Hi, I bought my second old Ford last spring, a 79 F150 Custom 4X4 with a non original 400M. The truck was in the very first stages of restoration. I used the summer to get the truck on the road, make it safe enough that it wouldn't fall out from under me, again, cut out and replace every speck of bad sheet metal, seal things up temporarily against moisture, and finally do things like a dual exhaust and a stereo.
Right now the truck is just about ready to take paint, and runs very well, but I want to get it alot better than that. The engine hasn't been touched since 1979, aside from being installed into a different truck, and still has it's original 2 barrel carb.
All of the other parts on the truck I'm pretty good with, but aside from the basics, the engines of both this and my old truck have been constant sources of mystery to me.
I already put on full length headers, hooked onto a true dual exhaust that I welded up with 2 Flowmasters, and I'm assuming that things like a new 4 barrel carb and intake manifold are a given for boosting my 400's performance, but as for everything else I am at a loss.
I'm looking for suggestions as to what would be the best way to go about getting as much power out of my engine as possible for the money, and hoping for plans that would be easy to add on to in the future, without having to rebuy better parts (like, if I buy a new carb, intake, and cam, and later decide to invest in whole new heads, I'd like to have bought a good enough carb intake and cam to make an extreme modification like new heads worthwile).
Thanks for any advice, AleX

 

get a straight up timing chain set. the factory cam timing is retarded 6 degrees. also check out the 400 engine forum for more tips.

 

If you are gonna spend that much money and time on it I'd just do a 460 swap. Thats what I would do (personal opinion)