I have a 78 f? with a 300 I6 in it And an 86 F150 with a a 230 Hp 302
I have tuned my 300 -carb / timing and It will SPANK my 86 until 4th gear emty
but after that the 302 runs away from the 300 like it is standing still?Loaded my 78 will pull a 53 GN witha 2610 Kabota and a 3010 kabota Like nothing is even there but my 86 can only haul my 16' BP@1400lbs 65mph But empty the truck will run 40-125,135mph qiuck Does that sound right????I need a flywheel for my 78 300 How much do they go for and where?
Dustin

 

I had a 1978 with a 300 it was an auto and it was damn slow and worthless. I don't care what only one says a 302 will beat the 300 in a race. 1986 302 didn't have 230 horsepower anyway. Man you been daydreaming

 

Telling it like it is
302 is a HO Mustang motor anyway
Dustin

 

I beg to differ with fordeverpower. sortof... In general, "straight" engines such as the ford 300I6 tend to make more torque than a V8 engine with similar dimensions. I don't remember why, I think it has something to do with the less rotating mass?? Ford was putting the HD300I6 in F250s for a long time. I know there are more people out there that know more about this than me.

DG808

 

The 300 has a much longer stroke than the 302, hence the torque. But the 300 can't make the RPMs line the V8 does...

 

Your findings make a lot of sense. A 300 has much more low end than a 302. As Gene mentioned, the longer stroke is great for torque, but poor for reving past 4K. A 300 is much better suited for truck applications vs. the 302 IMHO.

 

IMHO the 302 is a good CAR engine, or a good engine to put in a truck that is going to be driven like a car. When it comes to towing or hauling the 302 just sucks down the gas and still won't move like a 300 I6. Thats why heavy trucks like the F600 had the 300 I6 as a base engine and where not even offered with a 302.

 

use the V-8 for a date

the six ain`t for chicks

 

I agree, when I had my 91 with the 300 I6 ran terrible when empty, load that truck up and it did anything you asked it to do. one of my friends went from a 300 I6 in an f150 to a 302 in an f250 for landscaping and first thing he said about the truck was that the 300 was much better hauling and towing then the 302.

 

Thus settles the HP vs TQ war. Trucks need torque, cars need horsepower.
This is why most diesels have like 250hp but have 550= lb/ft of torque.
They ain't fast, but will pull your house off of it's foundation.

Horsepower is really a measurement of how fast that an engine can rev, torque is how much weight it will pull.

This is also why almost all of the big semi's are powered by inline 6 cyls. They haul 80,000lbs GVW. They don't accelerate very fast but will pull alot of weight.

Jimmy

 

Seems like some peoples need an edumacation on what Horse power and torque really are.

What is Horsepower?

Contributed By: Bucky EdwardsEverywhere you turn, people and manufacturers are making horsepower claims for their cars or products. Unfortunately, most people do not really understand the theory and history behind the horsepower rating system. In this short article, I would like to explain a little of the history, and use analogies to help the reader to better visualize the concepts. Understanding how the formula for horsepower works may help you sort through the jungle of performance information out there. The math behind calculating horsepower is extremely simple, but let’s start with a brief history.
In the middle 1800’s, America and the rest of the world for that matter, was going through a period called the Industrial Revolution. Because of the growing use of the steam engine, industry no longer needed to be located next to a river for power and horses were no longer the only means for transporting goods and people. However, no one had a "ruler" for measuring the power of a steam engine or any power-producing device. If you needed a power supply to run your sugar cane press, what size steam engine would you need? Experience may tell you that a team of 4 horses would probably drive the press, but what size steam engine would suffice?

