Hi everyone! I'm new here, and to Mid-90s Fords, but not so new to working on old trucks. Last month I bought a 1995 F-150 4x4 with a MAF 5.0, 4R70w, 6 inches of lift, 35 inch tires, and 4.10 gears.
The truck had a rough life before I got it. The previous owner ran it with a gooseneck hitch pulling a horse trailer, quite often. It had some ignition problems when I got it and would quit for no reason, I checked a few things out and determined the PIP sensor was losing signal, so I replaced it, and all was good, then a week or so later it lost at least one cylinder, and wouldn't stay running. I determined the compression on #5 had dropped too low to support combustion and the rest weren't far behind. I was expecting it to crap out on me, and had looked into rebuilding the 302 in it, but after poking around on this site I decided a 5.8 would be a more suitable replacement.
Keep in mind this truck may pull a tractor (7000lb) four times a year,for less than 100mi round trip, and other than that be driven back and forth to work, and some moderate off road use, but this is what I have come up with for a rebuild (feel free to critique my choices):
1)Complete 5.8 out of a 1996 F-250, rebuilt with any necessary machine work.
2) GT40 heads (non p) from a 1996 exploder
3) Comp 35-512-8 cam with Comp recommended valve springs
4) Pacesetter long tube headers with a custom 3" single exhaust, haven't decided on muffler yet, either no cat or aftermarket free flow cat
5) Oregon performance transmission high perf. rebuild kit +sure cure shift kit
6) Pioneer FRA205 flex plate

I'm in need of some advice on my engine rebuild kit though, on summit's website they only show one kit for the 5.8 in that year range, but in the Haynes manual the only differences in the crank/rods/pistons is a .003" difference in piston to bore clearance between pre and post 1991 engines, and a .008" difference in ring end gap between pre and post 1993 engines. Does anyone know if a pre 1991 efi 5.8 rebuild kit, or even earlier bottom end kit will work? From the numbers I don't see where it wouldn't. I have found kits that say they fit from northern auto parts and RPM machine, but they don't specify what type of pistons are included, and I'm not really confident in the quality of the parts they will send, so if anyone has experience with these kits please chime in. I'm not on a bare bones budget, but I would like to keep costs as low as I can and still be reliable. Thanks to Conanski for his wealth of knowledge that's already out there and thanks in advance to everyone else for the advice!

 

Well I got the swap done, truck runs good, just a couple of issues still to work out, but I'll get to them later.

Things on the build changed a little since I decided to get back into motorcycles in the middle of the build, but it came out good anyway. I cut the plans for long tubes and went back with manifolds.I also shelved the plans for the transmission rebuild because if it ain't broke don't fix it. The air pump was no longer needed, so it and all 9 miles of associated tubing took a trip to the landfill. This created the issue of finding a proper belt to run the more necessary accesories, which actually only took three trips to the parts house. If you route the belt as follows, a 966k6 will do the job: from the crank, go straight to the alt. Then from the alt. hit the tensioner, then to the a/c, p/s, over the w/p and back to the crank.



966k6 belt routing

In lieu of headers I had to figure out what to do with my exhaust, so I lengthened the stock y-pipe to fit the wider block, gutted the pre-cat and put the stock cat in the same location as the air-pump.
Just as a side note, a 3/8 inch npt pipe tap cuts nice threads in the stock air injection tube.
After the pre cat I ran 3 inch pipe back to a dynomax pro-flo ss muffler, then out the passenger side before the axle.
Everything started up easy and ran in good, but when I tried to drive it, it stumbled and would barely run under load, once stopped it ran great, so I played around under the hood and anytime I touched the dizzy it fell on its face, so I pulled the codes and it gave me a pip circuit failure code, so I inspected it again and determined the dizzy needed replacement, so 60 bucks later it had a new distributor and was running like a champ.
On the maiden voyage to the gas pumps, it shifted really funny, and the TCIL lamp went to flashing, so I got it back home, pulled the codes, and behold, the dreaded 628 came up. So I read a bunch of forums, wrung my hands, gnashed my teeth, and climbed back under the truck to pull the tranny, but before I yanked it completely out I decided to inspect fluid condition and see how many spare parts were being stored in the trans pan. The fluid looked really good, and once the pan was down, there wasn't anything concerning in it, when I dropped the filter the problem jumped out at me, literally... the guts of the tcc solenoid fell out of the solenoid body. At this point my local napa has a new tcc solenoid en route and I will change it out tomorrow and see how it goes.

 

Congrats on the swap. I'm working on the same thing on my 95 except SD and a 5speed. My problem is the heads that came with the 351 have a bad valve and the manifolds are cracked. So I'm piecing it together then going to drop it in probably in the spring as at the moment the 302 is fine and still gets 17.5-18 mpg but I just want a little more pulling power. Good luck and keep us up to date

 

Mudsport, are you going back with stock heads?

 

I finished my 5.8L swap yesterday. Got exhaust welded up today. Great power gains compared to the old 5.0L. Your gonna be in shock when you start driving it around. /smile on face.

 

The little I got to drive it, it impressed me, I can't wait for the trans to be 100%. I'll post pics in the next couple of days.

 

Also if you get an idea of mpg difference post it up so I have an idea what I'm getting myself into lol

 

With that big of a lift and stock heads you may see a slight improvement in mpg over a 302. With gt40s or gt40p's you'll see solid gains.

 

I have not drove it enough at this time for fuel mileage calculations. I drove it to the exhaust shop yesterday. Had Flowmaster High Flow cats welded on along with some SLP Loudmouth Resonators dumped behind the cab.

What I have noticed is running long tube headers is nice for power gains....But when it comes time to removing the starter...Unbolting and cutting the passenger side exhaust is going to have to happen

I also have noticed is my transmission is running about 20 degrees warmer running true duel exhaust down each side....I'm currently running a cheap Haydens Transmission Oil Cooler along with the OEM style 2 core radiator.


The plans for today:

To do some measuring of the front radiator space to see what size aftermarket transmission and engine oil cooler I can rig up. I think the transmission lines are 5/16" Looks like most style coolers are either 1/2", 6AN, 7AN, 8AN ect... style fittings. I'll have to get adapter fittings to rig up to some rubber hose and clamp it down.

Thought I would just throw all that down so others would know what they have to look forward to.

 

That was my main reasoning for cutting out the LTs on my rebuild. A decent set of headers is not all that expensive, but I didn't want the headache of installation and maintenance of that system. I'm sure I'm leaving some HP and a bucket full of TQ on the table by using manifolds, but the cons beat the pros for this truck's purposes, IMO.

 

Ok, so I install the new Tcc solenoid, take it for a test drive, and now the thing is hung in lock-up, it's like driving a manual that you have no control over, if I drop it to 2nd gear at idle it kills the engine, as soon as it shifts from first it lugs the engine, same thing for each shift afterward. So now I get to gremlin hunt that issue, but I guess that's part of the fun of having one of these old trucks. I'm open to suggestions if anyone has any experience with this type of issue.

 

Now that's a good automatic; trying to be a manual.

Sounds like binding in the trans IMO.

 

Clay, yeah probably just some e7s have a line on a couple pairs. Not looking to hotrod it, I have a hotrod for that lol. Just my daily to get around so don't need anything special.

 

Check your pm inbox.

 

Well, the tcc seems to be stuck in lockup, it works great in 1st and rev, just when it gets to the gears that lockup is mechanically possible in, it goes straight to lock. I'm going to check signal to the solenoid and check the harness before I start getting too deep in the mechanical side of the trans., still keeping my fingers crossed for an electrical issue rather than mechanical.