Lol! Well, I wasn't seeing quite the same vision, but now that yYou mention it I can picture it a bit.

So, what decal or lettering should go on the lid? I've been planning on doing "6.6L HO" for Dad's to mimic the 5.8L HO, so 7.5L HO? I don't think I want to go back stock.

 

A custom sticker on the lid to mimic a factory one would look good. I think you nailed it with that last air cleaner. By the time you round up some valve covers, get the engine out, sealed up, and painted/cleaned up, that engine will look really good! You'll have folks thinking it's a factory special performance option Lol.

 

Bruce brought you a 1983 Mustang air cleaner.
'85 was the last year of carbs in these cars and the 1993 5.0 FI intake would never fit under that.

Since Big Blue has no aspirations of being stock, I could see a pair of eyes and horns on the lid.
If you want to keep it blue, more an Ox that a bull...

 

7.5 H.O. sounds like the department of redundancy department.

H.O. was used to designate the 4V engines and I don't think the 460 ever came with a two barrel (maybe some of the 429's in cars?)

 

That's my plan. The way the air cleaner nestles down between all the hoses makes it look like it was meant to be there. And the dual snorkels hooked to the radiator support with factory ducting adds to that appearance. Then, a factory-looking decal on the air cleaner seals the deal.

It'll be kinda like a 442 with the W30 option. We all knew what a 442 was, and I even had one blow my Super Bee in the weeds so, like The Monkees said, I was a believer. But the W30 option was pretty rare, and I don't know that I've ever seen one in person. So, if Olds put out an option like that, who's to say Ford didn't? (Although, why would it be on an F250HD???)

 

Jim - You are right, it was 1983. My mistake. Thanks.

As for the decal, what are you suggesting? That "460" and "HO" are synonymous?

I agree that the 351HO's were 4V's, but they also had a hotter cam, dual exhaust (I think), and the larger air cleaner. So, it wasn't just the carb. Who's to say the 460HO didn't have a dual-snorkel air cleaner and dual exhaust?

By the way, my Bee blew a 2bbl 455 into the weeds, but the 442's 455 was an entirely different story.

 

429s in Mercurys came with a 2 barrel, engine options on my 1971 Colony Park, 351, 429 2V, 429 4V. Only difference in the two 429s was the intake and carb. Took me about a week to find an intake and drop it and a new 1-191 Holley on it.

 

I got to thinking about the snorkels I had on that base, and checked. Sure enough, the passenger's side snorkel wasn't the original one from the HO cleaner. In fact, it was one w/o any angle to it. I suspect it was the one on the bottom from this pic out of Dad's Air Cleaner thread. The top one is the original HO snorkel, and you can see how it would angle the snorkel to the rear on the passenger's side.




So, I made sure this pair was installed on the HO base, with the one on the top on the driver's side. So, what I now have is a mirror-imaged pair of HO snorkels, with the one on the driver's side being modified to have the angled part flipped 180 degrees.




And, with that done I found that I have 1/2" of clearance to both the upper radiator hose on the passenger's side and the back of the A/C compressor on the driver's side. And, here's what I found on the tabs that align the air cleaner to the carb.




Given that, I think the design is done. I've sent a note to my paint/bodyman to see if I can drop the extra HO lid off at his place to get some minor dings taken out. Then, when I get the valve covers, whatever they are, I can powder-coat them and the air cleaner in one go. And right now the plan is for the base of the air cleaner as well as the bulk of the valve covers to be wrinkle black, and the rest to be brushed aluminum and clear-coated.

And in the interim I have to decide what I want the decal for the air cleaner to say. I'm still leaning to 460 HO or 7.5L HO, but don't need to decide yet so please keep those cards and letters coming in.

Oh yes, if this is to be a stealth, factory-like build then I wouldn't think "Ford Racing" would be appropriate for the valve covers. What about neatly-done factory covers with the "Power By Ford" highlighted? Or, Ford Motorsports, like on Dad's?

 

Personally I vote for "460 HO". Those numbers are more of a name than just a displacement. Like the engine in Dad's truck being a 351M. Sure it's been stroked and probably bored if I recall correctly, so it's displacement is something over 400. But the engine is still and always will be a 351M.

For me it's the same thing with all engines that were named before the changeover to metric. A 300 may displace 4.9L and a 351 may displace 5.8L, but they're still a 300 and a 351 (the 302 / 5.0L is a little bit of an oddity here for me. The truck engine is a 302 but in Mustangs they effectively renamed it a 5.0).

And I'm not anti-metric. The diesels are 6.9L, 7.3L, 6.0L, whatever. And the new gassers are 4.6L, 5.4L. Those are their names.

Big Blue's engine might displace 7.5L, but it's a 460. So that's my vote.

 

Bob - Thanks. I'm old-school and, like you, haven't gotten into metric engine measurements for the engines we new way back when. Like the 460. So I like 460 HO better as well.

But, Dad's engine is a bit of a conundrum. Granted it started life as a 351M. But, by slipping a Ford 400 crank in it it really is now a 400 since the only difference is the crank and pistons. In fact, that block could have gotten a 400 crank back in 1981 as the same blocks were used in both engines. So, while my signature says it is a stroked 351M, the truth is that it is a stock stroke. Does that make sense? And, in this case I am torn between calling it a 400 HO or a 6.6L HO.

 

Ford switched to metric nomenclature in 1983, did they not? So to be technically correct, Dad's should be a 400, and Big Blue a 7.5L.

 

My 1986 owner's manual lists available engines as: 4.9L 6, 5.0L V8, 5.8L V8, 6.9L V8 Diesel, 7.5L V8, of course, not all engines were available in all models.

It gets interesting when you start looking at the trailer towing charts, this is before the damn lawyers got involved and decided a DRW truck had a lower towing capacity than an SRW model.

 

Interesting. I didn't realize that's when Ford switched to metric on the engine sizes. Where did you find that info? I'm just curious, not saying I don't believe you. But, that's a bit of trivia I might put on my web site if I knew the source.

Looking at the sales literature on my site I could make a case for the switch happening earlier than '83 as the earliest brochures I have are from 1981 and they show "5.8L (351 CI)". So, by then they were placing the metric measurement first. And the same was true for 1982 brochures. But by 1985, which are the next ones I have, the (351 CI) was left off and only the 5.8L shown.

So, even in '81 the metric size was the primary engine indicator, and by '85 it was the only one. Given that, Big Blue's engine would certainly have been called a 7.5L by Ford.

 

I found it on Wikipedia, although there's no source given there for the tidbit so you may want to take it with a grain of salt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_s...six_engine#300

From this it may be more accurate to say that they started the switch to metric nomenclature in 1981 or earlier (not surprising, given that my '80 has a lot of metric parts when it comes to body hardware), and perhaps completed it in 1983.

 

According to this, Ford's Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) started in 1981. And according to this, one of the first vehicles out was the 1984 Mustang SVO. Do we know for sure there wasn't a 1985 F250 SVO?