Aaah, 95's are a roller. Got it. Okay, so instead of <$100 it's about $120 from your auto store, assuming you're buying a generic "rebuilder" cam.

Installing the cam is easier and less time consuming than replacing the rockers, and generally costs less even on a roller 351W. I'd do this because it's cheaper.

All they do is open the valves slightly faster, and slightly further than stock, it's really not a huge change.

You can change the rocker ratio instead, but then you have to test everything to make sure the ratio isn't too high whereas the vavles bang the pistons. RV/Towing rebuilder cams don't have this issue, as they design them to work with factory rockers, pushrods, and lifters. The eggshaped lobes are just slightly flatter, and taller. Very slight, and this slight difference is amplified by the rockers.

To determine proper rod length, you need to use an adjustable rod, and adjust it until the valve doesn't hit the piston top. The clearance between the bottom of the valve and the piston top depends on the target RPM range. If you're building a stocker, minimal clearance is fine, as the valve isn't going to float off the rocker at 4500RPM. If you're building for higher RPM's, there are tons of math that takes the weight of the valve, the RPM, the spring pressure, and so on, so you can calculate the likelihood of float at a given RPM. THen you can calculate the necessary clearance so the valve doesn't smack the piston top.

If you're building a reasonably stock engine, just make sure they don't hit. If you can fit a dime-thickness piece of clay between the valve and the piston at all degrees of rotation, generally that's good.

 

I know the 96+ F-250/5.8's had roller cams. If that 95 has a roller cam, my guess is that it didn't come like that from the factory...dogbones and spider in the valley will give it away.

 

They started using the roller cam in 94 didn't they?

Conanski- so what do you suggest? Stick with the original cam with different rockers, with stock pushrods? I think I'm starting to follow this haha.

Fredric- You suggest I buy a different cam.... what type? Can I still stick with a Truck/RV cam like originally planned?

Ok I guess I'm starting to realize what I want. I want to go about this as cheaply as possible, with least complications as possible. I just want er to have a little more low end grunt. It had enough before even with the miles, but it's still nice to have a little more. That being said... whats my best bet? What brand cam would you all suggest? It looks like I'm down to either just getting a different cam and keeping all the other stock lifters/rockers.... or changing out the rockers... correct?

 

For a truck, I'd get an RV/Towing cam. I buy generic ones, usually in minimally marked boxes from my local, family owned auto parts store. They tend to give more torque in the low end than stock, mid and high is pretty much the same, and the mileage is about 1-2% better than stock, assuming you change nothing else in the stock engine. That's been my experience with the four engines I've built (and put into something) in the last six years.

My 500cid, twin turbo stroker, which is not complete, has a generic 460 RV/Towing cam in it already.

 

If I were to take that route... should I order new rockers and all that, or do you think the original ones will be just fine? What all would you replace if you were in my situation? I'm starting to think that a generic cam wouldn't be a bad idea.

 

Ford put the F4TE casting (number is located just above the starter) 5.8 blocks in 94+ newer trucks, but that doesn't mean they all got roller cams. The F4TE blocks will accept Ford-type roller hardware (just like the hardware found in the 5.0 stangs, which can be used on a 5.8), minus the pushrods. If you're running stock heads, then I believe you can use a set of pushrods from a 96+ roller cam'd F-250/351 to complete the install; which can also be obtained from a local parts store.
If you do go with a roller cam conversion, you will NEED to change the distributor gear; A roller cam will chew up the stock bronze gear. Two ways to do that is to have the old one pressed off and new one pressed on, or just buy a re-man'd distributor for a 96+ F-250/5.8 and it'll have the gear on it already. The reman'd distributors are around $100 from your local parts store.
Also, a Mustang 5.0 cam (with a minimum 2 degree advance) works quite well in a pickup with speed density, and idle/drivability is just like stock.

 

So the 96 F-150's and the 96-97 F-250/350's with the 351 had roller cams, but any other years didnt? I was always told that 94 and newer had roller cams. I will have to pull some stuff apart tomorrow and look for sure.

 

Since you're tearing the engine apart anyway, once you get one of the heads off, pull pull a pushrod and a lifter, and you'll instantly know if you have a roller engine or not. I know my 93 isn't, I replaced a lifter a few summers ago. Two actually.

Once you know what you have, you can then order the appropriate cam. Personally, with the mileage your engine has, when you replace the cam, I'd replace the lifters as well. The pushrods are probably okay if they've had oil their entire life but I would measure them with calipers just to be sure. If they aren't the same length, you know some or all of them have seen some wear. While I exemplify "cheap" there are times where being cheap isn't a good idea, like now, when you have your engine apart, it's the time to replace wear items that are an incredible pain in the **** to change later on with the engine in the truck. Lifters and pushrods I feel fit into that category.

Since we're talking home engine building, I'm happy to offer you lots of tips and detail if you want to email me when you're ready. A lot of things are easily missed and they can bite you in the **** later.

