I'm horribly sorry to do this , but i need info that i'm sure is here, but my dial-up is so slow , i gave up looking.
Have a '96 Class C 30ft RV (460 ) that i can't afford the gas to use, so am selling to replace with a medium sized 5th wheel , low profile if i can afford.
Truck i acquired is 1988 Extended Cab ( rust-free) 4X4 F150 , 5.0 EFI with a bad 5-speed. Have a mint 5-speed to through in. Cat converters mysteriously dissapeared , so i will work around that retaining the 02 senser.
Question is; recomendations of a decent set of shorty headers & towing camshaft that won't break the bank ??
Have had fe Fords & 300's .... no experiance with 302s. I'm not even sure if this truck will tow a 5th wheel......but it's all i have for now. I would be thrilled to get 10+mpg .... plus i needed a truck anyway.
Any other suggestions would be very helpfull. Untill my Ultra Classic is paid off ( 5 yrs yet )...budget is limited.
Here's the bad news. You need the Comp 31-255-5 cam, longtube headers, and 4.10 gears. Don't even bother hookin the trailer up without all 3 of these upgrades because that truck has trouble hauling itself around in stock trim. I'm dead serious, with 3.55 gears and a stock motor that truck won't maintain 70mph in 5th on anything but flat highway with no wind.. it's hard to believe a vehicle could be so gutless.
Yeah, a 302/5.0 will never be an ideal towing engine. But with a few mods and depending on how much your fifth wheel weighs it may not be too bad.
On top of what Paul said, heads are easy bolt-on hp. You'd get 60hp out of the box with AFR's. Don't know how they would affect the ECU, but that and set of headers would help a ton. Hedman Elite thermal-coated shorties are a good deal, I'm putting a pair in my truck when I drop in my new engine.
If you're planning on towing a bunch and since you're putting in a new tranny anyway, a ZF would be the way to go. Besides being stronger (made for towing) you'll have a granny gear to help get things rolling.
Well . being the truck is paid for & my only truck ,ordered the Flowtech long tubes & comp cam . Going to throw in some crank bearings while i'm at it. The truck is rust-free....worth a few upgrades.
After i sell the RV , i'll have to be a bit selective on size of camper i pick out. Looked at a couple of 3300lb pull behinds as a alternative to a 5th wheel.
I'm not one to wait till something is broke to start wrenching. 130k on stock engine ,added pressure on the crank everytime u push on the clutch pedal , i'm sure it's walking a bit. It's not a big deal to change the crank & rod bearings from underneath. I assume u guys must have $1500.00 laying around in case it "broke". I don't . Changing the bearings...if it needs them... will add 10-50k of life. I can drive a truck that lacks huge compression....not one that spins a bearing. Tranny & flywheel are already out...nothing to slip the oil pan out for an inspection at least. Call my thinking old school...have done this often.... with some luck. I'm aware that it's not always the best fix.
Some years back ,brother-in-law spun a bearing in a 351W that was pushing his van around. He had no money. Jacked the engine up , pulled out the pan out . One of the rod bearings was so bad , both halves spun & melted together. Threw in some .001 under bearings , he drove that van for another 38,000 miles when one of the king pins froze & started ripping off tie rod ends. Crank survived because back in those days...Ford had alot of soft copper under the babbit to wear out before steel started thrashing on steel.
Not that i can afford it...but what's a reasonable "best bang for the buck" head to use ???
Look.. I see your point about preventative maintenance, but you are only doing half the job by replacing the bearings, and this will guarantee a siezed bearing in the future instead of preventing it. Friction surfaces in these motors depend upon tolerances, and the bearing and crank or rod journals wear together and become a matched pair much like the lifter and cam lobe of a flat tappet cam. You cannot change 1 half of a matched pair without impacting overall life, it's as simple as that. A new bearing on a worn journal will create pressure points that will lead to a bearing failure. The only way to guarantee the bearings will last it to have the bearing surfaces machined true again. Failure to do this will mean the motor will die at 150k instead of going to 250k or 350k that many hundreds of thousands of these motors that have gone on the original bottom end.
What 5-speed do you have? Most of them won't handle towing much either.
And leave the bearings alone. My 5.0 in my Mustang has over 163K very hard miles on it with a 5-speed and holds good oil pressure. It still gets abused at times. It has survives thousands of Nitrous Oxide shots and many runs on the bottle with slicks.
Holds 22lbs hot @ idle and 43 @ 2000rpm hot. Plenty of oil pressure. This motor should go 250K easy without new bearings.
OK Paul , point taken. Being i received this truck with no trany , i never heard it run yet. But i really trust the fellow i bought it from. Bearings will stay.
The 5-speed is the cheap Mazda. Original had 5th blown out of it. I had a mint 5-speed sitting around here from a '89 4x4 i junked out. Thus i got a great deal on this rust free '88 because he couldn't find a trany.
Not concerned about life of tranny. I'm older & know when & when not to load tranny. Plus i have it...might as well use it.
Heads. Decided as long as i'm pulling intake off , might as well pull heads off & miminum grind out the hump in exhaust port. Air pump will exit truck permantly.
BUT... if i can get a pair of bolt on heads for under $500.00 new or reconditioned with a better cc or valve size....i'll do it. Lots of heads on Ebay....but i don't know head cc or valve size that i have...so some more info would be helpfull.
The truck will not see more than 4K a year & will be parked in winter being it's rust free. Need to make it last for 6 years till bike is paid off. Will be pulling a max 4000lb camper locally and can deal with a little lack of power.Some decent fuel mielage would be great....but it's still a truck.
So i have the Comp cam , Flowtech headers, Have a design for exhaust to run thru a 3" Dynomax RV muffler....
Need to know what heads i have and what i can bolt on ...stock style or reasonable atfermarket.
Have a lead on some 351w heads....but don't want to spend time chasing down a EFI intake to bolt up...but i'm open to some low budget ideas.
your 88 has the e7te heads. some port&polish will get them about equivalent to gt40 heads stock. you could buy some gt40's, (not p's) and just slap em on, or you could open them up a little aswell, for a budget upgrade.
i think you could also put bigger valves in the e7te's, but that would cost some more money also.
My advice on the heads is fully port the exhaust side, remove any casting flashing from the intake ports but otherwise leave them alone, and do a quick cleanup of the combustion chambers to remove any casting flaws. Then smooth the sharp edge where the combustion chamber meets the gasket surface, this will go a long way to reducing sensitivity to detonation. That's it, put them back on along with the stock intake, and put a 2.5" single exhaust behind the longtubes, 3" is too big for a 5.0 that will spend most of it's life below 4000rpm. Bigger heads and intakes will produce more power above 3000rpm, but will have the opposite effect below that.
I think your money is best spent on upgrading to the ZF 5spd the Mazda tranny is weak and with the low 1st gear you might be abel to avoid swapping the rear gears you just won't get much use out of 5th (I only use mine when unloaded but never pulled less than 4k lbs). I think when it comes to towing having your gearing right is more important than have extra power you might not go 70 but you will get there with out over working the motor. If you have ever been around a gutless wore out grain truck you know what I'm talking about.
-Johnboy
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-1979 F-250 4X4 400 4spd
-1989 Bronco 300six swapped in ZF 5spd
-1967 Mercury Comet Sports Coupe
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