Started with thinking about putting a larger cam in my 410, but some guys here and that I know convinced me to pull a head and look at what I had:



Got the heads off and didn't like what I saw:






So I decided to jump in and build a new engine. Luckily I have a friend who is a good mechanic and who loves the old Ford trucks to guide and help me.

Traded the 410 in pieces to a buddy for a virgin 390 block, a Holley Street Dominator intake, a few other bits, and some cash. I went with a Prison Break stroker kit from Survival, and Barry also prepared a set of BBM heads for me. Went with a Comp Cams hydraulic roller cam (234/240 at .050), T&D roller rockers, and a QFT SS 830 carb.

While I was waiting for parts I decided to deal with the wheel hop issues I had on hard launch - caused by spring wrap - so I put a set of traction bars into the rear:



Did some grinding on the intake:








And when the block and heads were ready we got to work on the top end:





Finally got the engine assembled:



I also ran a new fuel system to get enough gas to the beast, and got it installed:




And today we fired it and for the first time in a year it was on the road!

 

Sweet. I'd love to do that to my 390. What kind of valve set up do you have on your heater hose?

 

Looks clean.

I am curious as to what you torqued your headers to?

 

Those T&D rockers sure are nice except for the wait! I think I waited almost 4 months for mine. What do you think of your Quickfuel carb? I have the hot rod series which is a little cheaper and vac secondary. I haven't spent much time with it but it is definitely not right. Seems like it's going to take some fine tuning.

 

Wow. I was expecting a long drawn-out build post-by-post, only to find the entire build was done in the first post

Nice stuff. Especially those traction bars. Wonder how long before you break 'em

 

John, the heater valve was a small victory. They have them in the Ford parts system under a current number. Got it from a dealer in town! I took off the one that was on there to clean it and replace the hoses and it was corroded and seized.

Jklnhyd, I didn't use a torque wrench. I tightened until they started to distort. They were spitting pretty good so I will go back with a torque wrench now it has been fired. I bought a set of torque wrench adapters to do it.

PA74F250, my problem with Barry was that he ran out of heads and I eventually gave up and had him source the BBM heads and set them up for me. It sounded like Edelbrock was screwing him over a bit. I do have an "no Edelbrock" rule for my truck. The rocker assembly is sweet. The carb is a bit of a mess right now. We got it to light and stay lit, but it runs way too rich. We had some other issues including no tach and no temperature gauge, so aside from a 1 mile drive we were working on it in the drive way (where we could keep a temperature gun on it). Here is the video of the first fire:

 

Waited to post until we had it fired. Now the long, drawn out process is to get the carb set up so it doesn't belch black smoke, then break in the clutch, then we can test the bars.

 

Same here with the rich condition. I played with jetting a little but looks like I'm going to put it back to the way it came and start over. I did buy a AEM wideband which has helped me out a little. I think I have my primary figured out but the secondary is still rich. Also like part throttle I get hesitation and air fuel ratio of like 16:1 so not real sure how to richen that up. One thing I found you probably will too is that at idle you will never really get the gas smell to go away with the cams we have. I can lean each corner out on the carb and get the air fuel to say it's good but it takes the lope out and still smells bad lol. I think mine seems to idle best around 11.5.

 

I don't remember what you ran with for a cam. This is mine:



I do plan to wrestle this thing to the ground - we had to take the choke out of play to get a reasonable idle, and it does snap pretty hard on first application of the pedal, but then it riches out and bogs, so time to start making thoughtful changes, but before I start on that I have a temperature gauge that isn't working (that is serious), a tach that isn't working (annoying) and a clutch mechanism spring that isn't pulling the fork back hard enough. I'll get those sorted then attack the fuel mixture.

 

I was going to leave my streetmaster 390 alone, but after you posting pics of your Demon ground out, I may have to copy you. My engine is no where near high performance, so I am going to list it as a "just cuz" mod.

 

It isn't that difficult. I'd never done it before. I also did a little port matching. The gaskets were a perfect fit to the intake, so it was easy to transfer the marks. The I used a cutting tool and some smoothing tools and cleaned up the ends of the runners and smoothed the transitions. When opening up the plenum you just want to make sure you get rid of the shoulders and get a smooth radius down into the intake runners.

I didn't try for a polished finish because I had read that some texture at the boundary is good for maintaining fuel suspension.

All told I took me about 3 hours. Aluminium is easy to work with, just be gentle.

 

We have a mill at work, so I can go in on a Saturday and knock it out. I am not proficient with it, so getting the angle of the runner wall will have to be thought through. The guy that runs it daily, has been doing millwork for 30+ years, I may offer him $20 to do it, lol.

 

Sure hope to see some more Posts and videos of this build! Also as a way to justify me buying this kit or parts of the kit; )

 

After a bunch of delays - life gets interrupted by life - I got to turn my attention back to some problems I was having. It was very hard to start and ran very rough after the first start. Finally with some help from some guys over on the FEPower forum I concluded I had too much pre-load on the lifters, and backed them all off.

It now moves like a scalded cat - well, like I think a scalded cat would move - and has no trouble breaking the tires loose at 20 mph in second. The traction bars have also eliminated the wheel hop, so there is no trauma from getting into the throttle too hard - the wheels just start to spin!

I still have a problem with the headers. I think I bought Flowmasters back when I put the 410 in, and they can't seal to the CJ style exhaust ports on the BBM heads. I just got a set of Sanderson headers to replace them. I ordered them uncoated in case we have to do some banging on them, but when we know they fit I'll get them coated locally. I was a little underwhelmed by the finish quality - there was welding cast off sprayed into the tubes so I had to get in a clean them up.



It is running a little smoother, when I have the collectors modified and the headers installed next week I'll also get O2 bungs welded into the collectors so we can start tuning the carb and get some miles on the clutch before we but it on a dyno.

 

Wow, that is one snotty weld job