I recently picked up a truck, a '75 F-250 with a 460, which I'll be using primarily for towing my race vehicle. My Toyota and most other vehicles I have worked on, are very different from the old Ford, so I am quite a bit out of my usual territory.

Right now, it's adequate, and will get me there, but I could use a bit more punch out of it. I am a bit disappointed with performance, even considering it was towing a 3300 lb car on a 2500 lb trailer... I am considering some upgrades and/or getting to internals, and have some questions:

First off, I will almost certainly be going for headers and a custom full dual exhaust, 3" or such. I have seen a few other posts regarding this, and they are points in the right direction. Any suggestions on header brands would be appreciated, though!

Second, I feel that the intake is very restricted, it is really noisy that way. The guy I bought it from put on a new 4-barrel carb a couple years ago. It looks OK to me, but I really don't know carbs. I don't even know what kind it is! Could the intake manifold be a problem? Could the cam be an issue?

Also, the engine could just be tired. If I decide to get into this, should I rebuild myself, or go for a reman longblock? I know of a source for longblocks built with a choice of parts, probably would be $1200-$1400 with 5 year/50K mile warranty. Anyone know of a better deal in the Seattle, WA area?

I also don't really feel like doing an internal rebuild myself, as I will need reliability, and I'm not familiar with working on these engines. I bought the truck learning what it's like not being able to drive the race car home from another state, I don't want that to happen with the truck!

Finally, what about transmissions/rear ends? It's a 3-speed auto, seems to work OK, but it's geared low, and the engine is really winding on the freeway. 60 MPH is nervous, 70 is pushing it, and 75 is downright scary! It seems to me that I could change the rear end, but I'd loose low-speed pull. Would it be possible to retrofit a 4-speed overdrive auto without doing anything more than bolting it in? Or maybe that's just the way it should be? I don't really need to tow at 75 MPH...

Basically, what I want to to get it to be a good tow vehicle without spending very much. American V8 parts seem to be much cheaper than foreign parts, but I don't really understand all of what's involved. I'm thinking to spend $1000 if I don't get into the motor, maybe $2000-$2500 if I replace or rebuild. Does that sound about right?

I want to leave some money to spend on the Toyota!

Thanks in advance for any comments/advice!

- Michael McAvoy

1990 Toyota Supra Turbo, hauls up the twisties
1975 Ford F-250 460, hauls the Supra
1998 Saturn SC2, hauls me to work in the morning to pay for all of this!

 

We could use a little more info: what's the axle code on your drivers door jam? What kind of fuel mileage are you getting empty...what kind of mileage when towing?, at what MPH? How many miles are on the truck? My injected "89" 460 will only get 7-8 MPG when towing a 8,000
lb. trailer, my truck has 92,000 miles on it. a carbed 460 will probably get less.
Headers and dual exhaust will definetaly help. An Edelbrock Performer manifold and cam would be a step in the right direction or an Offenhauser 360 manifold with a carb no larger than 700 CFM...this is assuming the rest of your engine does not need a rebuild. Stay away from the OD autos as they are prone to many more problems than the C-6, plus the OD's are much more expensive to rebuild. Deen