Without doubt, you have heard of a unit of electrical power called a Watt. Named after James Watt, he also defined a system for rating power producing devices.
Watt started with the definition of WORK, which is FORCE multiplied by DISTANCE. If you pushed a 100-pound box a distance of 1 foot, you have done 100 pound-feet of work. If you pick up that same box 1 foot off the floor, you have done the same amount of work. What James Watt really wanted to define though, was the POWER that an engine could produce. POWER is defined as WORK / TIME. If it took you one minute to push that 100 pound box one foot then the power you expended was 100 pound feet per minute. If it took you two minutes then you did 50 pound-feet per minute of work. Get it?
In our example of the sugar cane press, you may have come to the conclusion that the obvious answer is a four horsepower engine. This must have been obvious to James Watt also; because what he did was to try and define how much power a horse could produce. We don’t know if the horse he had in mind was a Shetland pony or a mighty Clydesdale, but nevertheless, the number he came up with for one HORSEPOWER is 33000 pound-feet per minute or 550 pound-feet per second. So what James Watt figured was that a typical horse could pull or lift 550 pounds one foot in one second.
We now have a definition for horsepower. Just like we know that 12 inches equals one foot, we know that 33000 pound-feet per minute equals one horsepower. Horsepower would be hard to measure on an engine directly, so we must use a little math to find some quantity that we can measure and convert it to horsepower. That quantity is TORQUE. TORQUE is defined as a twisting about a point caused by a force on a lever arm. For example, a one-pound weight at the end of a 1-foot long wrench applies a torque of 1 foot-pound on a bolt or nut. Note that WORK and TORQUE have the same units and foot-pound equals pound-foot.

Now, let’s imagine that you get an exercise bicycle. You know, one of those with the big wheel in front and a strap running around the outside of that wheel that can be tightened to make it harder to pedal. Now let’s say that you adjust the strap tension so that the wheel is difficult to turn. Now get a wrench and a spring scale. Attach one end of the wrench to the center of the bicycle wheel and attach the scale to the other end of the wrench. Suppose that it takes a 50-pound pull at the end of the wrench to turn the wheel. If the wrench is one foot long, it requires 50 foot-pounds of torque. Now start turning the wheel with the wrench as fast as you can. Suppose you can turn the wheel 55 times in one minute. (I’ll bet you can’t!) How much horsepower are you producing?
This is actually pretty easy. To figure horsepower, we need to know work per unit time. Earlier, we established work as:
Work=Force x Distanceand Distance for our example = 2 x Pi x wrench length
Since we are moving in a circle, 2xPi x radius (wrench length) is the distance around a circle. (Remember that Pi = about 3.1416) We have already pointed out that power is
Power=Work/Time So our equation looks like this:
2 x Pi x wrench length x Force x rpm= power we expended.
Since this will give us foot-pound per minute, we can divide the answer by 33000 foot-pounds per minute and get the horsepower. But before we start plugging in numbers, note that
wrench length x Force = Torque.
Replacing that into the equation has:
2xPi x Torque x rpm/ 33000= horsepower. (Pi= 3.1416)
Simplifying the equation yields:
Torque x rpm/5252= HorsepowerThis equation is the one that most people recognize. Plugging in the numbers from our exercise bicycle example:
Torque = 50 foot-pounds
Rpm = 55 rev/minute
50x55/5252=0.524 hp!!!
To turn that bicycle wheel 55 times in one minute, you produced over 1/2 horsepower. Most trained athletes can only produce a little more than 1/4 horsepower for any extended length of time. So my example might not have been the most realistic, but you get the picture.
A dynamometer can only measure torque and rpm, but can use this formula to calculate horsepower. Also note, that by definition, at 5252 rpm horsepower equals torque. So be very skeptical of someone’s horsepower and torque chart if the curves don’t cross at or very close to 5252 rpm.

 

I've always enjoyed that explanation. Helps me keep things in perspective when I'm setting up an engine. Torque is for everything. Where the engine creates this torque is how you choose your parts.

Dan Q

 

I enjoy that explanation, and that little bit about how a trained athlete can produce maybe 1/4 HP.

Helps to give a perspective on what it really takes to turn them big sticky tires and pull that 20,000 lb trailer and 6500lb truck.

 

Oh yeah, that and the mathmatics involved in it all. Once you understand bore, stroke, and piston speeds, plus the 5252 rpm figure, it helps make a person understand why the 351 makes 210 hp at like 3200 rpm or something, where my 1000cc motorcycle can make 150 hp at 10,500 rpm. If airflow could support it, and valvtrain wouldn't go whacky, the 351 would possibly make some serious power at 10,500. At the same token, I can't do crap on the motorcycle at 3200 rpm.

In any event, I get to see that explanation a couple times a year, and I always enjoy it each time I read it.

Dan Q

 

my point exactly the 300 is for pulling and is slow and a 302 would beat it in a race.