Copy and paste from the intro thread, as I wanted to get a little feedback on my novel. I hope that's ok.

Hi,
I was born a poor black chil... No, that's not right. I was born in an F350... Hold on, that's still not right although I might as well have been. I was brought home from the hospital during the blizzard of '79 in a '75 F350 named Patches. That's it!!

Back then, It was all original except for the service bed. It came with a 360 FE, a granny 4 speed and super cab. I grew up bouncing around in the jumper seats amongst milk crates of tools and random Ford parts. My father was a gifted mechanic who taught me damn near everything I know, which is probably only half of what he knew. When I was 5, we pulled the 360, and dropped in a standard 2bbl 390. This was my baptism into the fantastic world of Ford maintenance.

When I was 13-14, that "truck" 390 suffered a blown freeze plug and cracked a cylander wall. He found a '67 F100 that came from Canada and had a NASTY, MONSTER, factory hot rod FE date coded 1966 and '67. The air cleaner had the "premium fuel only" decals. It also had ORANGE, not yellow or blue, but ORANGE valve springs and the biggest intake valves I've ever seen. Nobody has ever been able to tell me what the orange valve springs mean but I know they were quite a bit stiffer than the blue springs in the other 390. He had been told it was a P.I. engine, but it didn't have the aluminum intake. We later came to believe it was one of the "prototype" engines that Ford churned out a around that time, as kind of a precurser to the CJ's of 1968 and up. God only knows what the engine originally came in stock but that relatively light, long bed 2wd would pull the front wheels off the ground off the line. It still holds the title for the the fastest vehicle I have ever driven/ridden in. Sadly, after a couple years crushing countless NOS equipped 5.0 stangs and ugly *** Camaros, the 3 speed manual it was bolted to gave up the ghost. Around that time he also purchased a '76 F250 with a 4bbl Holley equipped 390 and a C6. Although this engine would haul ***, it was nothing compared to the '66. Little did I know, he had some plans. One weekend, we began by pulling the 75 and 76 down to the frames. We took the HiPo Fe (still dont know if it's a 390 or 428, It is a webbed block with no cross bolts) and put it into Patches. The cab and fenders from the "76 went on it, added one leaf from the front springs on a Mack cement mixer (perfect fit), and the 390/C6 was put in the back of Tank (the '67) for a future build that sadly never happened. The '76 frame and axles etc. were sold to a guy that wanted to do a 460 build with it. He and I drove Patches for a few more years and for reasons I won't share here, I moved to Colorado when I was 16 and started an apprenticeship in the field I am still working in. Sadly, shortly after I left the east coast, he was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and kept it hidden from me until I was 20, and had been building my own life in Colorado for a few years. As much as I wanted to go home and help him, I couldn't. I was kicking *** with a great job and if you've ever compared Maryland to Colorado, you'd understand why I was drawn here. I wish I could have talked him into moving west at that point, but him and my stepmother had just bought their house together and he still had big plans even though his health was failing.

Fast forward 20 some years and my father is still around, although wheelchair bound, and with only maybe 20% of his mental capacity left. If you ask him anything about old Fords, he lights up and gets into details that would make most mechanics jealous, but if you ask him what he had for breakfast, you get a blank stare...
Patches still has the HiPo FE, although it has been sitting in the yard for almost 20 years. I did head gaskets etc. on it about 12 years ago and got it running although the truck was in undrivable condition. That was the last time it ran. You should have seen his face when he heard that monster fire up!!!! Tank, the '67 is now a lost cause and has been returned to mother nature. He still has the Holley 390/C6 in a corner of the garage in relatively good shape. I dream of rescuing the monster mystery FE and putting it into my '78 highboy clone one day, but as it sits, it is nothing more than a nice home for the mice and other woodland creatures to chew up..

About my '78... I was driving through a tiny mountain town one day when I saw it. It is all black, has a combo suspension/body lift for about a total of 6". It sits on 35" mud tires which are absolutely WORTHLESS for anything but mud. Especially with the 8 months of snow we get here in the Rockies. It has a '75 MCC true 400 block, with an Gm model Edelbrock AFB clone and an aluminum intake. I believe it has been cammed as it will pull hard from about 2000rpm all the way to about 5500 rpm. The person who built it did not change the gearing in the axles when they lifted it. I had my wife follow me once to see what it would it would do as the '78 speedo only goes up to 85 and it's way off anyway. It had enough *** to leave her at 115 when she hit the governor and keep climbing!!! We're talking a 6,000lb super cab long bed lifted monster truck here, and I live at 9,000 feet above sea level. I estimate it hit about 125 wide open with the original gears and big stupid mud tires. Needless to say, it runs great, and I love the whole Cleveland series of engines (we spent much of my youth working on my grandfathers various '70s Lincolns and LTD wagons so I know my way around a 400 pretty damn well) but it still pales against the memories of my dad's FE.

I have had a few Explorerers and Rangers over the years and absolutely love the 4.0 Cologne V6. I have taken a few of them well over 300,000 miles and sold every one still running. My current work truck is an '03 Ranger with about 200,000 on it and it still passes Toyotas, Jeeps and the ocasional (because few of them are still running) GM V6 going up inclines that would make many roller coasters jealous. My wife drives an '08 Mountaineer with the 4.0 as well. My dad used to have a Canadian built '80 F100 with the legendary 300 I6 and I hold the 4.0 in almost as hig a place as the old 300. I love just about every Ford engine ever made for different reasons. The only one I don't really care for is the 5.4. I had good luck abusing the 4.6s in my old company trucks but I prefer my V8s to have pushrods, manually adjustable ignition timing, and gobs and gobs of torque!

My newest project is a "94 Bronco XLT. I just bought it about a month ago, off a kid who had no idea what to do with it. It has the 351W, with speed density EFI and a strong E4od. It is stock height with twin shocks, towing package, .355 gears and and factory 31x 10.50s. The kid said he bought it from a mechanic who rebuilt the engine and tranny but he couldn't give me details on what was done. All I can tell you is it has 261,000 miles but runs like the day it was driven off the lot. It has just a tiny bit of rust peeking through the factyory silver paint on the tailgate and rear fenders. I have ALWAYS lusted for a Bronco and I think this one is going to be my forever friend. I will give it to my son eventually when he starts driving, but by that time I will have turned it into something special. It's getting a paint job and a lift next spring for sure.

My dilema is the '78 needs love. I bought it for sentimental reasons and to try to spark something inside my father. He comes to visit pretty regularly and had a blast riding in it, but it's just too damn big (long) for me. If I had my way, I'd set up the old 400 block in the bronco with some closed chamber heads (pinging is less of a concern at this elevation), modify the EFI from the wheezer to work on it (mass air conversion) and put the 'ol mystery monster FE in the big truck, but I do not have the space, time, or money for all that. I'm at a loss for what to do with the '78. I've had it for a few years and haven't had time to do much work on it. Now that I have the Bronco, it is going to get all my attention. Anybody near Colorado looking for a "78 long bed super cab F150 with a strong 4bbl 400? I think I might have to let it go. If I could dedicate my life to these projects, I could really do something with them, but alas.... life gets in the way.

Sorry for the novel. I BLEED FORD BLUE! Grew up keeping old Fords running, and have spent countless hours browsing and learning from this forum and others such as fordific.... and full siz... I just wanted to sign up somewhere and say THANK YOU!!!