I have a few books on performance builds and bone stock rebuilds, but I would love to see an article on building a reliable, daily driver type build, addressing all of the weak points. Any old hot rod mag articles? My goal is a set of aluminum Edelbrock heads and intake, small rv type, hyd roller cam and all of the oiling mods, MSD electronic ignition. Backed up by a Tremec TKX and a 3.73 gear. I have searched YouTube as well. No bueno. @Crazy Steve @FrozenMerc @Jeff Norwell @Flatrod17 @2devilles
There was a 9 part series in Street Rodder magazine starting around 2001. Here is also a Ford FE forum: https://www.fordfe.com/discussion/all
Check out Brent Lykins' videos, he covers pretty much every aspect of ***embling a FE. A great guy to talk to also... www.lykinsmotorsports.com Pretty much any written material on FEs is now old and doesn't reflect current parts. And I'll give my personal opinions as I've been obsessing on building my stroker... Heads. There are basically two choices; Trick Flow or Edelbrock. Speedmaster and ProMa** seem to be spotty on quality control. The Edelbrock is still the same as-cast head they came out with years ago. I notice that the 'ported' version they used to sell is now gone, now a single choice if buying ***embled. Heavy valves and some reports of failed valve springs, which some claim are good for roller cams but others disagree about that (if you buy their FE 'top end' kit, it comes with a flat tappet cam). More $$$ for springs? The upside is it is more of a bolt-on deal in terms of valvetrain than the Trick Flows but you'll definitely leave some power on the table if that's important to you. It's a reasonable head for the money, but doesn't offer much more performance than some iron heads. The Trick Flows come with full CNC porting and need no 'tuning up' to use them and use top-of-the-line parts. There are three versions, with the difference being the springs/retainers/locks. Ascending in price is hydraulic flat tappet cam, roller hydraulic and solid roller. Beware of some resellers as they'll list the hydraulic-only heads as roller ready, TF says no. Downside is TF raised the mounting pads for the rocker shaft stands, those need to be aftermarket. Although if you run a big cam with any head, they should be anyway. Cams/valvetrain. When I looked at off-t******lf cam grinds, I was a bit disappointed. I know what I wanted in a grind; fairly short duration, lots of lift to take full advantage of the roller. I need engine vacuum for power brakes and I just didn't see what I wanted. That led me to Lykins and he recommended a custom grind (made by Comp Cams by the way, and about the same cost). There are three manufacturers of FE roller lifters; Comp, Morel and Jackson. I couldn't find anyone who had good things to say about the Jacksons, and there have been reported issues with the Comps, the Morels get the best marks from actual users. Some builders have run into 'stepped' lifter bores, reportedly the Comps won't work on those. None of them are cheap, $550 and up for a full set. You'll need custom-length pushrods and roller rockers to insure longevity of the valve guides. After looking around, I settled on Precision Oil Pumps for the stands/shafts/rockers as my best bang for my $$. Lykins sells non-adjustable roller rockers for a bit less which will gain you a few more RPM due to lighter weight, but are more finicky to set up. In any case, adding a hydraulic roller cam will add at least $1000 to your overall cost over the cost of a flat tappet cam/lifters. If you're trying to stay within a budget, this opens up some interesting trade offs. Switch to a solid lifter flat tappet cam, now you can afford the Trick Flows and put a few bucks in your pocket. Or add some $$$ and step up to a stroker. FE stuff is still effin' expensive, but there's certainly more and better choices these day.
I am not using a flat tappet cam, just due to the obvious problems. I will have a budget, but you know FE stands for freaking expensive, so I have to live with that. The Edelbrocks are just old copies of the Ford heads, but that's ok. I am looking for long term reliability, not really squeezing out HP. I'll probably order them empty and then add my own valves and springs, retainers etc. I have decided to run Morel lifters. They seem to be the gold standard. I have talked with Brent quite a bit. I try not to bother him though. I am just tryiong to get a plan together. I do better that way.
I'm not really looking for HP, I'm after torque. This motor is for my '60 Sunliner 'vert and it weighs 4000+ lbs...
Not to many "weak" points to address if you are keeping power levels reasonable. Later 390's, using iron heads, hydraulic lifters, and keeping the rpms below 5500 are probably only 2nd fiddle to a 300 six in the pantheon of Ford engine durability. Small items that will help: - Clean up the oil galleys to maximize flow - Add a high volume pump, quality filter, and keep your oil clean - Make sure you have nice flat / clean gasket surfaces - Measure everything, and make sure all clearances / tolerances are within factory specs. - Studding the heads and mains always helps ensure consistent clamp load, but is not necessary below 400 hp. - The valve rocker stands are considered a weak point by some, but as long as you stay with stock, or near stock spring pressures and don't go wild on valve lift, they will be fine. Beyond that, you are subject to only individual part quality defects. Arguably the cheapest FE build I ever did was for a daily driver '76 F250 and it turned out to be bullet proof. The recipe was simple. Iron D2 Heads and Intake - Factory Ford 4 bbl. 600 cfm Holley Howards Flat Tappet Dual Pattern Cam 9.5:1 Compression with Silv-o-lite Pistons Fel-Pro Gasket Set Double Roller Timing Set. Stock crank and rods High Volume Oil Pump Stock Water Pump New Seats, Valves, and Guides with a 3 angle valve job. Long Tube Headers and 2.5" dual exhaust through "truck" style can mufflers. Stock DuraSpark II ignition I stuck an AOD behind the FE and that truck made for a great daily. Got "decent" mileage, cruised nicely, and if I needed it, it had more than enough snort to pull or haul just about anything. I sold it about 8 years ago to a buddy who continues to drive it to this day. Once the AOD's torque convertor was sorted (getting a low enough stall in a heavy truck making copious amounts of low rpm torque was a challenge), it was solid as a rock.
I suspect a lot of information that applies to the 352FE. Would also be useful for the 390FE: https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/the-baddest-352-on-the-planet.1345265/#post-15772872
The Jalopy Journal