This reminds me when I pulled the 400 "B" mopar block apart for the first time, for building a 451 twin turbo stroker for my old dodge pickup. I don't think I found a wet oily spot anywhere in the engine - the whole thing was completely covered in caked on, flakey, brittle condensed oil. I mean everything. I filled a shop vac almost completely chiseling and bottle brushing that crud out. I even used oven cleaner (with lye) to help get that stuff off. I should have paid the shop the $100 they wanted for "hot tanking", but no... I wanted to make sure every bit of crust was removed. Hot tanking does get that stuff off the engine, but if it's in an oil passage it just falls into the passage depending on what end the block is sitting on while being caustically cleaned and cooked.

 

If it has a roller cam from the factory, then the intakes can be pulled to determine what cam it has. There will be a spider tray in the valley, held down by two bolts and a set of dogbones between each intake and exhaust lifter.

 

My plan was to get the hoist tonight and pull er tonight. But I worked a little longer than I had planned and ran out of time to get everything rounded up. Hopefully tomorrow night I will have it pulled and will have torn into er.

Until then, thanks everyone for your help here. I couldn't do it without ya. If anyone else has any input I'd greatly appreciate it. I just hope this thread helps someone else out too, there's a lot of good information in here.

 

Alrighty folks..... heres an update.

Got the engine out, and pretty much taken apart with the exception of the harmonic balancer, timing cover, ROLLER cam, 7 pistons and the crank.

Cylinder walls looked extremely good. Less than a thousandth wear on every one of them. The rod bearings need to be replaced, and the crank will probably need to be polished. I don't think it will need turned, just polished up. Thats really the only thing that I can visually see that needs some attention.

Oh and by the way, this engine has a roller cam/lifters to clear up any confusion made earlier. Lifters had the factory Ford stamp on every one of them. Also had the spider tray with 2 bolts as mentioned earlier. What was the purpose of that tray by the way?

So I've decided to keep the stock cam and lifters for now. I can replace those later on if I want to, but right now, my budget is a little tight. I am going to replace the rings, rod bearings, frost plugs, rear and front main seals, and of course all the gaskets. I was going to replace the oil pan due to it looking a little rough, but the rust hasnt killed it yet. I'm going to sand it and put some Por 15 on er and call it a day.

If anybody has any idea how to post pictures on here let me know. So far I'm lost. I just might have to put them in my gallery.

 

You can put your pictures in your gallery of course, but you can also put them on the web somewhere, and use the "image" tags. When you're posting, you'll see a bunch of little icons above the window you're typing in, and one of them looks like a sunset. Click that to get the image tags into your post, and put the link to your picture between the two image tags.

Glad the work to rebuild isn't too extreme. That's always a nice bonus. I'm not usually that lucky, I end up with bores that look like someone attached 'em with a die grinder lmao.

 

Hahahaha. To be honest I'm suprised it looked as good as it did. It's got 220,000 HARD driven miles on it. The fella who owned it before me bought it with 55,000 miles on it, and then I bought it with around 200,000 miles. He used it as a farm truck and pulled horse trailers and hay wagons with it at least once or twice a week. Then I got it and put er to the test haha. It didn't see 4000 RPM much, but when it did, I was usually slingin mud all over.

Now time to start ordering parts. I didn't want to order anything until I checked for cylinder wear and what not. Since I know I can stick with stock rings, where do you suggest I go for rings? Actually where do you suggest I go for rod bearings, main bearings, rings, timing set, and a gasket set? I was looking at the "Rering kit" from Northern Auto Parts which includes the mains, rod bearings, piston rings and some type of a gasket set (doesnt specify which one) for 168 bucks. Anybody want to chime in with some good deals?

Fredric- Do I have to have my pictures up on a website first before posting them in here? The pictures are currently in a document folder and I have no idea what the URL is for it.

 

You can use ordinary, stock rings available from auto stores, or PAW, or whomever floats your boat. You can get fancier moly rings but then you'd have to crosshatch the bores a little differently for better sealing. I generally do this but I'm usually turbocharging what I'm building so every bit of extra sealing I can get is a bonus.

Actually, I generally order complete rebuilder kits (bearings, rings, etc) from places like PAW because they're less costly than an auto store, and if you can get the PAW folks on the phone, depending who you talk to, sometimes you can substitute different main bearings with the kit if you need to compensate for say, a .020 overturned crank.

PAW's website sucks, just go there and get their phone number and talk to a person.

I put my images on my personal webserver which is in my basement, and then use the [img] tags to post the pictures here. Since my pictures are part of my website anyway, this saves me the hassle of uploading the pictures to my server, as well as here. I find it to be less work to do this.

Another option is to put your pictures on any of the web-based image galleries, though I'm drawing a blank so to some of the names. I'll refill my coffee cup and get back to you

 

Well all the pistons are out, and all the crank mains are off. I still need to get my harmonic balance puller back so I can get the timing cover off. Then I will pull the timing set apart and get my crank and cam out.

What do ya'll suggest I do about injectors? Should I replace them? Anyone know of a place to get cheap ones?