Hello, you may have seen my other thread about the knocking 5.0 in my wife's '92 F-150. I'm now trying to decide whether I want to build the motor in the truck, or get a core from a yard or person to rebuild instead.
I only want to do the bare minimum, IE, hot tank, cleaning, likely bore .030 over (has a lot of blowby or I would just be comfortable with a hone job) turn and/or polish crank, new pistons, cam bearings, etc. I'm wondering if this '92 is a roller block or not before I tear it down, is there a casting number on the block? From what I've found through search, the block SHOULD be roller ready, but have a flat tappet cam? If it's not a roller block, I'll look for another one to rebuild.
I have an HO cam and lifters in good shape to add, I was going to advance the cam 4 degrees. I planned on disassembling the heads, checking the guides and surface myself, and having them tanked and re-assemble myself. I really don't want to put money into these heads, as the GT-40's on my Lightning will be making their way onto this motor when I upgrade to some aluminum ones. I have built a few motors before, so I know how to do the work, save for machining. I've never built one on this tight of a budget though.

I've also never rebuilt a motor that had a rod knock and lots of blowby before. Anybody know what shape the rods are usually in when that happens? I'm assuming it'll take at least .030 to clean up the bores also. Will the bearings tell me anything when I tear it down, as far as whether the rods will be re-usable, and whether it'll need align-honed in the main bearings or not?

 

I suppose it's gonna be suprise....You can't till ya yank it....Break it down, go from there....

-Wes

 

The block will be roller ready , it could have a roller cam , you can remove a valve cover and look down the push rod hole with a flash light and see if there are any dog bones on the lifter , or pull a push rod and measure it , the roller motors have shorter push rods....Lew

 

I know for sure the truck has the old 302 non-HO firing order, that tells me it has a flat tappet cam, unless some rollers were non-ho firing order? I didn't think so, but IDK. I just wanted to be sure the block was roller ready before I tear into it, otherwise I won't be using it, and would rather drive the truck still while I look for a good core to build.

 

Some 92-93 had a roller , not the same cam as the ones they put in in 94 , not sure of the FO on those , but as far as i know the 92 block should be roller ready , in the late 80s when they stated to put roller cams in the mustang , they started making the 302 blocks roller ready , so by 92 it should be ....

 

That's what I thought, but I know the 5.8's didn't go roller until '94 or so, that's why I was unsure about the 5.0's!

Hopefully some flat-top pistons and the mustang cam will wake this old girl up a little, it's an F-in turd right now!

 

I like the HO cam , it works good in the 5.8 to , should help you , the 92 cam is way to small....

 

Guys who have swapped in the HO mustang cam, did you just install it straight up? I'm thinking I'll advance it 2 or 4 degrees, for a lower powerband? Chime in please!

Started tearing down her motor last night, and man those exhaust manifolds suck! There was at least a 1/4" of carbon buildup around the exhaust ports because the manifold is smaller than the exhaust port!

Horsepower was not high on the priority list.

Should be a whole different animal with the HO cam, Lightning shorties and a decent exhaust.

 

Found this in another thread, sounds good! Anyone else care to contribute?

 

I allways ran them straight up , let us know how it works out....

 

Well, I had a little time over the weekend to start tearing down the motor. One lower intake bolt broke off in the head (a front one). The motor doesn't look like it had a lot of oil changes prior to our ownership. **** in the intake valley looks like caked on tar! I think this is what led to it's demise. I'm betting all this coked up oil plugged up some oil passages starving it for oil. The pushrod ***** were galled on the top end, as are the rockers where the pushrods mate to them. Good thing I have the stock rockers from the Lightning still laying around. It IS a roller cam which is good news, I'll already have the spider, hold-down and distributor gear for the HO cam conversion. Does anyone know if the mustangs call for a different size pushrod than the truck cam? I'll try to get some pics next time I work on it. Hopefully the heads are OK, as this will be squeezing the budget pretty hard.

I'm tearing it down because the truck had a "knock" when warmed up. We'll find out if it's a rod bearing or wrist pin when I get into the bottom end.

This truck has some kind of sensor screwed into the top of the block right behind the intake, anyone know what that is? All the other windsors I've torn down just had a plug right there.

Boy it'll do some good having the lightning shorties on there, the stock manifolds block off at least 1/4" of the exhaust port around the bottom and one side!

 

The cam in that motor is the same one used in the Crown Vic.... you know... the motor that only makes 150hp And yes it has the old 5.0 firing order. The HO cam will really wake this thing up and I too suggest advancing it, the motor will be a pooch under 2k if not. The sensor behind the intake is a knock sensor, only truck motors got it the cars didn't. Pushrods are the same for all 5.0's but if you have the deck or heads milled some custom length pushrods will likely be necessary.

 

Yep, I was going to put it in at 4* advanced. I didn't know any speed density stuff had knock sensors? Weird! I'm pretty sure my '94 Lightning doesn't have one, wonder why this '92 5.0 would?