This will be going in my 86 F250 mud truck. I have a complete donar vehicle which is an 89 F250 that has been converted to carb'd 460 and a T19 with PTO on the side. My question is: Is this a pretty straigh forward swap? i will also be using the D50 front axle and 10.25 with 4.10 gears. The 86 has 3.55s in it and with a small block turning 39" tires, 4lo feels like 4 high in a regular truck... I know lower gears is the obvious answer here, but i do not want to put much money into the truck. I'd like to get as much performance out of this thing as possible without a lot of money in it.

Plans for the motor are:
FI timing chain set straight up
RPM intake
up-right headers
edlebrock 1406 carb
MSD 6AL box with msd distributor

Only thing i have to buy is the intake, timing set, and headers. Everything else i have on hand. What opinions/suggestions do you all have for me?

 

You may have oil filter clearance problems, so you might have to buy a remote oil filter kit. If you look at the donor truck it has a dent in the crossmember for the oil filter. Your truck may not have this dent.

You should have everything to accomplish what you want. The 4.10's will work better for you, and the torque of the 460 will also work better.

 

Good thing about the donor.... already has the relocation kit

Do you think what I have listed for performance wise for the 460 will be good enough?

 

With 4.10s, 460, and 39" tires, it'll be driveable. May not be exactly the best as a "mud truck" without shorter gears.

Also, you ought to throw a cam in that 460 while its out of the truck. A towing cam will help you with torque.

 

I would suggest the Torquer II intake over the RPM (unless this is a race only mud truck that will only see high RPMs).

 

I haven't looked at any of the above intakes, but I would stick with a dual plane intake myself. You want to enahnce the low end of this engine. If you wanted to save some money, you could stick with the stock 4bbl intake. I have never noticed much seat-of-the-pants difference in factory versus conservative dual plane aftermarket intakes, and usually only buy them to convert from a 2bbl to a 4bbl on a different engine.

I have noticed a difference in the single plane versus dual plane intakes. The single plane really make it dead on the low end.

 

It has the 1406 carb on it and the intake is cast, so I assume that it's factory. I'm looking for torque here, so I may just stick with that. I also think that it has an aftermarket cam in it because it lopes pretty good at idle. Only way to tell is with a dial indicator and I do not have access to one. What cam would you all suggest? I may put one in it just to know what exactly I have. Keep in mind its going to have stock heads, of which I do not know casting numbers as of right now. When I find out what they are, what casting numbers are desired over others and which ones are " boat anchors"

 

I would recommend this cam http://www.summitracing.com/parts/cc...view/make/ford or this one http://www.summitracing.com/parts/cc...view/make/ford -

what you want is a short duration cam to build torque. Keep it under 220 (under 215* is even better) at .050 lift and go with a lobe separation around 110 to 112.

Don't get caught in the "more duration equals more HP" (Bigger is Better) trap. For low speed/rpm 4x4 trucks it's the opposite.

 

Thank you for those. Another question. I have a points distributor on the motor now. What all do I need to convert that to a more modern distributor with the MSD box?

 

You could keep that distributor and let it drive the MSD box. If you want a more modern dist, I would look at a aftermarket unit like a MSD or something else that has the adjustments on top, and come with adjustable vacuum advance also(though unless you are going to drive it on the street, you probably do not need the vacuum advance).

The problem with the more modern duraspark units is they are setup for smog engines and are very hard to adjust, since the weights and springs are inside underneath all the stuff in the dist, you pretty much have to pull it and disassemble it to change anything. You are de-smogging your engine and making changes, and it will give you more rewards if you can experiment with the timing curve.

I would also recommend doing your changes in baby steps. Some things are logical to do together, but some things can be done one at a time and see how it works out. You probably want to get that wild cam out of there before the engine is installed. But it's easy enough to change the dist, carb and other things while the engine is in the truck.

 

I just do not know a lot about a points system. I know they are burnt from an old school guy, but I do not know how to change them or if they will hold up to what I'm doing with the truck. That's why I figured I could go to another set up

 

Call or e-mail this guy (Scotty). Re in"Car"nation High Performance - Products he does custom distributor work (conversions to electronic and re-curving) for less than $100. Plus he does custom camshaft grinds based on your vehicle specifics (weight, engine, intended use, etc.).

 

Points systems are simple and have been running cars and trucks of all types all the way up to the mid 70's. All the points are doing is completing the ground to the coil.

The + power is on the + of the coil all the time the key is in run and the engine is running. It's constant power, about 9 volts through a resistor. But it does nothing if the minus of the coil is not grounded. That's what the points do; They ground the coil, this charges the windings in the coil,, and then when the points open and take the ground off the coil, the power stored in the primary windings dumps into the high voltage windings, and that gives you a spark out of the top of the coil. There is a capacitor also hooked to the points, to modify how the voltage rises and falls on the points to make them last longer and for the whole thing to work correctly.

That's all there is to it. The points turn the coil negative on and off and it makes spark. The drawbacks are mechanical wear of the points mechanism, and electrical wear of the points themselves. They also have rpm limits, but you will never see it with your setup.

The electronic distributors do the same thing. They have a electronic pickup sensor and wheel that tells a electronic box what to do. Guess what the electronic box does? It turns the negative of the coil on and off to make spark, just like the points. Even your fancy MSD box works the same. It just turns the negative of the coil on and off to make spark. It needs to be told when and at what rate, and the points can do this, and they will not electrically wear as bad since the MSD is doing all the hard work.

 

Makes sense to me franklin. thank you for that explanation. I think the best thing for me to do is take the distributor apart and rebuild it myself so I actually know how and what it is doing. Seems like a fairly simple system. I just had no experience with it.