With the rising costs of everything in this world, does it behoove you to build a nice small-block Ford street engine from scratch? From buying cores, to machine work, selecting and buying the right parts, to the final assembly it may not be worth it-unless you cut some corners. And cutting corners on your engine's internals or finding some "cheap labor" might not be the best way to save some money.
It's no secret that Ford engines just cost more than those from the Bow Tie plant, but there's plenty of you out there who would rather push a Ford than drive a Chevy-as the saying goes-let alone put a Chevy engine in your Ford truck, so here's a solution. Buy a Ford engine from Ford! The "other" small-block, Ford's 302, is still a great engine choice after all these years and Ford Racing knows this and has an affordable and stout 306ci engine package for the street. This 9:1 roller engine is stuffed with forged Mahle pistons, forged rods, a double roller timing chain, GT-40 aluminum heads, and where they keep the price down is by remanufacturing quality factory blocks and cranks. At least you are still getting OE parts, rebuilt by the OE, right? The engine is rated at 340 hp and 310 lb-ft of torque, which is great for most classic Ford trucks and is even covered by a 12-month/12,000-mile warranty!
Ford Racing ships the 306 minus an intake, carb, ignition, fuel pump, flywheel, and water pump, which again saves money there, but they also realize each item is specific to the vehicle the engine is going in, therefore leaving the choice of those parts up to you and your individual needs. We decided to turn to Holley for a number of things to round out the engine. Holley has a new aluminum 670-cfm Street Avenger carb that has an electric choke and vacuum secondaries. The Street Avenger is tuned for street use and to maximize low-end torque (the power you can feel in your seat) and saves quite a bit of weight over its zinc counterparts. Holley even includes an install and tuning DVD, and this carb actually has a limited lifetime warranty too.
Here is the basis of the build from Ford Racing. It's a 306ci small-block with aluminum heads, roller valvetrain and cam, forged pistons, and more that boasts 340 hp and 310 lb-ft of torque. We're going to put that to the test!
Since Holley owns Weiand we asked their tech line about an intake that would work well with the carb and the 306, and they suggested the Weiand Street Warrior intake. The Street Warrior is also designed for low-end torque street use and really works well from 1,500-5,500 rpm. We also got a mechanical fuel pump from Holley as well as a few black AN fuel fittings and a black nylon-covered high-pressure fuel line called Pro-Lite 350 from Earl's Performance Products (also Holley) to round out the fuel system components. Earl's has just about any fitting you could want or need from fuel, to brakes, to lifesaver adapters.
About all that was left for now was an ignition system. For this, we chose a complete system from Pertronix Performance Products. They have their famous billet plug-and-play distributors available for most popular engines and have just introduced their new Ignitor III technology into their line. The Ignitor III has adaptive dwell technology that maintains peak energy throughout the whole rpm range, automatically adjusts spark timing at higher rpm to compensate for electronic delay, and more. The Ignitor III can actually replace the points in a traditional distributor if you already have one. We also opted for the Pertronix Flamethrower III coil, which packs 45,000 volts and has a rapid charge time that's 30-70 percent faster than regular coils, and last but not least a set of Pertronix 8mm Flamethrower plug wires with a lifetime warranty.
After picking up a set of Fel-Pro intake gaskets we prepped them and installed the Weiand Street Warrior intake on the engine. If you don't have intake bolts you'll have to order some or make a trip to the hardware store like we did.
We assembled all of this onto the Ford Racing 306 at our tech center before hauling the now complete engine out to Westech for some expert dyno tuning as well as a few high-revving dyno pulls. What Westech found was that the selection of parts was actually pretty well matched to make good power. They did bump up the stock jets in the Holley Street Avenger from 63/73 in the secondary/primary to 65/81 since the engine wanted a little more fuel. After Steve and Eugene figured they were on the sweet spot, they bumped the timing from 34 to 36 degrees and they found the best numbers and smooth curves. Using 91-octane, the max horsepower was 350 at 6,100 rpm, while max torque was 328.6 lb-ft at 4,600 rpm, which were both better numbers than what Ford Racing rated the engine. In fact, the engine was still making horsepower when the valves started to float a little so the rev limiter in the Pertronix distributor was set at 6,000 rpm just to be safe.
All in all, we were very pleased with how the whole build and testing went. This engine will be perfect for the '54 F-100 that will soon be getting a heart transplant!
