate will balance right

Gaston
 
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