hello all,

I plan on rebuilding our shop truck 1989 F150 2wd. I wanted to turbo charge the motor, so i'm looking for any help on where i can find forged pistons and rods, ARP bolt kit,injectors and custom or stock cams. any help would be appreciated. I plan on running around 10-15lb of boost. Which i would just need a mild cam as the stock seems a little too much torque. We have a turbo manufacture that will take care of the ECU. The truck has a manual five speed, not sure about the rear gear ratio. can the rear end be fitted with a ford 9 inch swap? Thanks

 

should be able to swap in the 9''. At the most you're gonna have to sawp out the mounts on the axle. Not the hardest it you've gotta welder. The hardened components might be at Clifford Performance. I know they make the cam that you need.

 

The 5 spd won't handle the power...you'll break that tranny. The rear end will handle that power when thoroughly checked and confirmed stout.

 

Didn't the ZF 5 speed go behind the 300? I thought it would hold up. A turbo six still isn't going to produce like 400 HP. maybe 400 ft. lbs....

 

Forged pistons will most likely be a custom order from the likes of Ross.

IIRC Sealed Power and others have forged rods readily available.

A forged crank will be a problem since thier aren't any available after-market, that I've been able to locate. You'll need to find a 65-80 heavy duty to have much of a chance.

The tranny is most likely the Mazda and, as Justin points out, won't take the performance torque. A ZF will, but won't be a racing tranny.

Odd's are the rear is either 2.75 or 3.08 open. You shouldn't need the 9" since there are readily available gears for the the 8.8 that will handle the torque you'll be pushing out of the 300. The axles will also be a weak point that will need replacement. While your at it, supsension work to handle wheel hop would be a good idea as well.

What RPM/power range are you looking for? That will dictate what injectors you need, as well as fuel pump and line size.

The single biggest problem will be the head. If you stick with the EFI head there is very little that you can do to it to help with flow. With a lot of work you could make a carb head function.

Out of curiousity, who is the turbo manufacturer? And what engine management system are they planning?

 

Didn't the 300/351 get the ZF and the 302 get the M5OD?

 

No. All F-150's, except for a couple rare 1988 models, got the Mazda 5 speed.

 

Only F-250/F-350's got the ZF. The M5 was behind the lighter duty F-150s.

But the ZF is a direct fit inplace of an M5.

It's probably the tranny you'd want to use.

 

It's a 2wd, could he swap in a Toploader?

KO

 

Hello all thanks for the quick replies. This have changed a little with use for the truck. I will end up using it as the shop truck for hauling our cars and boat. So i guess the new question is not so much horsepower but improving the torque. What is the towing cap of the F150 as our book stated 5,001 to 6,000. the boat is a cobra performance cat and weight in around 4500. the car with some being classic are close to 5,000lb mark. We still will use turbo, build by turbonetics and use thier management system unichip. Will bring the boost to 10-12lbs. Trying to get close to the 250-300hp mark. Any one know the stock hp rating. The truck is being redone from the ground up so and suspension upgrades to assist in towing would be great or rear end ratio ideas. I would like to set the truck to pull 6000 to 7000lb mark. found forged pistons and will look to seal pro for the rods. the I6 looks pretty stocky so i figured on it handling 250-300hp easy. is there a code for th M5 so I can see it that is what we are running in the truck? would it be better to swap tranny for the towing use. the truck will be making avg towing dist of 800 to 1,000 miles per trip.

 

any good ideas on where to find a good rebuilt ZF..and what would it take to do the swap?

 

For all intents and purposes all EFI 300's are rated at 150hp and 260tq. Strangely enough, if you have 3.08's and/or an automatic they change to 145hp and 265tq.

Unless you have a special order, you've got the M5OD/R2 transmission. Unfortunetly I don't have good info on acquiring a ZF-42. As I understand it, the ZF-45 has the larger bell housing and won't direct bolt. For what your wanting to do the ZF is superior to the M5. You'll also need the 11" clutch.

For towing I'd go no lower than 3.73's. Need at least limited slip if not a locker for boat recovery. Upgrade to the 3in rear leaves for F250's, and the supporting shakles, etc, and those towing weights are realistic.

250+ hp at 12# of boost isn't unrealistic in the 3500rpm range. But...the cam to get you there may not be idea for towing/boat launching-recovering.

Not trying to discourage the turbo, but... if the primary objective is towing then you'd be better served with NA, some good head work, better exaust flow, and a cam in the 260-270 range. With some tweeks to the tables you can jump to 21# injectors and still have good all around power.

Either way the head is critical, The stock ratings calc out ot a VE of about 66 which sucks. A good P@P should net you an VE around 75 which means your feeding more air. That alone should provide about another 20 odd gross horsepower.

 

A properly tuned turbo setup would be awesome for towing - that involves turbo sizing as well to get it to spool in the desired rpm band.

Here is a good website for ZF transmission information: http://www.zf-group.com/am/pc/lt/ampclt03.phtml

 

A couple of thoughts about that. First, there is much more to towing capacity than how fast you can get from0 to 60. Things like brakes and frame strength play a large part in the safety factor. Brakes because stopping a heavy load is at least as important as getting it going - you don't have to get into a position where your brakes are not enough to withstand heavy and/or repeated braking. The frame is important because when you put a heavy load behind a truck, the frame has to absorb all the stress of that load stretching and compressing it over and over. This is why tow ratings on 3/4 ton trucks are higher.

The second thought is that modified motors are never as reliable as stock ones. If you put a turbo on it, it will pull better for a while. Then something will break. When you have a load behind you, breaking down is no fun. You want to tow, you want a reliable workhorse.

Bottom line, if your goal is to tow 7000 lbs, buy an F-250 with a 460 or a diesel.

Sorry, but I have to correct something here. All ZF's behind 300's and 351's share the same bellhousing pattern, regardless of what truck they came in. A ZF from any F-250 behind a 300 or a 351 will fit fine behind any other 300 or 351. The 460's and diesels share a different, larger bellhousing pattern. You can find the ZF, but they are pricey in the smaller bellhousing pattern version.

There are also two versions of the ZF - the ZF-42, rated to handle 420 lb-ft of torque and the ZF-47, you get the idea.

 

Andym makes a great point.