Just curious as to what everyone else is running in their 302/351 swaps in the 48-52 F1's?

I'm looking to get a set of long tubes in, but it's unlikely I will find anything to fit on the driver side.
I'm using the stock steering box/column and have the motor mounted with some homemade mounts coming off the factory flathead mounts.

Am I stuck with block huggers, or is there an alternative?

 

Hi Cap!

Haven't heard from you in awhile....I guess when working on these bombs, no news is good news.

Exhaust - what a pain in the 48-52 with modern engines, I have a 390 and it was big enough with that stock steering box to make me go outside of frame with custom headers.

But the good news is I think you have enough room with the 302 to put some Sanderson Headers on it and they just fit.

Plus there's tons of folks with the 302 or 351 engines that will chime in as well.

I'm sorry I don't have a link ot Sanderson for you I'd just "Google" them.

Good luck!

 

I'm running stock exhaust manifolds from my '90 Crown Vic donor, with MII IFS and rack and pinion steering with no clearance problems.

Tom

 

+1 on the Sandersons. I used those on my 351W

 

I was really hoping to not go the custom made header route just yet, but that looks like the best option. I had a three step set built for my race Ranger and they are absolutly killer, but are a real pain to install and take oof the motor, and spark plugs are a nightmare (which I have to pull and look at under a microscope after every pass to tune the nitrous system).

I'm guessing a set of block huggers will be the direction I take, but I'm just not thrilled with them either. I guess for a street truck, it will be fine, but I really like long tubes. I was hoping to slide a set of longtubes I have laying around in there with a little massaging, but it's near impossible. I tried my late 60's Mustang....no good, early 70's Torino....no good, even tried my Ranger V8 swap tri y's....no good.

That damn steering box is in the way, any alternative to swapping that out?
I'm toying with the idea of hanging a new brake pedal in it with firewall mounted master cylinder, so that's not an issue......but the steering box is.
An easy swap for this?

 

Yep, that steering box caused me quite a bit of problems with exhaust on the drivers side that and the 390 Motor mount system I had a 5"square box to run exhaust, and $1700 in custom made headers - but they look and sound way cool.

There area lot of posts about installing Toyota steering boxes. I'm not up to speed on it, but you might think about starting that discussion in a different thread.

I think the Sandersons are the easiest, and require the least adjustment - like a smiple install.

You could always mount a stock manifold on that side backwards and loop the exhaust forward then back. Mine was originally configured like that - YUCK!

 

Yea......that's how it's done now, and I just don't like it at all.
I'm going to order a set of block huggers and try them first before I get into the steering box swap. I really just want to drive it right now, so hopefully the block huggers will do it for me.
Thanks again!

 

I used a large diameter block hugger header on the drivers side and a larger than stock diameter (to match the block hugger header diameter) fox body mustang shortie header on the passenger side.

 

Any idea what company made them?
Got any pics of the setup?
I'd love to see how you did yours!

 

Hey Cap,

Make sure you look as much at the position and depth of your motor mounts as you do your steering box - trust me 3/4 of an inch more or less is the difference between working and not.

 

I don't have any up to date pics on my PC right now... If I remember I will take some tomorrow in the daylight.

these pics are pretty old.. I had a different accessory setup and at the time I had the smaller diameter stock fox body mustang header on one side and a small diameter block hugger on the drives side.






I think that the block hugger headers were made by headman (I bought them and WAS going to originally use them on both sides but I would have needed to get a mini starter so I used a fox body mustang one on the passenger side so that I could use a regular starter.

The passenger side header that is on the truck now I think was made my MACs it was a larger diameter header that I got used off e-bay.

eventually I plan on making my own custom headers when I really want to kill some time.