Hi, Dan. I like what you've accomplished so far.

Looks like I'm picking up a 97 F-150 with a blown 4.2 for the price of scrap. I was pretty disappointed to find next to no information about swapping these trucks to a V8, but then here you are. It's nice to see it can be done without getting myself into a can of worms.

My truck's a 5 speed. I figure I'm going to have to get everything in one place and measure/compare before I'll know what I need.

I've got a 302 Explorer engine lined up, it has the 36-1 crank wheel and CMP required to make an OBD2 ECU happy, as well as the tuning gear if I ever want to play around like you are. If there's anything I can help you with in that regard, LMK. Although I will say I'd at the very least convert everything to run an OBD2 V8 auto ECU, anything else seems like a lot of work.