History
The Ford 460 first came out in the 1968 Lincoln Continental weighing in at 4880 pounds. It made 365 horsepower and 485 lb-ft of torque at the flywheel. The 429 and the 460 were made at Ford’s Lima, Ohio factory, they share the same 4.36 inch bore size but different strokes. The 429’s is 3.59 inches and the 460’s is 3.85 inches. The 1969 cylinder heads are the most sought after (C9VE or DOVE castings). These heads provide the best factory flow and several sources agree that the 460 heads exhaust ports considerably restrict flow. The 1968 Lincoln Continental did zero to sixty in seven point zero seconds and the quarter mile in 15.3 seconds at 93 miles an hour – all five thousand pounds of it.
The output for the 460 starting in 1972 was 212 hp and 342 lb-ft of torque – these are dismal numbers compared to how the 460 started out but don’t forget the change from gross engine output to net engine output that changed in 1971. Another factor was the beginning of emission controls but the real killer was in 1972 the 460 went from 10.5 to 1 compression to 8.5 to 1. When fuel injection replaced carburetors in 1988 the output became 245 hp and 400 lb-ft of torque. It remained close to these numbers until Ford stopped producing the 460 in 1998.
Performance
For budget drag racing the 460 is a real consideration, keep in mind though the 460 weighs in at 720 pounds where the 302 is between 440 and 460 depending on the year. If an 1988 Mustang 5.0 makes 225hp and 300 lb-ft of torque is it worth swapping with the 460?
In January 2021 Motor Trend’s Truck Trend had an article: Big Block Ford Engine Build: Easy 500 HP from the Ford 460. The engine they used came out of a 1973 Lincoln Continental. They built the short block using Federal Mogul pistons and bearings and going 0.30 inches over on the bore so now it’s a 466. MT ended up deciding not to port the heads and went with Edelbrock’s aluminum Performer RPM heads that saved 60 pounds. Edelbrock’s Performer RPM package was used which included an intake and a streetable flat tappet hydraulic cam. With 9.6:1 compression, a 750-cfm Holley carburetor and 131/44-inch Hooker street headers.
Test 1 is using the Performer-Plus Edelbrock cam and the result is 503 hp and 508 lb-ft of torque. Test 2 employed the longer-duration Performer RPM grind. They weren’t satisfied with 503 hp so they added a 1-inch open-plenum spacer and a set of 2-inch headers. Horsepower jumped to 514 and torque improved to 565 lb-ft at 4,400 rpm.
Alternatives
What makes a 460? It’s cubic inches of displacement – it’s not how big the lump of metal or casting is. Ford Performance has taken its Boss Block to the max with the biggest small block Windsor crate engine ever – the Z460. With 575 horsepower and 575 lb-ft of torque, Z460 packs a punch that works well on the street and on the track. The foundation of Z460 is the Ford Performance Boss block with high port/high flow Z-Heads. Components from the best aftermarket companies are used throughout the engine, like a forged steel crankshaft, forged H-beam connecting rods, forged Mahle pistons and Clevite bearings.
More Performance
If big cubic inches are your plan, there are several stroker crank options. You can offset-grind the stock 2.500-inch rod journals down to 2.200 big-block Chevy pin size. Or use any one of three Scat cast stroker cranks. At 0.030-over, the 4.150-inch stroke makes 502 ci, the 4.300-inch stroke gets 521 inches, while the big 4.500-inch stroker take it up to 545 cubes.
Just now I watched another Junkyard 460 build on YouTube for under $2000 that ended up with 378 hp and 493 lb-ft of torque.
I go back to the fact that torque is king at the dragstrip even though you hear mostly about horsepower.
Parts availability? You can buy factory and aftermarket parts everywhere. Your local parts store will have most of the factory parts and online there’s an overwhelming amount of factory and aftermarket parts available and this is 25 years after Lima, Ohio quit making the 460.
For $10k you can pick up a big block Ford 502 with 515 hp and 585 lb-ft of torque. This is a crate motor you can order online.
The 460 is being put in the Bronco, the Fox body Mustang and many of the F – 150’s and older trucks. There is a lot of information online about these swaps – there is a website just for swapping the 460 into the Bronco with all of the details. I’m going to avoid saying there are bolt in swaps – there are simply different levels of difficulty and there is plenty of information online that you would be wise to check out before attempting a swap.
In 2016, August 8, EngineBuilder built a 460 stroker. This kit consisted of a 4.500” stroke forged crankshaft, forged pistons with 35 cc dish, SFI approved damper and 6.700 H-beam connecting rods. Because of oiling issue with the factory blocks they decided to go with an aftermarket block bored 0.30 over making the bore 4.390 inches and giving the motor a displacement of 545 cubic inches. Even the best of the factory heads have problems with exhaust flow so EngineBuilder went with aftermarket heads with 72cc combustion chambers and the compression ended up at 10.6:1.
For the intake they used a single plane with a Dominator flange and a 1050 cfm 4500 style carburetor. EngineBuilder used a custom camshaft.
The dyno speaks for itself.
ings to remember. Because of it’s torque it’s a great motor for medium trucks and RV’s. It’s also can be swapped into many Ford vehicles without too much difficulty. It’s torque and horsepower are easily raised and there is no shortage of aftermarket parts. The drawbacks are the oiling, the exhaust flow on the heads and the weight of the 460 (720 lbs).
Leave a Reply