Like the title suggests, anyone ever seen 45 Degree .921 Lifter bores on an E block before? I was under the impression these are all supposed to be 39Deg blocks, but I'm like 99% sure these lifter bores are on the same plane as the cylinder bores, and 90 degrees to the head deck. Has anyone ever seen that combination before or am I going crazy? This was in a 66' 442 with the L69 package, but has quite a few other goodies and is .04" over so it's been out before, but the block casting seems correct, but the lifter angles don't. Car idled and ran like it had some monster cam in it, but when removed it was a XE274H-10 which to me doesn't seem too outrageous for a street car. Any thoughts?

 

Do you have a small carpenters square ? It looks to me like your caliper is leaning away from the cylinder at the top but its hard to tell for sure with a picture.

Or if you have a small very accurate level put it on the deck and get it perfectly level, then put a lifter in the bore and put the level on top of the lifter and see if it matches the deck.

Take a look at this picture. I remember looking at it when I was working on a 425 a couple of years ago and it was accurate,. Going by this yours is 39

 

Loose the caliper, use a piece of PVC pipe. It will be obvious. I'm also not sure what that piece of angle aluminum is supposed to be doing.

 

Every E block 400 is a 39 degree. 921 lifter block.

 

Yeah, I figured it out today. The actual angle is 42Deg. Which is I learned is typical of a "39" block. Not sure why they didn't just call it that and save some confusion... But that sounds like it'd be as productive as talking politics, at any rate I figured it out. Thanks guys.