I had to sneak this one in for #ThrowBackThursday.
One of my frequent reader sent over a couple of shots of him with his 1969 Dodge Coronet 440 from back in the day (1980). ‘Wish I kept this one!” Bill says.
Thanks Bill.
Nice Car Mr. Bill!!! Yeah…we all have one we should have kept.
Green 1969 Dodge Coronet 440 Chicago, Illinois Lucky Motors. Click on our link now to view our wide selection of new, used, and preowned cars, trucks and SUV’s.
It was 1969, and the B-bodies from the Dodge Boys were making some big waves. Dodge Charger 500s were tearing up NASCAR’s short tracks. Bewinged Charger Daytonas had broken 200 mph on […]
I love engines!!! Not just the big block, but some of the off beat, lower production/limited use, power plants. Of course that’s one of the great things about our hobby – there is a wide variety to choose from.
I haven’t writing a post in this series in some time, but just the other day, while on my hunt for a new project car, I ran across a Mercury project that had a 410 as the engine. I bet even if you are a die-hard Ford guy, you might not have run into this engine. This prompted me to do a little research which further prompted me to write what I found.
The 410 from a 1966 Mercury.
Most engines are derived from an engineered design that came before it. The 410 came in two different series. Produced from 1958 to 1968 it was part of the MEL series. MEL was Ford’s designation for Mercury, Edsel and Lincoln. From 1968 through 1976 it was in the FE series. The early MEL series 410 was used exclusively in the 1958 Edsel Corsair and Citation. It was also called the E-475 for it’s 475 foot-pounds of torque. It sported a 4.20 bore and a 3.70 stroke and a compression ratio of 10.5:1. Top that with 4 barrel Holly and it would produce, finish it off with dual exhaust you’ve got enough power to pull around those big Edsels.
The FE Series 410 was essentially Ford’s 390 (as was the 406) only given a bump in the stroke length (0.20″) to 3.98″ from the 390’s 3.78″. It used the same heads as the 390 (2.04 intake and 1.57 exhaust valves). Topped with a cast iron intake manifold and a Ford carb, it produced 330 horse power.
The MEL Series 410 was, as stated above, only installed in Edsel’s Cosair and Citation and that was only for 1958. That would make it an extremely limited use engine. It was a 4v Carb, produced about 345 horse power and 475 ft-lbs of torque with a compression ratio of 10.5:1.
The FE Series was also used in just two years, 1966 & 1967 and in just one sub-brand, Mercury. For those years the 410 carried a 4v carb produced 330 horse power and put done 444 ft-lbs of torque using 10.5:1 compression.
Production number for the 1958 Corsair was 9,987 units. For the Citation 9,299 units were produced. Together those tells you that there were about 20,286 for the 410 engines produced in the MEL version. I wasn’t able to find true production numbers for the FE series.
I haven’t check into the availability of parts for either 410 Series, but the MEL would seem unique and difficult source, however the FE shared most of the FE 390 engine. I do know that the MEL series engines had unique cylinder heads. The heads and block were milled at a 10 degree angle, giving them a wedge-shaped combustion chamber.
I did, in fact, pass on the project that prompted this post.
Thanks for reading. And if you have any additional information or want to share your project. Post here or on twitter (@AGCarRestore) or Facebook Average Guy’s Car Restoration, Mods and Racing.
I dont really want to pull the engine out of the car because i got an estimate on machine work, and the numbers are to high for my salary, Is there anything i can do to flush out the coolant ports(im not sure what the technical …
With the introduction of the FE and MEL engines in 1958, lessons had been learned in regards to exhaust valve placement and the new engines remedied this issue by either placing intake valves next to each other at the …
Here are your Auto Factoids (#AutoFactoids) for the first week in Feb. 2015!!!
I think we can call this Kaiser Week as 3 of our factoid are related to the Kaiser auto manufacturing. In fact the month starts right off with Kaiser factoid.
Feb 1, 1947 – Graham-Paige sold out to Kaiser.
Beautiful Supercharged car. 1937 Graham Custom Series 120
Feb. 2, 1899 – Renault Freres incorporates.
1899 Renault Type B Coupe
1900 Renault Type C
Feb 4, 1913 – Mr. Perlman patents a demountable auto tire-carrying wheel rim.
Feb 5th was a busy day in automotive history with:
Leaded gas available in 1923 (Ethyl)
Ethyl gas. Huge collectible these days.
AMC purchases Kaiser-Jeep Corp 1970.
This wouldn’t be the last move for Jeep, soon it would become part of Chrysler and then, as it is now, part of Fiat.
Mr. John Dunlop was born in Dreghorn, England in 1846. Of course he went on to start Dunlop tires. Here’s the beginning time line from History of Dunlop Tires :
– 1888 John Boyd Dunlop’s son is struggling to ride his tricycle. He is riding it because he has a heavy cold, for which a doctor has prescribed a very unusual cure: cycling. To make the child’s ride more comfortable, Boyd fits his tricycle with tires made of canvas bonded with liquid rubber. Boyd patents what turns out to be a very big idea.
– 1889 Cyclist Willie Hume is the first to adopt Boyd’s invention for racing, winning a slew of events. It’s the start of Dunlop’s legendary run of racing success.
– 1902 Dunlop wins the grueling Paris-Vienna race.
– 1922 First Dunlop tire using steel rods and canvas casing provides triple the service life of other tires used until then.
Feb 6 – One more time for Kaiser this week as they debuts their Sliver Dragon in 1951.
The Dragon was a series in 1951 and 1953 for Kaiser (There were no Dragon’s in 1951. This one has the Continental tire package.
The color was a Mariner Gray but dubbed “Silver Dragon”. The it was called the Dragon because of the padded vinyl top looked like dragon skin (at one point it was internally called the “Dinosaur”).
Feb 7 – There were a couple of happenings on Feb 7:
– Dutch introduced the first automatic transmission – the DAF 600 in 1958. DAF was a compact family car and the Variomatic was a continuously variable transmission.
– In 1942 the U.S. Government orders passenger car production stopped and converted to wartime purpose, which wasn’t immediately accepted by all car manufacturers.
The Kaiser cars were launched in 1947 and became the only new U.S. auto to achieve success after World War II. However, production stopped in 1955. After leaving Tucker, Brown had a long career in engineering, culminating with the manufacturing firm he …
