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Ford "385-Series" Engine


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I recently bought an MPC 1970 Mercury Cyclone annual (original issue) and I want to put a correct 429 in it (the kit's engine options are both incorrect for 1970 : 428 (which is an FE) or the BOSS 429. 

Who makes a resin 429 ? Even more betterer - anyone got a complete 429 from the recent Revell Tornio GT a/o Cobra that they'd be keen on trading ?

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Look at what Iceman has, I believe he has the 429 BOSS engine. I would be interested in the stock 429/460 myself. The closest thing I can find are the 390/427 ones. VCG resins makes a very nice stock 352.

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13 hours ago, bobss396 said:

Look at what Iceman has, I believe he has the 429 BOSS engine. I would be interested in the stock 429/460 myself. The closest thing I can find are the 390/427 ones. VCG resins makes a very nice stock 352.

The 390/427 and 352 are a different engine family and they are FE, the 429 BOSS engine is right 385 engine family but it has the Hemi heads, the engine he's after is a wedge head 429-460 wich looks totally different from the BOSS.

The one in the Revell Torino is very good and I know I have seen one in 3D print or resin but I don't remember where right now. 

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I'm well versed on the difference. I used to have a big FE stash before my 1978 divorce and car accident. I had 332, 352, 390 and 406 goodies galore. The best I was able to sell to a guy I knew that restored high-end Ford muscle cars.

Then I took the dive into the 385 family around 1982 with the stock cars. This was a pre-1971 429 we got in a junk car. Taking the heads off was an epiphany of sorts. Canted valves, ports as big as goose eggs. That was a gateway drug, onto the 460 Fords and then into 496 cubic inch strokers.

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1 hour ago, bobss396 said:

I took the dive into the 385 family around 1982 with the stock cars. This was a pre-1971 429 we got in a junk car. Taking the heads off was an epiphany of sorts. Canted valves, ports as big as goose eggs. That was a gateway drug, onto the 460 Fords and then into 496 cubic inch strokers

One of my favourite examples of the 385 is the 505 cube stroker in the Sudden Death Mustang .

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Besides the Torino kits, the Revell '71 Mustang (007 version only) has a 429 engine.  Neither the Mustang nor the '70 Torino Cobra kit has optional engine parts like the Torino GT kit however.

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22 hours ago, 1972coronet said:

One of my favourite examples of the 385 is the 505 cube stroker in the Sudden Death Mustang .

The stroker we built was a kit from the old mail-order PAW that is no longer around. Everything was almost a 1-off in the kit. We had our engine shop go over it all and check things out before we started the assembly. The garage was set up like an operating tent and it went together smoothly. IIRC the compression ration was over 11:1, we ran it on AV gas.

Well, the thing was a beast until it blew in a race in 1983. My brother was running behind it in a big block Nova and drove right out of the cloud of smoke it gave off. The fans loved it, he finished like 2nd or 3rd.

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On 3/27/2024 at 12:53 PM, bobss396 said:

I'm well versed on the difference. I used to have a big FE stash before my 1978 divorce and car accident. I had 332, 352, 390 and 406 goodies galore. The best I was able to sell to a guy I knew that restored high-end Ford muscle cars.

Then I took the dive into the 385 family around 1982 with the stock cars. This was a pre-1971 429 we got in a junk car. Taking the heads off was an epiphany of sorts. Canted valves, ports as big as goose eggs. That was a gateway drug, onto the 460 Fords and then into 496 cubic inch strokers.

I thought your post was confusing as you mentioned that the closest you can find is the 390/427 and the 352 for that matter wich are FE engines and not close to a 385 family 429-460 at all, so I wanted to clarify it some for people who doesn't know.
The 429 Boss is based on the 385 family but very different from the wedge head 429-460, they share the bottom end but that's it.
I have also worked a lot on both FE engines and 385 engines, I have a 1963 1/2 Galaxie with a 390 wich I built a 445 "stroker" for recently, and I help my friend as a mechanic on his 460 powered super comp dragster, so I know my way around these engines.

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