I actually joined in '08, but never posted in this part of the site. At the time I joined I had a '94 F150 4X with a bum 5.0 flat tappet (wrong for the truck to begin with) I rebuilt it as a roller with a B303 cam to get a little more low end grunt.
My history with F series truck goes back to '72 when I bought a '67 250 Ranger package camper special 352 4spd. Jump ahead to '87 and I was working for Int'l. engine engineering in Melrose Pk. and the "Thor" program was getting started. That morphed into the 7.3L Power Stroke that was such a noisy success. Prototyping that engine was a long term project, and in '94 some of us spent weeks at Indy to help get them up and running in the transition from the I.D.I. turbo to the power stroke. In '98 I moved into the V6 4.5L program based on the 6.0 V8.
The 4.5 was projected to go in the F150, Explorer, Navigator to get Ford relief on the C.A.R.B. and C.A.F.E. standards but there were issues.The gear train had a balance shaft that rotated 2X crank speed, and no bearing in existence could survive the centrifugal forces spewing its oil supply before lubing anything. Having set a max r.p.m. of 3600, that 7200 r.p.m. balance shaft was a show stopper. There were actually a few that got into the market, but by that time, I had gone back to being a tool and die guy.
So, an old "new" guy, but still a gear head and Blue Oval fan.