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Hey guys, so two or three times a year I come down to see my family in Minden, NV and my uncle has a couple of older trucks hanging around the property. His project truck is a 1988 Ford F250 with the 5.8L V8 and an automatic transmission. I was telling him about the cat deletes I have on my Genesis Coupe (I had a guy pull up to me the other day and he was thoroughly amused by the flames I'm shooting out from the dual exhaust under WOT) and he mentioned that on his truck the cat's aren't as simple as replacing a single pipe as there are two pipes going into a flange for the cats. He lives in a county that doesn't require smog testing so he's looking to delete his cats as well. I haven't had a chance to look under the truck yet to see what he's talking about but I figured we had a few guys on the forums who knew a bit about these trucks. Along with the cat deletes what else would you guys recommend to get some more power out of it? It's a carb'd engine which I've never worked on. I'm used to tuning modern fuel injected cars with ECU programming and a laptop hookup so looking at a carb is very alien to me.
As a second question, my uncle also would like to install a winch onto the front of the truck and he was telling me that the factory bumper is far too thin to support a winch. From my quick research on the Ford truck forums it looks like a lot of guys modify their bumpers or have some sort of winch mount installed. Anyone know of a good way to do this? This winch will be put to work and needs to support a heavy load (will be pulling cords of wood).
Hhhmm...I was almost certain by 1988 all Ford trucks with the V8's were EFI. No..?
Depending no what kind of carb is on the engine. I know how to tune a Holley. It's a matter of changing jets inside the bowl to give you the amount of fuel needed into the ventruis of the cab. Also the power valve gets changed (if req'd) to meet the vacuum of the engine.
You can obtain more power by going with a better exhaust system....like long tube headers, bigger exhaust pipe (don't go too big - a dual 2.5 inch or a single 3 inch should be all you need), a good flowing muffler (not a Flowmaster - they're really only good for making the exhaust sound good), advancing the timing a little.
If you want to get more in depth, a camshaft swap can help. So can a slightly higher stall speed torque converter.
I was telling him about the cat deletes I have on my Genesis Coupe (I had a guy pull up to me the other day and he was thoroughly amused by the flames I'm shooting out from the dual exhaust under WOT)
I have a hard time believing your little Hyundai with a cat delete shoots flames out of the exhaust under WOT, considering a Porsche 911 turbo in race trim will only throw flames under decel.
I know guys who setup spark plugs at rear of exhaust and fllod engine before starting to bet flames out rear. never seen this with a long exhaust .muct be very rich indeed and very hot exhaust.
Your uncle has an early production 1988 F250 if it's a carbed engine. The carb is a Holley. Because it is a Kalifornia truck, I would assume it came as a CARB Compliant truck which means it has the Kalifornia emissions on it. The header pipe will terminate right at the cat from each side and it should have only one cat. This might be what he's referring to. He can drop the entire exhaust system and start at the exhaust headers and go to the back with true duals if he just wants the noise. If he's expecting any performance gains, unless the current system is clogged he'll probably not only not see any any gains but it's highly likely he'll see low end torque drop. Dumping duals on most vehicles and expecting gains is just dumb. The issue is with exhaust temps. With any dual exhaust system the flow rate to the exit point is much slower than a single. As such the temperature of the gas cools and becomes heavy. The engine is now having to push the heavy gases out which means it runs much higher paschal weight inside the pipe over that of a single unit. By 1988 the exhausts were not restrictive like a 1950's engine so gains are slim to none. Now if he goes with larger carburation, cam, bigger valves, then he probably would need to update the exhaust. But on a stock or close to stock engine, all yer doing is making noise. The 5.8 was always the dog in it's class. If he wants a screamer in a 3/4 ton truck, he needs to find a 385 block out of an old Mercury and start building it. I ran one in my squirt boat making 2800HP that turned 10,000 RPMs. They can be made to run and there's no lack of power even with a stock engine. The 385's even make the FEs look weak.
I have a hard time believing your little Hyundai with a cat delete shoots flames out of the exhaust under WOT, considering a Porsche 911 turbo in race trim will only throw flames under decel.
I'm running upsized injectors, full boltons, reflashed ECU and the flames are certainly there. I didn't actually know this until a few days ago when a stranger who pulled up next to me told me how cool he thought it was. I don't have any intention to shoot flames but its good to know its there so I can watch myself around law enforcement. To clarify, of course the flames aren't shooting out while I'm on the throttle. It's every time I do a WOT (or even 70%+ throttle) run anywhere near redline and then release the throttle to shift gears (or slow down altogether).
BTW, I don't care how "little" you think the car is but a stock turbo car runs a 13.3 quarter mile with bolt ons and pulls .95g's on the skidpad. I'd say those are some praise worthy numbers. Things get really interesting once the turbo is replaced and the suspension is modified.
Last edited by iTsLiKeAnEgG; 02-18-2012 at 06:24 PM..
Your uncle has an early production 1988 F250 if it's a carbed engine. The carb is a Holley. Because it is a Kalifornia truck, I would assume it came as a CARB Compliant truck which means it has the Kalifornia emissions on it. The header pipe will terminate right at the cat from each side and it should have only one cat. This might be what he's referring to. He can drop the entire exhaust system and start at the exhaust headers and go to the back with true duals if he just wants the noise. If he's expecting any performance gains, unless the current system is clogged he'll probably not only not see any any gains but it's highly likely he'll see low end torque drop. Dumping duals on most vehicles and expecting gains is just dumb. The issue is with exhaust temps. With any dual exhaust system the flow rate to the exit point is much slower than a single. As such the temperature of the gas cools and becomes heavy. The engine is now having to push the heavy gases out which means it runs much higher paschal weight inside the pipe over that of a single unit. By 1988 the exhausts were not restrictive like a 1950's engine so gains are slim to none. Now if he goes with larger carburation, cam, bigger valves, then he probably would need to update the exhaust. But on a stock or close to stock engine, all yer doing is making noise. The 5.8 was always the dog in it's class. If he wants a screamer in a 3/4 ton truck, he needs to find a 385 block out of an old Mercury and start building it. I ran one in my squirt boat making 2800HP that turned 10,000 RPMs. They can be made to run and there's no lack of power even with a stock engine. The 385's even make the FEs look weak.
Noise alone is definitely not what he's after so if noticeable gains aren't expected then we might just leave the exhaust as is. My uncle lives in Minden, Nevada so I'm not sure if it was originally a California truck.
And are you sure it has a carb? By 88, I'm pretty sure the 351 was FI.
Mike
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