This is my first question to you all so I just wanted to say hi to all Ford truck lovers!!
Ok, now for my dilema. I tore down my 360 and am doing a complete rebuild but found some interesting parts inside and dont know exactly how they worked together.
My crank is a 360 crank(2T). My pistons are all marked 390 4v on the casting and are not fully skirted like a normal 360 one would be. Now for the clencher, my rods are marked C7TE-A. My book shows these are from a 330 HD. ??? How would this work?
Was this someones idea to use 390 pistons with a 360 crank and not hit the valves? Can I put this back together with new 390 pistons? I never checked the compression(wish I would have) but my cam bearings were out so that is why I tore it down. Help if you can, sorry if too many questions. Thanks, jsbiohazard.

 

Don't believe everything you read, particularly the old books about FE's, as you'll find them to have some innacuracies in casting #'s. Ford mixed/matched stuff pretty good back then, and those rods are the same length as the 360 rods. I've seen them in 360's before, so it's hard to say.

As for the 390 4V pistons, I dunno. I can't see Ford doing that, so it was probably a bump in compression someone was looking for at some time in the past.

If you decide to run new 390 pistons with the long rods, better check your measurements just to be safe.

JMO!

 

That's the way it is.

Ford played some switch-a-roo games with the FE truck motors, the 360 got 390 car pistons and the 390 got 410 car pistons, both to lower compression, it's all in the compression height.

The C7TE-A rod are regular production 360 rods.

Barry

 

My guess is that it was entirely bean counter motivation, why have a 360 truck piston, a 390 truck piston a 390 2V car piston a 3904V car piston. and a 410 piston when you can just have a 390 2v 4V and 410 piston 3 pistons would be cheaper to use than 5 is what I'd guess they were thinking

 

Thanks for the input on the rods! I have located a set of rods for a 390 and a crankshaft so I think I will make a change over and sell the 360 crank on ebay or something(only 62,000 on this baby!) but a built 360 is not what I want for the street. Any suggestions on forged pistons that wont make my compression over 9 to 1 so I dont have to buy premium? Thanks again all!!!
jsbiohazard

1969 f100
soon to be 390
c6 with 2500 stall and 1 piece aluminum driveshaft

 

I heard the 390 forged pistons were getting hard to find, but that could be wrong.

I used L2291F for mine and they looked great and had plenty of material on the top.

A few tips on running reg gas, I'd block off the heat passage in the intake for a cooler intake and then run the factory cold air setup that pulls from the right side of the rad and runs a hose up to the air cleaner.

You can also play around with the timming to help get rid of pinging, but the best bet is to say in the 9.5:1 or less range.

Good choice on going with the 390.

 

There should be a valve in the air cleaner assembly snout that blocks the hot air intake off once the engine warms up. On the other hand I would be surprised if some PO hadn't already removed that hot air intake, anyway. A properly functioning hot air intake should make things go a lot easier on cold mornings and not effect anything else.

I didn't know they had stock cold air setups. Where can I find one? What do they look like? I have been thinking about fabricating something myself.