It sure is hard to find drag strip numbers for these trucks. I finally just did a search and came up with 7 pages of crap. I found one 302 truck that was equipped similarly to mine, but it had an AOD trans and 3.55 gears. Those two items should pretty much cancel each other out with the 5 speed and 3.08's in my truck. Both trucks have exhaust work, the 302 had a cold air intake. The owner of that truck posted that he ran 17.8. I've run nearly a second quicker than that already, and should be over a second quicker now that I've had some time to tune a little.

 

Wow I think this is the most debated forum I have ever read on here. Lots of opinions and lots of pride. I think that it's time to admit that Ford had their shi* together with both engines. Both will run forever and neither will pull like a Powerstroke. Great reading though, but I think that both engines will serve whatever purpose. . Just goes to show that Ford guys a real proud of their trucks. Had fun with mine today in the snow.

 

Honda had a V4 that they turned into a V2 by connecting each side cylinders into one oval shaped cylinder. One crank, two (oval) pistons, 4 rods (two per piston), 8 valves per cylinder. Definately a crazy motor.


-=Whittey=-

 

I have heard that if you add a free flowing exhaust system, and probably a high flow airfilter, that you will have more top end. I have also heard that reason for this is that it makes the carb run a little lean. Is that true? I am not sure what kind of engine it was in reference to, but would also be true for the I6? If so, couldn't you get more top end power out of it that way? Just a thought. Not sure if it is correct or not. What do you guys think?

 

but we all agree that the 300 can't breath for crap.

This also holds true for the 302, but it's not as bad as the 300.

I deffinitly do not have the track times or side by side comparison or anything, but for some reason i'm still very suprised that the 300 can keep with a 302. I've been in a 302 truck, and it just seems that once if you keep the revs up a bit higher, the engine pulls harder, but it has been a while since i've ridden in a 302 truck. In my opinion the 300 is a better engine for a truck, even though the 302 is another one of ford's greatest engines.


Custom_truker:

yes, its true that a higher flowing exhaust and air filter will give you a better top end, but the change isn't very drastic. With exhausts and filters/"cold" air intakes, half of the horsepower gains you are feeling is really just the engine being louder

 

im with Rhetor here, my dads buddy had a 94 w/ 302 auto and it was qwicker in 2nd and 3rd higher up in the revs. but the 300 IMO is a true work engine...

 

if you placed both engines in a light little car (i.e. fox body stang), the 302 will have more of the get-go just because of its being better suited to the weight of a mustang than that of a truck. but once youre in a truck, those chances are nill to none unless youre starting your race at about 40mph, after that the 300 will not wind much higher and requires gears that put it back in its torque peak. this is partly becuase of the 300's long stroke moving the torque peak down the rpm range to a more useful range, and also because of the design of the inline-6: one of their main attributes is torque production, just because of the way their designed. hence why bmw's and supras and such use the I-6 approach vs. the v6, and why chebby went to the I-6 (maybe even I5 hmmmm) in their sport-utes.

 

Couple of random but related thoughts (excuse me if it has already been said):

I have heard that the single most effective thing you can do to a stock 300 is to open up the exhaust, particularly the muffler which I am told is most of the exhaust restriction (at least on the EFI split manifold models). Nothing else will be near as effective with out opening up the exhaust.

Given equal sized valves (probably not true), I should think that the 302 would breathe about 33% better than the 300 since the 302 has 16 valves to the 300's 12.

 

That would be true, except that its not that valve size per say that choke down the 300. the 302 can get away with having smaller port sizes becasue of the 16v setup that you just mentioned. the 300 only uses 12, and though the ports are bigger (supposed to be anyway) they were cast/designed very badly for airflow. This is one of the reasons why the 300 runs out of steam at around 4k rpm.

and yes, without tearing the motor apart, a good exhaust system is the best mod to a 300, but anything else almost requires some head work to work its best magic.

 

Also I've heard that the 300's ports were designed to provide flow velocity at low speed for that ol' stump pulling grunt. If the ports were opened up for high RPM, then the low end probably would suffer. So it may be more that Ford designed the engine for basic truck use instead of that they detuned it to keep the 302 out front.

As for running out of breath at high RPM, I never took a 300 over 4000, but my wife stomped it in neutral (thinking she had 2nd while trying to learn stick) and the tach needle hovered around the 4200 mark, so I am assuming that the natural intake restriction served as a sort of throttle limiter (or there is a rev limiter built in on my '95?).

 

Hey guys, I have owned both engines and I must say that with all the mods I've done to my 300 - It drives EXACTLY like a N/A diesel. Gobs of torque down low, drive around town in the same gear, lug the shEit out of it. My EFI 5.0 was hopped up a bit, damn that thing would rev to the sky! But it would have sucked in my 5000lb crew cab and would have gotten terrible mileage. Come on guys, these engines are two completely different beasts. Both are two of the greatest engines Ford ever made. Hell, Muscle Mustangs and Fast Fords mag did a spread on a late 90's 5.0L that ran a 8sec 1/4mi with a stock bottom end. No kidding. Both engines are indestructible. I was going to put a diesel in my truck at one point, but when I did all the mods to the 300 (soon to have a 240 head and SBC valves) I get great mileage (18 on hwy) and the thing just plain runs and is easy to drive. I sure won't be winning any races (unless I hook the other guy to the bumper and drag him over the finish line

 

I don't think the ports are that bad of a design, they just aren't big enough to feed 50 ci cylinders. In fact, IMO the 300 head is one of the better bases to build from. With a 302 you can only go so far before that damn pushrod hole gets in the way. No problem there on the 300. Of course the exhaust port heats things up a bit, but nothing some creative coating application can't remedy.

 

i always thought the intake (upper) was the major restriction w/ the long intake runners...