352 Upgrades?

[Flame Out]

It turns out that the 1964 F-500 flatbed dump that has been the subject of a few posts here is powered by a 352. This is the conclusion of two old Ford guys who looked it over closely. At least this was the most probable outcome. The truck was originally powered by a 223 I6 but that was long gone by the time it came into my life. The valve covers read "Mercury" and this part of the country is famous for expedient engineering; i.e. "use what ya got".

Anyway, the truck at curb weight run fine with its 2V carb and tiny dual exhausts. With 5.2 tons of aggregate it tends to be a mite pokey, not that I am trying to beat anyone back to the farm. It would be good to have a little more boost up some of our ,ong mountain grades. Since rocket boosters are impractical owing to fire season and my budget, I thought about improving exhaust function through bigger pipes (now at about a rusty 2 inches) and going with an Edlebrock 650 CFM 4V. I replaced the ancient oil bath air cleaner with a K&N round air cleaner wiht a prefilter. From examining the cleaning media and engine oil it appears to be doing a good job of cleaning intake air while improving that air flow. The tailpipes have a nice sharp bend in both of them to route around the frame since this was originally an I6. I thought that straightening them out and replacing the "Midas mufflers" with something freer flowing might help.

I am not particularly knowledgable about this so I could use some advice from folks who have built these engines into better performers. For now I am not looking to pull the engine for internal upgrading, just bolt ons. From what I have read the 352 is a decent platform to work with. This engine is tight and runs great. I wouold not modify it at all except that 35 MPH is too slow on our mountain grades.

What do you think?

[Redmanbob]

save your money till it pops and then change to a 390/410.
Assuming they knew what they are talking about on the 352, the covers you have I think would usually be found on a 390. Did they measure the stroke? or just look at the 352 on the front of the block and say "Yep atza 352 right deare willard"....

Since the gears are probably already a a premium about the best two things are a cam upgrade and a set of headers probably..JMO since you don want to tear into it, why not grab a set of headers from a local parts yard and run a two into one stock cannon barrel? Cheap and easy and the back pressure should be good for the torque and still have great flow.

I don't think the 4bbl on that setup is gonna yield much outside of higher fuel usage.. JMO

[Flame Out]

The header from the junk yard is a good thought. I was trying to find a set new on-line without success. My experience with exhaust manifolds from junk yards has not been too good. Still, it is worth a shot. Thanks for the two-into-one suggestion. That would not have occured to me.

Now the 4bbl carb issue is an interesting one. Others have said what you wrote about that. It seemed counter intuitive to me since more fuel mix flowing should mean better performance, but this is not a quarter-mile application; i.e., increased rate of acceleration is not important- top RPM is where the power is, right?

How did he ID the engine? No, he was not refering to the casting stamp on the front of the block. He looked at the valve covers and assumed it came out of a passenger car. That would be logical around here as folks use what they can find that works.

I still have not measured the liquid displacement of a cylinder. Mainly becuase I am not sure how to tell when the piston is at the bottom of the stroke. Is there a simple method?

[Redmanbob]

Yep use a dowel in the spark plug hole. Rotate the engine to TDC (check to be sure the damper isn't off-aka the dowels moves higher away from 0 ) mark the dowel at the ridge of the hole, rotate the crank 180º and remark the dowel remove and measure ( 3.5"/352-360, 3.75"/390, 3.98"/410/428 ) 410 tossed in as you said it had Merc covers on it.. quite possible to be one. Make for a hell of a mule compared to the rest I'd imagine

you might run a WTB add on fordfe.com I did that for a 428 crank and came up a winner.. Thanks again for that tip Glenn

[Bear 45/70]

I agree, run it till it blows up and replace it with a 428, there is no replacement for displacement and for what you are doing the cubes is everything.

[krewat]

For what your doing, GEARING means just as much as cubes.

Figure out what rear end ratio you have. Post back.

A 10% increase in gearing is good for a 10% increase in torque to the ground, across the entire RPM range.

Post some of the casting numbers from the heads, intake, and block if you can find it. It might point towards a Mercury 410 if the years are right.

Or, someone found a pretty set of Mercury valve covers in the junkyard, and put them on a 1976 360 that is as gutless as it gets. The casting numbers will help. Unless it's a hybrid.

[sierraben]

If you really want to know what displacement that engine is, one idea is to take off one of the heads,
and measure the bore and stroke; but that can be a PITA.