Not too long ago, I bought the 1951 F1 in the picture. It has a 460, C6, Volare IFS, a straight body, and drives pretty well. I am not crazy about the color, but the money was right for a rust free example.

The Ford 460 is of 1973 vintage. PO said it was rebuilt with 10:1 CR and a cam. It has an Edelbrock manifold and 750CFM carb, MSD ignition. and headers. Compression test yielded around 120 psi across all cylinders.

So obviously, it isn't 10:1 more like stock 8.5:1. And the truck runs like it's making maybe 250HP.

Does it make sense to bolt on some aluminum heads and put a better cam in this motor? I don't mind spending some money on it.... and I don't mind driving it the way it is. It goes right down the road, but certainly isn't breathtaking when you stomp on the gas.
I am not familiar with big block fords, so a little input from those that are would be appreciated.

 

IMO a 460 is a torque engine which is what you want in a truck, and unless something is wrong it should pull the truck around easily. Low end torque is what gives you that "seat of the pants" pull and you should have plenty. I would start with a good tuneup making sure the ignition timing and curve is good, carb is jetted correctly, etc. Even if you have a 3:0 gear a stock 460 should be a lot of fun to run with, something may not be right with the tune if it seems like a dog.
If all checks out I would consider what rear gear and converter you want to run before doing engine mods. What rear gear are you running now?

 

I agree with Dave. The 460 is one heckava stout engine, even in stock form. They'll pull anything. Imho, unless you're drag racing looking for that last .1/sec., aluminum heads are more brag factor than necessity here. I could find better placed to dump 2 grand on a street cruiser. Check your gearing and timing curve. Find out your cam specs. Make sure your parts match together. My guess is that's where your problem lies.

 

I am in the San Diego area and have a built 460 that is now just sitting under my workbench. It was intended to go back into my 56 but changes to the IFS made that improbable. Take a look in my gallery for pics. If you would like to discuss performance mods that I made to this engine shoot me a PM or email.

 

Agree with what the others are telling you. A stock 460 in good tune should make an F1 perform well, to the point of being almost scary.

 

Here is some pictures of the 466 that I built for my Mustang. I went with aluminium heads and intake not only for performance but I dropped 70 lbs.off the engine weight. It also has 10 to 1 forged pistons and a Comp Cams 280H cam. It has all the performance that you could want for the street but it does not like to pass a gas station.

 

Thanks for all the replies.
Motor is timed 12 deg advanced with a total of 38 degrees at 2000 RPM using an MSD ready to run distributor. I believe the cam is stock. Rear end is a 3.5:1 ratio, best I can tell. The thing is running 3000 RPM at 70MPH.
It scoots down the road but certainly isn't a hot rod. I consistently get 10 MPG, which I'm told isn't bad for this setup.
C6 is rebuilt with a high stall converter, which I don't care for. The truck launches like it has a trailer load of scrap hooked to it. I have a feeling this isn't right. Once it gets moving, it shifts as expected.
Fortunately it's an Arizona truck without a trace of rust or bondo-rust repair on it.

 

I believe we may have stumbled onto your problem. There's no need for a high stall converter with a stock cam. In fact, it will act exactly as you describe, sluggish and not able to get out of its own way until the rpms reach the converter spec. By then you're out of the power band your cam is designed for. Change the converter to stock and I'm sure it will help immensely. You might even get better gas mileage, too.

 

Therein lies the downside of the 460's! They are simply not a fuel-efficient engine. I had one in a '78 Supercab camper special that weighed 5400 lbs. If I drove with an egg on the accelerator, it got 12 mpg. If I was into the throttle hard all the time, it got 12 mpg. Towing my '52 home, 12 mpg.

To do any better you need to get those revs down for cruising, lose the high-stall, drop down to the low 3's for the axle. Without an OD trans, you'll have to choose between quiet cruising and quick take-off from lights. But I'd be surprised if you get beyond the low 15's for gas mileage.

 

Agreed! I also had a '78 Supercab camper special. I got 12 mpg on the highway empty or with the camper, towing a horse trailer with 2 horses and tack and hay, with the a/c on or off, uphill and downhill.

And the camper was much bigger than this one, which was just a shell on it when I got it (used).

 

I bought my 85 F250/460/C6/3.54 back in 1990, and over the years I got pretty consistent 10-11 mpgs no matter what I was doing. Last summer I picked up a 97 F250 460/E4OD/4.11 truck with EFI, (the 85 has the Motorcraft/Holley 4v carb) hoping to see some inprovement with the overdrive and FI. No. It gets the same 11 I had before. But it's still a great engine I wouldn't trade for anything newfangled.

 

If it is a 1973 engine, it probably has the D2 heads, which are the worst heads they made for the carbed 385 series engine. If nothing else, I would try and find a set of D9 heads. This should bump your compression ratio up a bit, and since the D9 are closed chamber heads rather than the open chamber design of the D2, it shouldn't affect detonation much at all. Even better is if you can find a set of DOVE heads, but they are a bit harder to find. I would also check to make sure that you have a straight up timing set rather than the retarded set that they put on in 73 to get the smog rating.

 

I believe we may have found ONE of the problems. Transmission governor was stuck, causing tranny to stick in 3rd gear. I manually shifted to 1st gear and truck launches just fine. So it's back to the tranny shop to have the governor cleaned and inspected. We shall see.
BTW - shop says they installed a torque convertor with a 2000 RPM stall, which technically isn't a high stall speed convertor. I don't know why it was referred to as high stall when it was put in.
Thanks to everyone for response.