FRPP Boss 5.0 Engine Block - Block Party

When the trucks started leaving the Cleveland casting plant bearing palettes of Boss 5.0 blocks headed for FRPP, they made an interim stop at one of Roush Industries many Detroit-area facilities. Here, the as-cast lumps of painted iron are given all the critical machining necessary to turn them into functioning modular foundations. To the uninitiated (like me), this Roush machining line is amazingly automated, with a trio of five-axis Makino A81 machining stations doing all the finish work, served by a computer-commanded conveyor system that methodically moves the blocks from station to station. It's great for consistency, and no back-breaking manual lifting is required.

The main caps are received as clumps of cast iron. At a separate station, they're converted into fully finished, drilled, and tapped caps with precise tolerances. The caps are then bolted to the blocks before the final crank boring is completed.

While we would like to have shown more meaningful photos of this facility, a lot of the procedures are proprietary and some of the ongoing projects are secret, so we were asked to limit ourselves to the task at hand.

Here's a palette of as-cast...        read full caption Here's a palette of as-cast Boss 5.0 blocks freshly arrived at Roush Industries for machining. Cleveland is reputed to have one of the strongest iron mixes of any FoMoCo casting plant. As you can see, there's a lot of boring, drilling, tapping, and grinding to be done.	This is the beginning: An...        read full caption This is the beginning: An as-cast block is secured to a fixture that takes it down an automated transfer line to one of three machining stations to commence whittling it into a finished block. It moves from station to station, each preset to machine different surfaces: front, rear, deck, bores, crankcase, and so on.	The lack of machining is confirmed...        read full caption The lack of machining is confirmed by a look down what will eventually become the cylinder bores. Gruesome, isn't it? Needless to say, the machining process not only makes these holes bigger and perfectly cylindrical, it also ensures they're absolutely perpendicular to the deck face/crank bore.
In order to keep secrets secret,...        read full caption In order to keep secrets secret, we weren't able to show much of the workstations themselves. In this top-down schematic, we took all our photos at the right end of the conveyor system, roughly where the yellow "007" indicator is shown. From there, the blocks move across the conveyor to the three machining stations shown across the bottom of the schematic.	It looks different after the...        read full caption It looks different after the cutting tools have been at work. As can be seen, even on the back face of the block there are a variety of chores to be addressed: holes need to be drilled and tapped, and various internal/external surfaces need to be machined.	Some of the more obvious machine...        read full caption Some of the more obvious machine work includes prep of the deck surfaces and boring the cylinders. As shipped to the customer, the cylinders still require final honing to the desired finish pattern-something that varies with the piston/ ring package selected and the preference of individual engine builders.
Here's how Roush receives...        read full caption Here's how Roush receives the main caps-a single casting lump comprising five caps. These go to a special station to be machined, drilled, tapped, and finally, separated into individual caps	The finished caps are then...        read full caption The finished caps are then bolted in place before the main bore receives the precise attention of the boring tools.	As best I can tell, this is...        read full caption As best I can tell, this is about it for the machine work. Before trundling off to the FRPP warehouse, the blocks are sprayed with rust inhibitor, the bores are stuffed, and the whole thing is wrapped before being boxed.