Son and I have been working on our 91 F150 XLT 4WD for 2 years now. Suspension, brakes, rusty body and frame have all been addressed. I'm looking for some input on our engine build. The truck has a weak 302 backed by a rebuilt AOD. We have found a good 351 block and have put together a plan to rebuild/improve it. No specific HP or TQ goal in mind, just want something better than what we've got without spending a ton. The truck is not a daily driver and will be used more for weekends, snow days, etc. So far, this is our proposed combo:

E9 351 block, flat tappet
Stock bore with new rings
Stock crank
Ford MAF system from a 95 F150
Stock injectors - doesn't appear we would need to upgrade.
Stock intake manifold but I've been looking at the PP Typhoon #52034 - does it work on the 351?
Comp Cams XE256H
Comp rocker arms, lifters, push rods
Flo-Tek heads 203505
Headers - undecided at this point. Planning to use a y-pipe with a single exhaust. Or should we go duals with a crossover?
Ignition - undecided at this point - Pertronix? Something less than an MSD billet, at least in price?
Stock TQ converter
Stock 4.10 gears

The block will go to the machine shop later this week. There is minimal if any ridge in the cylinder walls and no apparent damage. Crank journals, bearings, etc. look good but we will replace the bearings.

This is my first engine build; I would appreciate any suggestions you guys might have. I have searched many of the 351 threads and gotten some good info but haven't found one with all the pieces thrown together. Any thoughts as to how much HP or TQ this combo would create?

Thanks!

 

Typhoon makes a version or a lower at least that fits the 351.. I had one.
Cam, heads, and intake all together won't work with a stock MAF setup, airflow will be well beyond what the stock MAF can handle and stock injectors can supply so upgrades and tuning will be necessary.
A '95 truck MAF system will require the matching computer controlled transmission and dash cluster, if you want something more stand alone and tuner friendly look for a '89-93 5.0 Mustang to pillage.
A relatively stock 5.8 with just an upgraded cam will be a hugh upgrade from the 5-slow the truck came with.. if you want to start simple. Once you get it in and working with the MAF setup adding external parts(heads, intake, exhaust) later on and as budget allows is easy enough.

Let the machine shop tell you what the shortblock needs, don't buy any parts until he does.
Nothing but a stock coil and distributor needed here, there is no performance to be gained with these components so don't waste your money.

 

Thanks for the info Conanski.

The plan was to use a Mustang computer with the tubing and air box from the 95 F150. I didn't explain that very well.

Machine shop has the block, crank and pistons. I will wait until I hear back from him before shopping for anything.

Would the Mustang computer with updated tuning work with a cam, heads and exhaust upgrades? I wanted to avoid the $1k or more for an EFI setup, but maybe that should be my longer range plan and do that before I change the heads and exhaust. Your thoughts?

 

The mustange ECU and harness is the way to go, I grabbed and A9L ecu and took off the injector harness from a MAF mustang and spliced it in, loomed it, and came out nice.

I dont know your level of skill and experience, but I agree with starting small. For my build I had GT40 heads, GT40 intake, aftermarket MAF, 24# injectors. It failed. I then put the stock intake, MAF and injectors on, and my god the difference. Once your on the road would I suggest moving on the intake, MAF, injectors, ect, along with the tune.

With my setup, I knew I would need a tune so I picked up a Moates Quarterhorse chip and Binary Editor sofware/license, it set me back about $350 after said and done. As others have said, and I can confirm, it is a steep learning curve, but once you get the hang of it and begin to understand the complexity of the EFI tunning, the sky is the limit. Advantage is having control of every setting and parameter that the engineers would have had at your fingertips. You can datalog, evaluate, and adjust for whatever you want to do. This would require an aftermarket wideband O2 as well.

Its a lot of research, trial and error, but well worth it, I drove me truck around for a year without it, and it was alright, but after going through all the building, the wiring, theres a whole other layer of satisfaction when the tune is just right, and optimized at that. Best of luck.

 

Yes of course but as Glasser mentioned you want to do this in steps as you get the hang of making changes with the tuner.

I had a stock MAF conversion kit(factory mustang PCM and MAF meter) on my '90 with a mild 5.8, ported heads, Crane 444232, longtubes and single 3" exhaust, and that ran great with no tuning, idled like stock but made a ton more torque and had fantastic throttle response. I put a TweecerRT on it and then picked up 24lb injectors and a Cobra MAF meter to add one at a time. With the Cobra meter installed the motor ran worse but after I updated the MAF transfer function with the tuner everything went back to normal, this larger meter flows more air and didn't peg at max like the stock meter did on this motor. I then installed the 24lb injectors and updated all the parameters associated with those and again the motor ran as well as before, but the motor didn't really need these as it wouldn't rev high enough with the stock heads and intake so I took them off again, this was just an experiment to familiarize myself with the tuner.

 

Thanks for the info, I appreciate it.

One question. Did you keep the A9L ECU and Mustang harness on when you went back to the stock intake parts? Maybe the cam change along with the MAF is enough for now, at least until I can spend some time learning about EFI tuning.

 

Thanks for the info. I have some work to do on EFI tuning before getting in too deep. At least my budget just got more manageable! I'll start with a cam change and the MAF conversion and see where we are at that point.

I dismissed after market EFI systems because I wanted to stay stock but am now rethinking that decision. The cost of the MAF conversion, computer and tuner isn't far off one of the FITech or Holley throttle body systems. I already have an Performer manifold that would work with the aftermarket system. Decisions, decisions.

 

The only parts I back tracked on were the 24lb injectors everything else stayed on the motor.

You can do a cam and exhaust upgrade without MAF but I'd suggest the Crane 444232

 

Not to hijack this thread, but I recently did a MAF conversion on my 87 Mustang, and ran into some problems that still puzzle me. I'll avoid the long story and just say that at this point, It seems to be working most of the time, with a couple of minor problems. The first is that on cold starts, it will not idle, and will stall without my pulsing the throttle to keep the engine speed up. I have to do this for about a minute, and it starts to idle roughly after about a minute. When it warms up, it idles better, but every once in a while will idle rough or high. It tends to idle high when I coast in neutral, and the idle drops to about 800 when I come to a stop. This indicates that at least the VSS is working. I reset the idle stop screw to change idle with the IAC disabled, but they all end up being either not helping cold idle, or helping cold idle but making hot idle too high.

The KOEO test show code 67, NSS fault, as I don't think I have that connection. KOER test shows HEGO not switching, so I got a new set, ready to replace them this coming weekend.

So what should I tweak to try to get the cold idle working better?

 

I would suggest starting a new thread, not only for you to get views/comments about your specific question, but also would benefit anyone searching for a similar issue, just my .02,

That being said, please clarify which MAF meter you used and any other mods, such as cam and headers