Im gonna be getting a new engine for my 1991 f150 302 in May and im doing it myself....is there any good companys that have rebuilt engines that arent crazy prices....and are there any other things I can do to improve my gas mileage ..ill be doing alot of highway driving and city driving.

 

Local stores like Advance or Auto Zone have long blocks at decent prices. As far as mileage goes right tires right gears and a light foot. I have put in a K&N FIPK, headers, MSD6AL ign, and a Diablo chip and full true duel exhaust. They all helped, but you have to plan on having the truck for some time to get your money back.

 

honestly if you want mileage by a car. even with a fresh motor your not gonna get above 16-18mpg at best. even worse till the motor is broke in fully.

is the truck 4wd? what size tires do you have? is it a 5speed or auto? if you fill out your signature with your trucks info we dont have to ask these questions everytime you post a question/.

 

Any you'll only get that on the highway, the best any of these trucks will ever get in the city is about 13mpg. If you want really good gas milage(30+) get a small car for commuting and keep the truck for work and play.

 

+1 on the small car idea, esp. with $5 gas on the horizon for this summer.

I like 1990s Honda Civics with a 5-speed manual - good for at least 30mpg, and I get upper 30s in my 1996 doing mostly highway miles.

Or, look for something still economical but not as popular and thus less expensive, such as an older Ford Escort or Focus, 4-cyl 5-speed.

I only drive my truck when I NEED the truck! Driving it to work and back one day costs me close to $20.

 

Concerning the engine rebuild there are two basic ways to go about this, buy a complete reman longblock and simply swap it in, or rebuild a motor yourself using a local machine shop and parts you buy online and/or at your local suppliers. The obvious advantage of buying a complete reman is the simplicity of it.. you just remove your old engine and install the new one, but this won't improve power or milage you'll be putting back the same old underpowered slug that was in there before. If you do your own rebuild you can swap in some high performance parts that overall won't cost any more than the stock spec parts and get substantial power and economy gains while maintaining stock like drivability. To minimize downtime with this it is recommended you get a donor motor to rebuild but if you have another vehicle to drive in the meantime rebuilding what you got will save the cost of the donor... or a few hundred $$. The good news about these motors is that they are well built with high quality components and fasteners so you may only need to replace some of the water pump bolts which commonly corrode and everything else should be good. The intake is plenty big enough for double stock horespower so you don't need to do anything there, and stock compression ratio is 9:1 which is very good for regular pump gas so the bottom end really just needs to be put back to stock. And that's where the machine shop comes in, you want to dismantle the engine and deliver all the parts to the machinist to inspect and rework, and he will then advise what size bearings, pistons, and rings will be necessary for the rebuild so you don't buy any of that until he has done his work. The heads can be costly to refurbish so you should investigate buying remaned replacements, it's no problem at all to spend several hundred dollars per head on machine work and you can have rebuilt heads for that or even some lightly used aftermarket heads for a little more, and for about $550ea you can buy brand new high performance heads so you need to keep it all in perspective. Total cost of a rebuild is usally in the $1500-2000 range.. about the same as a stock reman, the difference being you get the added performance and you built it yourself. A good reference with all the specs for rebuilding these engines is here... Rebuild Small-Block Ford Engines HP89: Amazon.ca: Tom Monroe: Books