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I'm going the other way from some of these posters...I would get an F150 with the 300 six and manual transmission. Take the head, port, polish and put in 1mm oversized valves. Maybe even shave the head 1/4 inch or so to raise compression. Put on an Offy intake manifold and either a 4 bbl carburetor or 2 two barrel carbs (might even work with 2 one barrel carbs). Maybe a new RV cam. My understanding is such a setup will net you about 200 hp and 300 lb/ft of torque. A very simple engine to work on going forward...
Most of the 76-79 pickups I have seen are not terribly expensive, around $3-4k for a nice one.
It is. The other thing I'd do if I had time, talent and money would be a Cummins NV4500 swap. Or a 7.3 diesel and a zf06 swap.
I was kind of thinking If the OP wanted to do that best he picked up a 1987-1997.5 F350 rolling chassis with a and just dropped a nice 1976-1979 body then again I would be kind of Leary of wrecking a donor truck like the one posted above esp. a factory Dana 60 SFA F350 with a 7.3 PSD and ZF-5
I'm going the other way from some of these posters...I would get an F150 with the 300 six and manual transmission. Take the head, port, polish and put in 1mm oversized valves. Maybe even shave the head 1/4 inch or so to raise compression. Put on an Offy intake manifold and either a 4 bbl carburetor or 2 two barrel carbs (might even work with 2 one barrel carbs). Maybe a new RV cam. My understanding is such a setup will net you about 200 hp and 300 lb/ft of torque. A very simple engine to work on going forward...
Most of the 76-79 pickups I have seen are not terribly expensive, around $3-4k for a nice one.
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Originally Posted by SD4020
You can't go wrong with the 300, either.
agreed, the 300 would make for a very good daily driver, that could still do some four wheeling and tow a moderate load. and it is an engine that is tough to kill, even with a nuclear warhead.
agreed. the years of ford pick up you are looking at are solid and reliable trucks. any of them will serve you well, but as noted they are getting long in the tooth and will need some restoration work. truck beds will usually be beaten up, and you will want to look for rust in the body around the corners of the cab.
what engine you look for though depends on what you are wanting from the truck. daily drivers will do nicely with the 300 six, or 302 V8. if you find one with the 351, try to get the 351 windsor over the 351m, which in my opinion is good for building a 400. if you plan on doing some towing, the 400 or 460 will do quite nicely.
in any case, when these engines need a rebuild, step up and upgrade a lot of the stock parts, most of us here can give you a good rebuild/modification plan so you can build a healthy power plant.
Speaking of rebuild with upgraded parts - I have a 75 F-350 with the 460, it has one burnt valve (almost certainly exhaust but have not done the leak-down test to confirm) on the passenger's side head. I want to keep the engine at least stock appearing so I'm keeping the iron heads.
What exhaust valves would you put in it? I'm thinking that if one valve is burnt, the rest are probably not in great shape. What about intake valves?
Beyond maybe doing some port matching and of course pressure test and surface the heads, what else would you do, with a mind more towards reliability than outright power (the 460 is strong enough for a pickup with an empty bed, thanks - I'm not going to get into "drifting" this old truck!)
Speaking of rebuild with upgraded parts - I have a 75 F-350 with the 460, it has one burnt valve (almost certainly exhaust but have not done the leak-down test to confirm) on the passenger's side head. I want to keep the engine at least stock appearing so I'm keeping the iron heads.
What exhaust valves would you put in it? I'm thinking that if one valve is burnt, the rest are probably not in great shape. What about intake valves?
Beyond maybe doing some port matching and of course pressure test and surface the heads, what else would you do, with a mind more towards reliability than outright power (the 460 is strong enough for a pickup with an empty bed, thanks - I'm not going to get into "drifting" this old truck!)
i would start by checking a place called competition products. they have low cost stainless steel valves that are good quality pieces.
i would also go in and port the exhaust side and straighten out the exhaust port as much as possible, as that is where you will get the most bang for your buck, the intake side flows enough air to feed a sikorski helicopter.
if the short block is in good overall shape, i would leave it alone, if not i would freshen it up and install a cam like the comp cams high energy 268h grind. it will pump up the power and fuel economy as well(comp cams says about 2-3mpg increase on average). if you dont want a flat tappet grind, then a similar hydraulic roller grind would do quite nicely.
i would top the engine off with something like a weiand stealth or performer rpm intake, and if you want to disguise it you can paint the intake ford blue and most people will never know it is an aftermarket intake.
for the exhaust a set of shorty headers with a 1 5/8" primary tube, and dual exhaust in the 2 1/2-3" range.
none of these mods will break the bank, will pump up the power in the low to mid range areas, pump up the fuel economy a bit, perhaps 3-4mpg overall, and will not affect the reliability or driveability of the truck.
