I recently got my grandfathers 1976 F100 long wheel base 2WD truck, he bought brand new in 76 and has 53k miles on it, it will run but it sat for 20+ years. Me and my father in law (old motor head) are going to rebuild the truck. I am not a motor head but trying to learn as much as possible and do all the research for the build to get what I want. Which is just a bada$$ truck that looks and sounds good. It has the 302 motor

Please do not be too harsh on me I am not that smartest when it comes to trucks and motors.


We will be tearing the motor all the way down and taking block and heads to machine shop for testing and cleaning.

With that said I need some advice

Should I rebuild it back to factory or do some work to it?

I was thinking factory plus new cam to give nice sound. I was just going to replace the cam but I am having a hard time finding the compression ratio so I can talk to a vendor about new cam shaft for it. Can someone help me with this?

Any advise or good threads for adding horsepower to a 302? Maybe even a kit I could look at that would have what I needed to do this.
I do not want to spend more than 2k on motor rebuild I know that will be a factor on your advise.

Thanks for any help!

 

We need to know a few, things in order to give you accurate advice:

What is your budget?
Intended use? Street, work, weekend warrior?
Do you intend to keep it carbed or go EFI?

 

That motor made all of 120 HP new. Comp ratio was around 8 to 1. Do what you want but to get anything out of it to build a "baddasss" truck you'll need to put stroker kit in it or swap in a bigger engine. A 302 just ain't gonna cut it no matter what you do. In addition to the stroker kit, you'll need better heads, cam and intake to make it all work. Then headers for the exhaust. Then you'll need to have the transmission looked at to see if it'll handle the new power. You need to also check to see what gear ratio is in the rearend, it's likely either 2.75 or 3.00 gears there now, that may do ok for now, but if that's what's there then you'll need to look into a gear change there too.

 

Hard to believe a 5.0 V8 could be engineered to only make 120-130hp but that was the case, however that also means it wouldn't be too hard or expensive to "find' another 100hp or so with non dished pistons and a cam that actually opens the valves.. seeing that you are tearing the motor down anyway. A better set of heads wouldn't be a terrible idea either, on a tight budget look for a set of late model GT40s.. they are the best of what was ever available form the factory, it would be difficult not to end up with a 300hp motor if you target 9:5:1 compression with those heads and even a mild performance cam.

 

Once done I plan for this truck to be a street truck/ weekend cruiser. I do not plan on doing anything crazy in it at all. Outside will look nice I am not worried about that at all just worried about sound at this point.

With that said I do not guess that horsepower will be a huge issue I mainly just want it to sound as badass as possible, I want a little loppy/rough sound out of it.

Can I get this by putting in new cam, intake, carb, headers, and exhaust system? I would like to use factory everything else if possible to not make build to much.

I talked to Compcam and they recommended the following cam kit, not knowing my exact compression rate. If anyone can help me on that I would appreciate it.
COMP Cams: Xtreme Energy™, XE262H: Cam & Kit

Exhaust wise I would like to run dual exhaust and use Flowmasters.

Headers I am not sure if I would need long or short tube to help with sound and performance.

Intake and Carb I would be open to suggestions and ideas.

I hope this gives you little bit more of idea of what I am looking to do, I would love to stroke it but that would just get into to much money with most likely needing new tranny, torque converter, and rear end gears.

 

Don't build an engine based on sound alone. You'll be out one night and get your *** handed to you by someone who also has a great sounding engine but actually puts out the power. Seen lots of these guys who were all sound but no "go". Some call em posers. That cam isn't going to give you the lope I think you want. For starters, pick a set of pistons with as close to a 1.620 pin height as possible. Next, have that block's decks milled .020, this is what some call a "tall deck" 302 block, but it's only .020 taller than previous 302 blocks. And have the rods resized with new ARP bolts installed. The stock bolts were the weak link in those rods. Invest in a good set of heads with 58 cc chambers that'll get the comp ratio in the high 9's or low 10's. Then pick a cam that's got some real lope to it but will work with the increased comp ratio. Intake manifold ? Pick one of the following: Performer RPM, Weiand Stealth, Edelbrock's older F4B, Ford's C9OX or Ford Racing's A321. Edelbrocks old Twisted Torker was also a good-un (carb pad is "twisted"). The old Shelby "Cobra" intake is another. Top it with a Holley carb in the 570 to 650 range with vacuum secondaries. And look into changing the rear gears in that truck, it's most likely got either 2.75's or 3.00's. You need at least 3.50's in it to get it off the line quicker. And with a traction loc unit too, to get it to hook up.

 

What they are saying is that the bigger "lopey" cams need higher compression to support them. If you run a large cam with your 8 to 1 compression your running (dynamic) compression will be anemic and terrible for "street cruiser" torque. So it's advisable to raise compression with heads and/or pistons......or stick with a smaller cam around 250-255 adv. duration. Although I wouldn't have an XE cam I'm surprised they didn't recommend a xe256 for you....I guess cause it doesn't sound like a pro stock idling.

 

Might not do you any good unless you convert to a roller cam using link bar lifters, but Ford Racing's B303 has a nasty lope to it and works with a 9 to 1 comp ratio.

 

Good advise. I had a buddy with a 68 FB Mustang with a low compression 289. He put in a hairy cam that had "the sound" but you had to drive it nearly full throttle to negotiate city traffic! He had the image though, black primer, N-50's with Centerline wheels, gapped long tube headers.Just wouldn't pull a greased string out of a cat's ***.

 

I had one like that in the 80's, But had a 390 and later a sideoiler 427 under the hood to back the sound up. Had so much fun with that car. All the Chebby crowd had no idea Ford put anything other than small blocks under the hoods back then. This happened many times: What ya got there ? 289 ? I'd say "nope" 302 ? "nope", 351? "Nope, keep goin up" What's after that ? "390" Two barrel ? "nope", 4 bbl ? "nope" That would stymie them, and they'd flip when they saw the 3 twos under the hood and later the two 4's with the 427