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Hi I have a 82 ford f150. had a stright 6 and a 3 speed manual tranny. I just bought a 390 for it and plan to drag race it. Im a chevy man but wanted to see what i can do with a ford. My problem I am having is this.I dont know crap about fords. I dont know what a "FE" engine is ..and what it stands for.I have no idea what the compression rato is. It was punched .30 over. a aftermarket intake was put on a 650 carb. I have done alot of reserch on this engineBut i have found nothing at all. If you can help I would really be at your feet. This is what i would like to know.The compression ratio. intake cc. timing stock cam size that made the engine sluggish that i have read so much about.Last butnot least is. What kind of heads came stock on it.. The engine was out of a 1970 ford f100. thanks for the help
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Monte-
It took a little digging through books, but I've got at least some info for you. The stock compression ratio of the motor was 10.5:1, but it's hard to tell if that's been kept on a rebuild although it's safe to assume it probably has since that's a pretty good number. The intake cc of the heads (assuming they're the original 4 barrel heads available in '70) varies between 67 and 74 (depending on whether it's got the thermactor system or not...is so, it's on the bigger side). It's hard to tell because most of my info stops in '69. I couldn't find much of anything on the cam specs or the timing. I'd suspect that's where most of the engine's shortcomings lie. Even the most low performance truck 390s still made 400ft./lbs of torque...which is great for a heavy truck but I'm sure all of that power was made way down low. Some of the higher performance 390s (like the ones available in some Thunderbirds and Mustangs) made considerable more power and would've been better for racing. Hope this helps.
Steve,
Thank you for the help.Really helped me out a bunch.Now here is a little more indepth questions/question.I know the heads are factory and are the same as which came with the engine. What would be the stock intake and exhaust be? What is a thermactor system? What is the differance between a 2v and 4v? I have no clue what it is or what it has to do with.I have a clue but aint to sure what it is.. Has something to do with the valves in th head??Last question is what would be the maxuim lift cam i could run in this engine? would it be possiable to run a .500+ cam? thanks again steve
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Monte-
The stock valves on the almost all FE engines is the same...2.02" intake/1.55" exhaust. Thermactor is the name Ford gave to it's earliest form of smog control. It's essentially just an EGR system with a fancy name. The only real difference between the 2v and 4v 390s are the combustion chamber sizes and the port design. Obviously, the 2v heads will have smaller ports. As far as maximum lift I'd say it would largely depend on the piston design. If the pistons don't have valve reliefs, you could always have them flycut to accept a bigger cam. Just remember to have the pistons clayed before finalizing a cam install. All told, I don't think having over ".500 would be impossible...just don't go too crazy. Hope this helps.
Steve
Thank you for the help. And again i need some more help. I finally found a tranny that would fit my engine.Here we go with the questions.It was out of a 67 ford f100. It had a 2 peice drive shaft. But on the end of the tranny where it connects to the drive shaft its not a slip yoke. It had 4 studs and a 1-1/2 inch nut with a cotter pin when i took it off it had some big splines on the output shaft of it.. My question is how can i change that to a slip yoke reg drive shaft?If you go to this website and look at this pic youll see what i am talking about.http://www.fordification.com/schematics02.htm.. go to the part where it says Driveshaft (Automatic transmission)
click on it and you go to the pic and click to make it bigger. Look at the top left of it and you see part numbers 7089 and 4866. How can i change all that.. You have been much help.
AnswerMonty-
Huh...to be honest I've never seen a driveshaft quite like that. Then again, I don't generally work on cars/trucks that old. If it were me, I'd ditch the factory driveshaft and have one custom made. Just about any dedicated transmission shop should be able to do this for a reasonable price. I've had to do this in the past when swapping motors into cars where they didn't belong (at least from the factory). A good shop can do some top shelf work for fairly cheap. And a custom driveshaft would allow you to tailor everything to your liking. Hope this helps.