So, would you put in Competition Products valves in both intake and exhaust, or just exhaust?
I'm planning to keep the stock manifolds, both intake and exhaust, if you could see how original and straight this truck is, you would understand why. I do realize that there are considerable performance gains available with a better intake and headers, but like I said this is more of a restoration than a hot rod project.
I have to think about a hydraulic roller cam though. That would not be visible from outside the engine...
Given that I don't generally haul anything like the full 10K GVW it's capable of, I'm wondering if changing out the existing 4.10 rear gears for a 3.42 would pay me back in gas soon enough to be worth doing? Either get an external compensation box to put in the speedo cable or change out the speedo drive gears if that's not too hard on a C-6 (to keep the speedo honest).
I have read the C-6 tends to not be MPG friendly. Outside of changing to a synthetic ATF, probably "it is what it is". Of course this truck is not going to crack 15 MPG without doing a lot of weird mods that would make it not able to haul like it does now. I don't drive it far or often, more of a curiosity that I bought simply because I got a deal on it and it was and is very original and straight.
I'm going the other way from some of these posters...I would get an F150 with the 300 six and manual transmission. Take the head, port, polish and put in 1mm oversized valves. Maybe even shave the head 1/4 inch or so to raise compression. Put on an Offy intake manifold and either a 4 bbl carburetor or 2 two barrel carbs (might even work with 2 one barrel carbs). Maybe a new RV cam. My understanding is such a setup will net you about 200 hp and 300 lb/ft of torque. A very simple engine to work on going forward...
Most of the 76-79 pickups I have seen are not terribly expensive, around $3-4k for a nice one.
I don't think you really intended to suggest shaving the head 1/4 inch. That is a lot of material to remove, would push the compression ratio way up, I would guess beyond what you could use pump gas with.
Or am I wrong about this particular engine? Never had a 300 or had one apart.
I don't think you really intended to suggest shaving the head 1/4 inch. That is a lot of material to remove, would push the compression ratio way up, I would guess beyond what you could use pump gas with.
Or am I wrong about this particular engine? Never had a 300 or had one apart.
So, would you put in Competition Products valves in both intake and exhaust, or just exhaust?
stainless steel valves all around. this will do two things for you;
1: it will prevent valve recession since the stainless wont stick to the valve seats
2: it wont burn like the stock valves will. i think competition products has valves in your size, if not then summit racing certainly will.
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I'm planning to keep the stock manifolds, both intake and exhaust, if you could see how original and straight this truck is, you would understand why. I do realize that there are considerable performance gains available with a better intake and headers, but like I said this is more of a restoration than a hot rod project.
not a problem with that, the stock parts are efficient enough in the rpm rang you are planning to run in.
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I have to think about a hydraulic roller cam though. That would not be visible from outside the engine...
its not a bad choice if you are getting into the engine at the bottom end. better ramp rates, better profile, etc.
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Given that I don't generally haul anything like the full 10K GVW it's capable of, I'm wondering if changing out the existing 4.10 rear gears for a 3.42 would pay me back in gas soon enough to be worth doing? Either get an external compensation box to put in the speedo cable or change out the speedo drive gears if that's not too hard on a C-6 (to keep the speedo honest).
not sure how much of a hange in fuel economy you would get going to the higher gear, i would run the numbers based on a 2mpg increase though and see what you get.
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I have read the C-6 tends to not be MPG friendly. Outside of changing to a synthetic ATF, probably "it is what it is". Of course this truck is not going to crack 15 MPG without doing a lot of weird mods that would make it not able to haul like it does now. I don't drive it far or often, more of a curiosity that I bought simply because I got a deal on it and it was and is very original and straight.
What do you think?
it is what it is. the C6 is a big heavy duty trans that has similar gear ratios to its little brother the C4. about the only way you are going to increase fuel economy in that area is to replace it with something like an AOD-E, you would need to add a trans controller though, or with a gear vendor overdrive. either way you are looking at anywhere from $2500-3000 for the swap. if you are not driving the truck very often, i would just make the upgrades that makes sense and leave the rest alone until the time comes that you need to attend to them, then consider upgrading.
Thanks, bud, for the advice! The rear end gears resulting in 2MPG is about what I am guessing/estimating as well. The truck is just in very good shape for a 40 year old truck, most of these heavy duty trucks were run into the ground, this one escaped that fate, I think it was actually used as a camper hauler as originally designed.
The stainless valves are going onto the parts list. Wonder if I ought to get new springs as well? Stock or aftermarket? No extra labor charge to put it together with new springs, unless your experience is that the stock springs last about forever.
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