My brother has a 89 F-150 5.0. Hes putting Bassani LT headers on it and going to do some sort of custom exhaust out the back and get rid of the OEM cats.

He also is going to be putting head gaskets in this motor at the same time and im recommending he put a cam in it since he will have the motor pulled clear down.

I know theres some specific cams that are recomended that play nice with the EEC system that runs these trucks.

What do you recomend for a cam? Something that will provide all around power, its not a race truck and he doesnt really tow with it, Just something to help open it up and will compliment his exhaus system for power.

Thanks

 

The Comp 31-255-5(old firing order) and 35-255-5(new firing order) will work well as would the Crane 444232, all of thse are flat tappet so you will need cam and lifter kits. If you were to acquire the roller cam spider assembly(spider,dogbones,pushrods) from a donor motor and also got a healthy set of roller lifters the motor could be converted to a roller cam, but if you have to buy all these parts new they'll easily cost $300 and the cams also cost that much so it's a lot more money to convert for only slightly more power.

 

how much gains are we talking? I was thinking a simple cam swap for a couple hundred dollars. I dont think hes realy wanting all the trouble to swap to a roller setup.

Like i said we will be replaceing the head gaskets and figured while we where in there we could do a cam, maybe its not worth it.

 

444232 is a great cam. I have it and I love it. Add1.7 roller rockers and it'll open those valves a little longer resulting in more power

 

What kind of power can a decent LT setup with a 444232 and 1.7 rockers get you? Obviously there are alot of other factors, but i think ball parks shots are okay.

 

All stock that motor was rated 185hp and 275tq and the two main bottlenecks are the cam and exhaust(stock cam is unbelieveably tiny), so it's no stretch at all for the motor to make ~260hp/350tq with longtubes which is a hugh gain.

 

Is your 350 tq estimate headers alone on stock cam?
If so that would be an impressive and worth it upgrade

 

I'm sure that's a cam and full length headers

 

That's more what I figured but couldn't be sure
I think those numbers are a reasonable goal for these engines
It's a shame they were produced so restricted

 

Longtube headers alone on a completely stock motor won't quite make that much TQ but the gains are impressive, I did exactly that on my '89 and it went from a slug that could not even chirp tires on dry pavement to one that would lay rubber.. that's with 31s and a tight 3.55LS diff. Horespower gains were less impressive.. the motor was still severly restricted and wouldn't rev over 3500-4000rpm but that's where the cam change come in. My current 5.0 has a big roller cam similar in grind to the 444232 with 1.7 rockers and as a result it makes a ton more power everywhere and absolutely storms to 5000rpm, it's no joke the gains from these two changes on this vintage motor are hard to believe.

 

That's good to hear
I want to do long tubes and reduce the final drive from 3.08 to 3.73 and if that's not enough change the cam
But I have SD EFI and my choices are limited
But I'd like to avoid changing internals of headers alone would impress me

 

can you suggest a good cam for a 5.0?

 

See the second post of this thread, there's three of them right there