what do most of you guys put in your trucks when the engine dies? Local rebuild? Crate Motor? Jasper? Phoenix machine?

my 302 is on its last leg, and Im pretty sure at some point this year im gonna have to swap the engine. Just looking for the most bang for the buck and something that will last.

 

Well I guarantee a lot of people will recommend getting a 351 from either a salvage yard or somewhere else locally that has used engines. I haven't seen/read much about people putting anything else in like a crate motor, but I'm sure some people have and just haven't posted about it. The most common thing on these forums seems to be the 351 swap.

It shouldn't be too hard to swap a 351 in with a 302, but there are a few modifications that need to be made, albeit not many. I don't know too much about this swap, but hear it is indeed worth it. I have put too much time and effort into my 302 that I want to keep it for a long time.

Why do you think your engine is on its last leg? Is it running poorly or do you just have a lot of miles? I have heard people have over 300k on the 302 and still have it run strong!

I have 212K and my engine was running perfectly. I decided to do a cylinder head swap though (my replacement distributor was acting up and made me tear into the engine to see if anything was wrong because I didn't expect the distributor was going bad again until after I was done with the work.) Everything looked great in my engine, but the new heads will definitely give my engine some more life.

I decided to replace the oil pump and pickup while I had stuff apart, but both of those looked fine still.

You know more about how your engine is running than me, but I'm just saying maybe you might be able to get more life out of it still! Despite the 302 being slightly underpowered for a Bronco, I really like it, and it seems very reliable.

What would be REALLY cool (and something I WILL do someday) would be to swap a 7.3 powerstroke in there! You will need a full donor f-350 or f-250 though..... but it would be worth it.

 

I like my 302. A 351 would be fine and all, but im kinda partial to my 302. Im kinda leaning toward a jasper at the moment. They seem to be pretty decent and have a good warranty. I have too many parts laying around for a 302 that I would have to sell and buy 351 parts for, so 302 it is.

At least with a newly rebuilt engine, I could throw some good aluminum heads on there eventually to give it a bit more power. With my bottom end knocking a bit now, I dont really want to try and add any more power as it is. I just want to get it running reliably again.

 

I'd recommend finding a local shop. For one thing, no shipping charges. Which is money you can put back into the engine

You can find a later model 5.0 core for next to nothing. See what some local shops quote you for a full rebuild. Use the money you saved on shipping for a full balance job.

 

Yeah knocking doesn't sound like a good thing. I was having pining and hesitation but it ended up being my newly installed distributor. However I put some nice AFR aluminum heads on in the process of trying to get rid of the pining so that's a good thing. However.... the intake gaskets didn't have emissions ports which I didn't pay attention to so I have to tear that back down to fix it. I hope I can reuse my 40 dollar gaskets after I drill holes for emissions stuff. I guess I'll see the condition they are in when I have it pulled apart.

Anyways, you can find pretty cheap 302 cores like BaronVonAutomatc said if you want to still use your truck while a shop works on the rebuild. I've seen some cores on craigslist here in AZ for under 200 a few times. They probably weren't in great shape, but with a shop rebuilding it anyways I don't know if it would matter too much.

 

Are you referring to the EGR ports? Do your AFR heads have EGR ports in them? If not you are wasting your time taking it all apart again.

 

Yeah the AFR 165s did have the emissions ports for the ones I got. I made sure they did because I didn't want to get rid of any of that stuff, at least for now. I just finished this weekend tearing it apart and putting gaskets with emissions holes in them and everything is working well now!