Building my 360/390 for towing

[sideoilerfe]

Also i know it doesn't really matter for anything but I thought i'd add that the engine has 63,000 original miles.

First, if the engine only had that many original miles, why did you tear it apart?
2nd, If it only has 63,000 "original" miles then explain the .020 over pistons that are NOT full skirt?

If you're going to spend all this money, just do it right and do it all. Replace everything. Take it to a reputable machine shop and have them machine everything including the heads. And have the exhaust side of the heads machined along with the exhaust manifolds and bolt them together without gaskets and have no leaks.

By the way, towing an F250 with an F100 is not a good idea.

[1971ford]

Also i know it doesn't really matter for anything but I thought i'd add that the engine has 63,000 original miles.

First, if the engine only had that many original miles, why did you tear it apart?
2nd, If it only has 63,000 "original" miles then explain the .020 over pistons that are NOT full skirt?

If you're going to spend all this money, just do it right and do it all. Replace everything. Take it to a reputable machine shop and have them machine everything including the heads. And have the exhaust side of the heads machined along with the exhaust manifolds and bolt them together without gaskets and have no leaks.

By the way, towing an F250 with an F100 is not a good idea.

I took it apart beacause I am doing a complete body off rebuild on the '69 and i figured i might as well rebuild the engine since i was re-doing the entire truck. Also to turn it into a 390, and to get a little more power out of it. Also the learning experience.
I wasn't thinking when i said 63,000 miles, i totally forgot about the .020 over bore. So the engine has less than 63,000. And i know that usually the truck has more miles than you think but I know the previous owner and he knows the previous owner before him. The truck has a story to it but i won't go too off topic in here.

[fomocoguy]

Ryan, on the timing chain just a good quality replacement will be fine. A nice cloyes roller would be my choice. As for the oil pump, stick with the same idea. Some people have had problems with high volume pumps pumping too much oil into the heads and starving the bottom end in FE's, so a nice replacement Melling would do you just right.

[1971ford]

Thanks

[convincor]

i don't see much need for a roller chain in a basic build.
you don't want to just replace the chain though. you want gears to.
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/SUM-G6512/
just my

[hazelnut]

If your going to be buying a new timing set then i would look for one with the timing advance for the cam.if you advance the can 3-4 degrese it would help your cam power range come in at a lower RPM,they dont cost much more and theres no special tools needed to install,easy to read instructions and would help your motor make low RPM power.What do you guys think? For low end power ive used in the past and would think that building a motor for towing would be a good place to use it.

[1971ford]

Thanks again. I'll keep that in mind and add that gear/timing set to the list.
I'll have the questions in red just to make things a little easier.
But I uncovered the engine and drug it out today. I removed the last thing in it, the cam. Well there are a few small things in it, such as the lifters (lifters don't need replacing right? they slide smoothly), a main bearing, and the cam bearings (i dont think i'll have those replaced). Besides that, there is just the bare block, and lots of crusty coolant.
The block...



Any predictions if the block will need to be bored more or not because of the rust? I'm thinking it will but i'm not sure, it would be nice if a good honing could get rid of this rust. It is surface rust that you can remove most of with a wool pad.

Tops of cylinders are fine, the heat moisture from the dryer settled on the bottom.

The cylinder bore. 8.008


I slid a lifter out, looks fine to me.

The cam that i just pulled


The crank. There is alittle bit of rust. I emagine the machine shop will take care of it nicely.



And here are my EDC heads compared to the stock heads. Should i swap things over to the EDC heads and run them, or run the stock heads? I asked this before but now there are comparison pictures..
THe one big difference i see, are the much bigger ports (intake side)




The mic is adjusted to the EDC head port, to show how much bigger they are compared to my stock heads.

[fomocoguy]

I still think I would run the stock heads. Larger ports do not allways mean more power. As I understand it the trick with ports are having them large enough to move enough air but small enough to keep the velocity up. If you ran those heads with the streetmaster intake it would probably kill the low end power. Case in point- 4 barrel 351 clevelands. They have huge ports and have all kinds of power at upper rpms, but don't make great truck engines because the low end torque suffers from the huge ports. 2 barrel clevelands do much better because of their smaller ports, but they don't scream on high like 4v motors do.

All in all the intake runners are going to be much smaller than those ports and will be the restriction point, so it probably won't make much differance. I would run the stock heads so the compression stays down around 9.3-9.4:1 and you won't have to worry about spark knock at all. Plus there won't be as much turbulance where the intake transitions into the head. The edc's would make good high performance heads with a bunch of exhaust porting and bigger exhaust valves. Keep them for a hot rod truck.

I've put some thought into this as I have the same two sets of heads sitting in my garage!

[DuckRyder]

New cam gets new lifters!

[1971ford]

Thanks, I will run the stock heads.

Just curious, why should a new cam get new lifters? Is it just a wear and tear deal, or should a new cam be paired with new lifters because my old ones are worn to the old cam?
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/CCA-834-16/

[DuckRyder]

Just curious, why should a new cam get new lifters? Is it just a wear and tear deal, or should a new cam be paired with new lifters because my old ones are worn to the old cam?

All of the above really. You can reuse them on the same cam in the EXACT same spot after a careful inspection...

Do it right and use the Crower reccomended kit:

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/CRO-84016/

http://www.crower.com/misc/m_cat.shtml (page 92 - 25 or 31)

[fomocoguy]

Plus lifters can start to have problems staying "pumped up" when they get old and can get noisy at idle. I've got one in my truck that makes noise only after about an hour of running. It's just good practice to change them.

[70_F100]

That one main bearing left in the block appears to have a lot of wear, but I can't see it really clearly. If that's the case, you've probably got similar wear on the crank.

In my opinion, having the engine torn down this far, with the amount of crud I see on the block, and installing a new cam, it would be utterly FOOLISH not to have it tanked and the cam bearings replaced. Why would you want to spend all of the other money you're going to spend, and neglect those items, when it's probably only 75-100 bucks, and these are the things that can only be done with the engine torn down to the point you have it?

You're trying to build an engine that is going to be working, and working hard. You want it to last, and to be dependable.

Tank the engine, replace the cam bearings and do a valve job while you have it torn down. You'll be miles ahead if you do.

Do it right, not just half-way.

Again, just my

[1971ford]

That one main bearing left in the block appears to have a lot of wear, but I can't see it really clearly. If that's the case, you've probably got similar wear on the crank.

In my opinion, having the engine torn down this far, with the amount of crud I see on the block, and installing a new cam, it would be utterly FOOLISH not to have it tanked and the cam bearings replaced. Why would you want to spend all of the other money you're going to spend, and neglect those items, when it's probably only 75-100 bucks, and these are the things that can only be done with the engine torn down to the point you have it?

You're trying to build an engine that is going to be working, and working hard. You want it to last, and to be dependable.

Tank the engine, replace the cam bearings and do a valve job while you have it torn down. You'll be miles ahead if you do.

Do it right, not just half-way.

Again, just my

I'm using a 390 crank, not the original 360 crank so the wear will be different from what you see on the main bearing.
The block is definately going to be hot tanked, no doubt about that. The cam bears probably will be replaced because of the reason you stated, the block being torn down completely already.

[70_F100]

The block is definately going to be hot tanked, no doubt about that. The cam bears probably will be replaced because of the reason you stated, the block being torn down completely already.

Not only that, but when it's tanked, they'll have to be removed first. The caustic cleaning solution will destroy them.