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I've found that for our trucks, the Chilton's manual has quite a bit of information in the drive-ability and emission controls section, including diagrams for all the year model / engine combinations.
It probably has all the information you need for what you want to do and is a good investment for reference for anything you may need to work on with your van.
Then you can decide what you do and don't want to keep when you do the modifications. I came across a website where a guy was spouting the virtues of retaining the stock manifold and just changing over to a Quadrajet. I think you would do better with Performer intake, but a Quadrajet or other spreadbore carb might make sense with a motorhome while tooling down the highway.
Like I said, once you've been burned by the result of mindless modification, you can't help but be a little defensive when presented with the proposition of it being purported as a good thing without reservation.
I understand that, I have worked on things where it was done wrong before.
It makes a mess.
Another issue I have is the limited work space with all of the emissions stuff in there, one of the other guys was talking about limited working space in his vehicle, try a 86 e-350 with a 460, sure the starter comes out easy, but try changing the passenger side spark plugs...
I bet its as much fun as a 98 E350 with a V10. How long does it take?
The V10 takes a full day to change plugs on.
I was at my mom's the other day and looked under the hood of the old 56 effie with the straight 6. When I first looked at it, I got the impression that somebody has stripped a bunch of parts off it and it doesn't have everything anymore.
Then I thought, man two guys could get inside that engine bay with the motor and each work on one side of it. And then finally- the thought of how nice it would be if any of my vehicles were that easy to work on.
I've found that for our trucks, the Chilton's manual has quite a bit of information in the drive-ability and emission controls section, including diagrams for all the year model / engine combinations.
It probably has all the information you need for what you want to do and is a good investment for reference for anything you may need to work on with your van.
Then you can decide what you do and don't want to keep when you do the modifications. I came across a website where a guy was spouting the virtues of retaining the stock manifold and just changing over to a Quadrajet. I think you would do better with Performer intake, but a Quadrajet or other spreadbore carb might make sense with a motorhome while tooling down the highway.
I have this particular manual, I guess it is just harder to translate the whole setup in vehicle as opposed to in print.
I guess I will have to pick up one of these, would you recommend one over the other?
I thought they were both the same, I merely googled "1985 ford factory emissions manual"
(or something real similar) and copy-n-pasted some of the search results.
I see one says it's around 1,000 pages and the other says around 2,500, that's a big
enough discrepancy to make me think the two aren't the same books. I'd search around
some more and see who else offers the things and get the one with the most number of
pages. There are some pretty good industry experts here who might know of different
books being available but I don't know if they'll stop by and read this thread. Search eBay
and google and see what else you can find, my main intention was to point you towards
the factory shop manuals.
I don't have such a book of my own, I learned most everything I needed to know about that
stuff from two people - a former Ford mechanic, and a guy who runs an emissions testing
shop for 1981 and older vehicles.
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Drove my 1985 F250, my Bosses 1998 F150 (which was actually being towed....), and his Dad's 2004 F150.
I gotta say, those damn 5.4s got some kick to them.
...maybe the Jeep spark plugs aren't so hard to change after all. lol
I was thinkin the same about my 88 E-350, even though it's the biggest block in the smallest thinkable space, it only takes an hour or so to do the plugs. I am happy for my 302 in afull size truck, sooo much room.
In 05 they went up from 240 to 3100 HP, you should drive one of those!
Same with the V10, after 05 362 HP ( up from 305 )
Either one will lay down the rubber.
I have never driven one of the newer ones, I have only driven the older V10 and 5.4.
Originally Posted by Jmeyer1990
Drove my 1985 F250, my Bosses 1998 F150 (which was actually being towed....), and his Dad's 2004 F150.
I gotta say, those damn 5.4s got some kick to them.