I am still looking for a truck that will fit most of my needs, but have found a '79 F250 supercab that the owner says has the stock 400 engine and 2bbl carb and rebuilt C6 in it. I know not to expect great gas milage, but figured that I will still eventually still pick up a f100 bumpside with a 300 for my daily driver.

My general questions are concerning the '79 400. I live in CA and therefore will have to smog the engine every two years, if it passes smog now should I really worry about this engine or are they prone to problems (I understand that it's old and will continue to get older and crap happens) but with proper maintenance and care should it hold up?

Until I get the more milage friendly f100 later on, will my daily commute of approx 20 miles drive me to the poor house? My commute is roughly 20 miles round trip and mostly rural roads at 45 mph with a small portion (approx 6 miles) freeway and I only run about 55 mph on the freeway now.

Is my guess of 10 mpg even close to being realistic?

 

. Prolly more like 8 mpg... check out the threads here on improving the 400... could double the HP and mpg...

. As far as being dependable, should give little to no problems otherwise as is... they don't wear very fast, so emissions shouldn't get noticably worse...

. I have a daily driven '78 F150 SuperCab rebuilt C6 351M engine (400 with shorter stroke crankshaft, which I want to 'correct'... LOL!)...