I'm trying to use a 360 Lower End out of a 76 ford F-100 and put 390 Heads and Intake on it out of a 66 Mercury Merauder. i belive the 390 Cam is Mechanical lift and the 360 is Hydraulic Lifters and Cam. what do i have to do to make these two work? will they work together? any info is greatly appreciated.
Casey

 

The heads have been rebuilt on the 390. the 360 was supposedly rebuilt 20,000 miles ago. but i believe the heads are making the 360 miss.

 

First the heads on a 360 and standard 390 motor are identical. Same for the intake and the blocks. I doubt the 1966 Full sized Merc was a mechanical cam. Since the 1966 Merc 390 engine options were both 2 barrel engines. The other engines were a 410 and a 428, both 4 barrels and both had 3.98" strokes compared to the 390's 3.78". The mid-sized Mercs had a 2 and 4 barrel 390 but they were also hydraulic camed.

 

What is leading you to believe this?


John

 

the 390 is a 4bbl from the 66 mercury. i know some of the missing on the 360 is exhaust port b/c a friend showed me how to put a piece of paper on the tail pipe and on some strokes it sucked the paper in the pipe. Rather than a continuous blow. is that true??? How can i tell if it's mechanical or hydraulic lifters? i really don't know the difference.
Thanks guys.

 

Is there a difference in the Hydraulic and Solid Lifter BLOCKS?? I'm not positive the 390 came from a 66 mercury marauder. the air cleaner is orange and says super marauder 390 4V on it. They are solid lifters though.

 

The valve covers should uncover adjustable rockers if it's a solid cam. (?) Why not just put the 390 in and be done with it ? EVEN IF IT NEEDS A REBUILD. Certainly would be me objective if I had to go that deep into a motor & one of them was a 390!!

 

To help you diagnose the engine, you can make a "poor mans leakdown tester"
Take the screw in hose from your compression tester, and adapt the fittings so you can hook it up to your air compressor hose. Place each cylinder at exactly top dead center, firing stroke. Blow air into that cylinder. Listen for air leaking out of the exhaust pipe, the intake manifold, and at the oil filler cap. Exhaust pipe noise, bad exhaust valve. Noise in the intake, bad intake valve. Noise at oil filler, bad rings.

 

I'm trying to do this with little or no money in it. the 390 needs to be bored b/c grooves and it has one cylinder wall with a chunk out of it. weird looking. the bearing and rings are bad too. i would just like to have as least amount of money is possible

 

thanks for the leak down test explanation.

 

there are no adjustable rockers on the heads. they're solid. also, the 390 doesn't get a lot of oil to the top of the rockers. i think the ports in the block may be blocked. how does oil get to the rockers?

 

This is the quick and dirty explanation. There is an oil passage that goes up to one of the headbolts. the oil the then goes by the headbolt in the head, and then it shifts over to one of the rocker arm stands. The rocker arm shaft is hollow, and has holes for each rocker arm.
It is a fairly common practice to restrict the oil passages that feed the rocker arms, in an effort to force more oil pressure to the bottom end of the engine.

 

The oil passage to the heads doesn't go anywhere near a head bolt. Oil pump to the to main lifter galleries the up to the heads to the rocker stand with the skinny bolt to the rockers. Not enough oil is usually an indication of a weak oil pump. The normal problem is too much oil to the rockers.

 

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I could be wrong on the oil flow up to the rocker arms on the Ford FE. I last was inside a 390 engine in fall of 2006. The unusual thing is that the oil does not flow through the pushrods like it does on a lot of other engines.

Stock hydraulic cam rocker arms are not adjustable. There are different length pushrods available to get the hydraulic lifters the correct amount of preload.
It is entirely possible that the engine cylinder that is giving you problems has too long of pushrod on one of its valves. This would hold the valve open, not good. Another problem with these engines is that the earlier ones were designed in a time when leaded gas was the normal gas for cars, and trucks. now, no lead in the gas, greater valve seat wear, valve sinks into head, has longer length, and requires a shorter pushrod to get everything correct.

To check the hydraulic lifter clearance, get the engine hot. Put the engine at TDC at the end of the compression stroke of the cylinder no. 1. Apply pressure to bleed down the lifter. The clearance between the valve stem and the rocker arm should be .144 to .184 ideally, but .119 to .219 is permissable. On Factory engines you can check no. 1,3,7,8 intake valves and no.1,4,5,8 exhaust valves. Turn the engine crankshaft 360 degrees. You can then check no. 2,4,5,6 intake valves, and no. 2,3,6,7 exhaust valves.

If you have a screw and locknut on the end of your rocker arms, you have adjustable rockers.

These engines are at least 30 years old, there is a chance your engine may not be stock.