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Hello!!
Just wanted to say hi and I am glad I found this site. I juast bought my first restore truck. A 1965 F 100 Custom Cab with a 352 V8 and four speed with granny gear. I will most likely be visiting this site for ideas and pics as well as suggestions. I want to keep it as stock as possible and try to bring it back to production specs.
Mountain Pass
Joined: Jun 2006
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Welcome
!
First of all, congratulations on keeping your pickup stock. The FE motor and 4spd are a great pulling combination, and the '65 is a great looking body style.
One of the first things you're going to find is that the 352, although a strong motor, is not particularly fuel efficient for the power produced. You will also find, when the time comes, that the 352 is fairly expensive to rebuild.
If you don't mind the suggestion, you might find these problems being addressed by going to a 390 short block at the time of engine rebuild. The FE really responds, power and economy-wise, to compression. Shoot for 10:1 by using TRW or Ross forged or hypereutectic pistons. The heads on your stock 352 are likely the 6090-G tall port heads, which are actually very desireable. I'd suggest larger valves, particularly 428 CJ valves in the heads when you rebuild them. A great camshaft balancing loads of torque and fuel economy is a 214/224 dual duration at 0.50" lift. I prefer solid lifters with 1.76:1 adjustable rocker arms yielding a bit more lift on the valves, but 1.73:1 hydraulic lifters are easier and don't require oil modifications to keep excess oil out of the heads; Rhoads lifters are a great option, too! A painted Edelbrock 390 aluminum manifold with an adapter spacer to accept a Rochester Q-Jet carburator, topped off with your factory oilbath air cleaner will look nearly perfectly stock. I'd also suggest headers, perhaps the '60-'64 police and hipo short cast iron headers if you want to keep the truly stock appearance. Use dual 2.5" exhaust pipes with Spintech mufflers and H-pipe exiting just ahead of the rear wheels.
Not only will your mileage increase and your power be hugely improved with this setup, you will find that you can reduce the ratio of your differential and get even better mileage, plus drive at todays higher speeds without winding the engine way up. With your existing granny gear, you could drop to 3.00, 2.75 or even a 2.47 differential ratio and have the 4th tranny gear be like overdrive for highway driving. You will see mileage in the vicinity of 15-17 mpg on the flat highway with this setup as opposed to 9-12.
Originally Posted by jodaddyo3
Just wanted to say hi and I am glad I found this site. I juast bought my first restore truck. A 1965 F 100 Custom Cab with a 352 V8 and four speed with granny gear. I will most likely be visiting this site for ideas and pics as well as suggestions. I want to keep it as stock as possible and try to bring it back to production specs.
One of the first things you're going to find is that the 352, although a strong motor, is not particularly fuel efficient for the power produced. You will also find, when the time comes, that the 352 is fairly expensive to rebuild.
If you don't mind the suggestion, you might find these problems being addressed by going to a 390 short block at the time of engine rebuild. The FE really responds, power and economy-wise, to compression. Shoot for 10:1 by using TRW or Ross forged or hypereutectic pistons. The heads on your stock 352 are likely the 6090-G tall port heads, which are actually very desireable. I'd suggest larger valves, particularly 428 CJ valves in the heads when you rebuild them. A great camshaft balancing loads of torque and fuel economy is a 214/224 dual duration at 0.50" lift. I prefer solid lifters with 1.76:1 adjustable rocker arms yielding a bit more lift on the valves, but 1.73:1 hydraulic lifters are easier and don't require oil modifications to keep excess oil out of the heads; Rhoads lifters are a great option, too! A painted Edelbrock 390 aluminum manifold with an adapter spacer to accept a Rochester Q-Jet carburator, topped off with your factory oilbath air cleaner will look nearly perfectly stock. I'd also suggest headers, perhaps the '60-'64 police and hipo short cast iron headers if you want to keep the truly stock appearance. Use dual 2.5" exhaust pipes with Spintech mufflers and H-pipe exiting just ahead of the rear wheels.
Not only will your mileage increase and your power be hugely improved with this setup, you will find that you can reduce the ratio of your differential and get even better mileage, plus drive at todays higher speeds without winding the engine way up. With your existing granny gear, you could drop to 3.00, 2.75 or even a 2.47 differential ratio and have the 4th tranny gear be like overdrive for highway driving. You will see mileage in the vicinity of 15-17 mpg on the flat highway with this setup as opposed to 9-12.
Postmaster
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 3,613
Likes: 6
From: Coal country
I don't know enough about the specifications to understand all the details, but one thing certainly will fit in with your stated goal of staying close to original, and that is that on the outside, a 352 and a 390 look identical.
The 390 is a superior engine, in my humble opinion, and like Farmall said, you can easily go to the higher rear end gear ratio (if you have a Ford 9 inch rear) to increase mileage and performance while retaining stock appearance and good power.
The 390 is a superior engine, in my humble opinion, and like Farmall said, you can easily go to the higher rear end gear ratio (if you have a Ford 9 inch rear) to increase mileage and performance while retaining stock appearance and good power.
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