351w h.o
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Joined: Apr 2004
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351w h.o
I just recently bought an 85 ford f150 the air breather lid says 351 ho .whats the difference in the ho and the regular 351w is it just the 4 barrel carb?Are these supposed to be good engines and are they rare or pretty common
Give me coffee - Or beer!
Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 746
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From: Who cares?
As far as I know they are pretty common. I have the same thing. The HO stands for High Output. The engine puts out a lot of power but uses gasoline like it was less than $1/gal (appx 10mpg). Problem is that I may not have the carb set right enough or some other cause for poor mileage. Then again it just may be a gas hog. Doesn't matter, I still love my truck and the engine in it. It has been a very reliable engine. I pull horses (up to 6) with the truck and the engine doesn't complain at all. The truck squats with that kind of load, but the engine still carries us at 60mph around 2600 RPM.
If you don't mind, I'll share a few things I have come across in my 12 year ownership.
One problem you may have is with the Holley carburator. IMHO it is a piece of crap! You can find several topics here about it.
For a couple of years I was going through alternators like oil filters, never did discover the cause but since it was pretty easy to change and they were under warranty when they failed I just changed them out and kept rolling.
I have had to put two starters in. Both were rebuilt from Car Quest. Maybe if I had stuck to original equipment I wouldn't have had to do it twice.
I have been told that it has a tendancy to leak oil, but since I know where my leak comes from and why, I don't buy into the claim. After I pull the oil pan and retap or fix the threads on the block and reseal the oil pan I will take a new look.
I replaced my xmission after 188,000 miles, it quit going into third. Did a valve job at around 130,000 miles.
Just some stuff off the top of my head. What model body did you get? The Super Cab XLT or what?
If you don't mind, I'll share a few things I have come across in my 12 year ownership.
One problem you may have is with the Holley carburator. IMHO it is a piece of crap! You can find several topics here about it.
For a couple of years I was going through alternators like oil filters, never did discover the cause but since it was pretty easy to change and they were under warranty when they failed I just changed them out and kept rolling.
I have had to put two starters in. Both were rebuilt from Car Quest. Maybe if I had stuck to original equipment I wouldn't have had to do it twice.
I have been told that it has a tendancy to leak oil, but since I know where my leak comes from and why, I don't buy into the claim. After I pull the oil pan and retap or fix the threads on the block and reseal the oil pan I will take a new look.
I replaced my xmission after 188,000 miles, it quit going into third. Did a valve job at around 130,000 miles.
Just some stuff off the top of my head. What model body did you get? The Super Cab XLT or what?
Senior User
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 198
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From: Oregon
its just the 4bbl.
my truck had one in it before it blew. I was getting around 16 mpg with an edelbrock streetmaster intake and carter 625 cfm carb.
the hp and torque numbers for the motor are pretty low. tons of stuff you can do to wake it up.
my truck had one in it before it blew. I was getting around 16 mpg with an edelbrock streetmaster intake and carter 625 cfm carb.
the hp and torque numbers for the motor are pretty low. tons of stuff you can do to wake it up.
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