Alaska? I bet shipping charges are a beast on anything.........

 

Yea that's if I can get the supplier to ship here. A lot of places won't ship here cuz rates are higher with ups and FedEx. But usps ships to all of the state's for the same price. I've even offered some ebay sellers to cover the difference in shipping and they still refuse for some reason.

 

I have a 460 in my 68 C/S that the PO put in. It's not on the road at present but when I test drove it years ago I was amazed how fast my truck was. Bad timing chain, uneven compression ratios, and all. BUT, I would suggest building a 390. Years ago I read an article in a car mag where they got their goal of 400 HP from a junk yard T-Bird 390. Doing a little Google searching now trying to find it I ran across all kinds of things to do to build one. I have not looked at Hio's link yet but I suggest posting a thread here in this forum's FE engine section asking them.

 

I had a buddy with a 460 in a dent. It was a pretty stout truck and all he had was headers, aluminum intake, and a small 280 cam.

 

Walt,
Here's a 'general' idea on what I believe Barry Rabotnick put together on a different site. Darned if I can remember where.. Gives you an idea on parts & costs. Pretty sure a new build can be done at less costs especially staying with pretty much stock parts. I seem to remember a long block cost in Spokane, WA was around 1300 the last time I checked.

The downside of buying a short/long block from those rebuild shops is you don't know what's inside them. My last one had a cracked & re-welded head that required replacement after a few hundred miles and the company refused to warranty. So now I'm doing my own 390 to 418 build. At least I'll know what I have. In hindsight, I might have been better off just to have Survival Motorsports (or similar others) build it but no one ever said I was bright.

Dan

 

Where do you live in Alaska? Just curious, I spent 16 years in Willow and Anchorage.
You wouldn't have to do much to a 460 to have 400 hp at the flywheel. 400 on the ground is a whole different deal.
Given the choice of one or the other, I'd take the 460. If you are going to build the 390, you might think of sticking a 410 crank in it. If you bore .060, you will come out with about 420 ci

 

It's nice down there. I've got family in the palmer area so I visit down there from time to time. I live up in Fairbanks. I'm leaning pretty heavily toward a 460. I think it would be a fun project to swap over and it's looking like making 500+ hp out of em shouldn't be too hard either (looking into the future haha). And from what I've read parts are cheaper for 460s and I like the sound of that. I've got lots of work to do on the truck so gearing will be done to get more power to the wheels.

 

I've had a 460 in my '68 for about 35 years and the stock one was stronger than the built 390 that it had. Now it's slightly modded, cam and Holley 4 bbl. It was built for pulling my cab-over camper and 5000 lb boat and it worked great. Now all it pulls is mulch for my wife and a couple of kayaks and occasionally my bass boat.

 

That's about what I've been wanting to hear to set me on the 460 haha. I think I'm pretty well set on swapping to a 460. Seems it will have better performance and more options and more power in the future when I can fund some serious hp.

 

I've been in Fairbanks in the winter, brrr. Loved it in summer, used to motocross at North Pole by that old bowling alley back in the late 80s. Is Skinny Dick's still out there on the Parks?

 

Yea it's cold in winters. -20s right now. Been down in the negative for over a week now. Summers do make it worth it though. That's pretty cool. I wish I'd have gotten into moto. Yep its still there. I haven't been yet but hear the food is pretty good.

 

You should be able to find a usable 390 engine at your local junkyard. Ford produced millions of them and put them in almost every vehicle they ever made.
And, being in Alaska, those junkyard parts have been cryogenically stress relieved very well.
Look in your Cl too. Anything that you ever want goes through there sooner or later.
Building a 400+ Hp 390 is simple.
(Ignore that BS that the 390 was a 200Hp engine. That was nothing more than the hype for the insurance companies.)
Most FE heads flowed close to the same through the intake and exhaust. Plus or minus 5-10 CFM is pretty standard. Just a decent valve pocket clean-up and port matching will get you plenty of flow increase. Any set of FE heads is going to need hard seats and SS valves just to be compatible with unleaded gas. For a few dollars more get the 2.09" intake and 1.65" exhaust valves from someone like Alex's on eBay for about $150 for a full set. Then it ran me about $300 for the shop to replace the guides and seats and set the valve stem height.
9:1 compression, a good cam 1200-3500 RPM range, and a decent intake manifold can net you 400Hp easy.
Headers suck. Plain and simple. They can be a major bitch getting on, they tend to run too close to the starter causing it to fail early, and they can make it a real bear to change the starter. All for 10-15Hp at 6000RPM? Really? That means no Hp gains at low end. Save the money and put in a good dual exhaust with a torque tube instead.
You're not racing so do you really need each and every single Hp gain?

IMHO and YMMV and there will be plenty of other opinions...

 

Headers suck.

Actually i think they blow......lol

 

I''l take the Header Issues over factory LOGS any day .
Nothing like choking an engine of power

 

$440 I supply valves and springs to get a valve job in town .hell yes shipping is 25/30% more for any thing shipped here. I started by only going to do headers but, you know now it complete top end, $2500 or more