A guy I work with has a 96 F-150 with a 302 that he wants to sell me. Is this a good platform to build off of. I have a 351W out of a 93 F-150. I was thinking of building and dropping in. I want to start a project truck and I was hoping that the 96 would be a good starting point.

 

Depends on the condition of the truck, but the 351 and 302s both mount to the same transmissions. Is your 351 an EFI version? The '96 302 will be. I'm not sure if it will be MAF, but that could be another potential difference. If the price is right for your budget, these are solid trucks.

 

I have a fleet of F-150's from the 70's-93 yes they are tough trucks! I do not know about the mass air as old my trucks are speed density. My 351 is out of a 93 so it would be EFI. I wanted to build up one of my other trucks from the 90's but quickly realized that the Speed density was a pain. That is why this 96 caught my attention it has mass air on it.

 

In '96 the F150 was OBD2 MAF which is a pretty good platform for performance, the downside is there are a couple unique(expensive) parts that you will need to put a 5.8 under the hood. These things are a DPFE egr tube and a crank counter balancer with tone ring for the misfire sensor. The 5.0 has these parts but the engine balance is different than the 5.8 and EGR connects to the exhaust on the 5.8 vs the lower intake on the 5.0 so those parts won't transfer to the 5.8 and you're gonna have to buy them separately.

 

Thanks for the info. would it be worth building the 302 that is in it, maybe a stroker kit instead of switching the engine out to the 351.

 

Hey Paul, is the harmonic damper of the same balance between 28/50oz flywheel, and it's the flywheel that does the actual balancing, or do they both work in tandem together to balance the engine.

If you need to, you can take your balancer, and flywheel and get it balanced to the 28oz of the 351. Or better yet, when you build your new awesome motor (351 or stroke it to 393/408/427) get the rotating assembly balanced to 50oz and all the 302 stuff will work fine. It's the price you pay to build something ford never did.

The egr pipe issue. That darn sensor is fussy. I'd try to just lengthen the tube to fit the 351, see if it throws a code. It won't hurt anything like mpg or power. It's just an emissions code.