so i was talking to a friend the other day and he said he would give me a 429 out of a early 70s mercury marque. That has me thinking about how to build a really strong motor for my truck(1964 ford f250 4x4). Im assuming this motor will need a little work to get rid of the 70s thinking on it. Right now im thinking of bumping the compression up quite a bit(10:1 or so), putting in a good cam(suggestions welcome), aftermarket intake and 4bbl carb (suggestions again welcome), and obviously a full rebuild probably including boring slightly and decking the block and heads. My main question is are these heads gunna be good for anything? Will these heads work good for a predominantly torque based motor with some porting or are these gunna be horribly restrictive and am going to have to find a more performance oriented set? Thanks for any help you guys can offer and if anyone has a similar motor i would be interested in what kind of power you have achieved.

 

Depends on what the heads are. You/we need the casting numbers off the heads.

 

well the motor is like five hours away so im not sure what the casting numbers are. Any way was the t-18 offered behind the 429/460 engines or will i have to switch to the np 435. I was thinking i could still run my divorced transfer case and then i wouldn't have to change my drivelines.

 

t18 or t19 were behind them in 80's pickups until the ZF5 came out.

Every head for these engines with the exception of D2VE have plenty of potential in them. Some more than others....
i have a feeling that engine will have D3VE heads.... flat tops at zero deck with D3's will get you in the ballpark of where you want to be compression wise.