I just bought a 1993 F-150, swb, 5.8, 4x4, auto trans E4od in excellent shape except...the engine has no compression in the #8 cylinder so a rebuild is in order. There are 2 paths I'm considering and not sure on which I'll go with!

I have a F4TE roller block in my garage I am going to use and I also have a Comp XE270hr new in the box from a past project. I don't want to go wild with the build I just want a powerful, street friendly, reliable engine that will give me years of service

So my first option I'm considering is the roller block with gt40 aluminum heads, edelbrock 3881 truck intake and I'm researching mass air conversions and kits as it looks like something I want to invest in, will the Comp XE270hr I already have be too much for this combination should I look at the XE264 instead?

My second option is while I'm having to get a motor built should I spend the $1,000 on a cast 393 stroker kit and upgrade the heads to something like AFR 185s and look into a car style intake?

If I go with the stroker am I looking at having to upgrade the drivetrain as well? Is it going to be a huge money pit? If it were you and you had 10gs for an engine build which direction would you go? Sorry for all the Noob questions but this is my first EFI build for a truck and Im excited to have my 93-F-150 sitting next to my 93 Cobra in the garage so yeah I'm just looking for some advice, thanks!

 

Well if you want to rebuild a motor you have a lot of good ideas but what was compression on the other cylinders just one cylinder off makes me think valves did you do a leak down test or air in that cylinder and see where it is escaping. Could save you a bunch

 

The Xr270h and the Edelbrock 3881 are a total mismatch on a 351 IMO. The cam would be OK for a truck based(relatively low rpm) stroker with big heads but that super long runner intake will become a bottleneck at a really low rpms. If low rpm grunt is all you want go with a shorter duration cam but if you want to make more than 300hp use a short runner car style intake with either displacement, it'll still make gobs of torque as that is determined more by the cam and heads than the intake.

 

Thanks for the replies I will look at the car style intakes, any recommendations? I would like to have power up to 5000-5500rpm and I'm not looking for a ***** out max power, stroker monster engine I want to build something that i could use as a daily driver if I chose too.
I need to look into the cost of using my existing crank and rods vs getting a Scat cast stroker kit, I'm not set on cam I had the xe270hr laying around already and I'm either gonna get AFR 185s if I stroke it to 393ci or the gt40x heads if I do a stock stoke rebuild, there's really not that much in price difference between the 2 I think I'm going with the AFR 185s

Any reccomendations on a good MAF kit? I see that ford makes one and also fiveoligy racing makes a kit for trucks with the e4od
Where should I look for good roller cams?
Thanks!