Me and my best friend are havin this dibate and we are both about to do a little show down on whats better he has a 75 chevy with a new carboarator and a glass packed muffler and i am gunna look into buyin a 75 ford step side just like his and i wanna know if i have a chance still lol and how much this may cost me in all for parts the truck and performance upgrades to stylin upgrades.

 

well it depends if you got a lot of motor choices over him he has either a 305,350 400 sb or a 454 probably a 305 or 350
you will have the choices of a 6 cyl. 302 351 and a 360 maybe you'll find one that sombody did a 460 conversion. what are you going to do race mud run ect. of mudd running or raceing get a automatic if mudd running make sure to cover the dist. or make it warter proff when you hit the water the fan throws water on your dist. cap. for look the ford will look better.

 

ok thanks i know know that he has a 355 or somthin like that but he is tryin to get the money for a 454 i am prity sure we are gunna take them to the limit of derability speed muddin and what ever else we can think of.

 

355, it would be a Chevy 350 small block bored .030 over I believe... Correct me if wrong...
In which case the Ford 350's motor would be a 351w or 360 for the year pickup I do believe.
As far as you question goes, for street races, I used to have an '84 F-150 "shell" (basically a Frame and body with an engine in it!) with a fairly worked 351 Windsor in it, and I smoked my friend with a '73 Cheby C-10 with the 350 + Edelbrock 4bbl & Glasspacks. So I think you would stand a fair chance:P

 

My first truck was a '75 F-100 with a 390. I had alot of fun with the 350 bowties. I would get 'em by 3 truck lenghts in the 1/4 mile, everyone of them everytime!

 

ok he wants to trick out his truck to race so i guess we are gunna do the 1/4 mile, probly the 1/2 mile, max speed, and some sort of a multi turn course. i did find a '75 ford step side that look exactly like his but its brown, so i am gunna see if he wants to sell it. if it is possible can somone post a list of engines for that year with there # cyln. and what size block and about how much power i might get. or can somone give me a url so i can research it my self i can't find any pages with all that info.

 

In 1975 you could get a 300 Inline 6 awesome torque good for Mudd. You could get a 302 or 351 Windsor, tons of aftermarket modifications, both are 8 cylinder engines and both have good powerbands. Finally you could get a 360 or 390 FE series both have a lot of aftermarket modifications, they need a few too, you will have to put headers on because the exhaust manifold is so restrictive, they weren't smogged so much then, the FE's have tons of combinations and the 390 is a real pwerhouse. Keep in mind that the 300, 351, and 302 are all small block motors and the 360, and 390 are big blocks and that means strength and weight. I don't know how to tell you the differences without checking the casting numbers. The windsors are some of the best engines ford ever made, if you plan to race make sure that your automatic is a C6 and not the C4, I have never had a C4 but the C6 is an awesome, superstrong transmission, it will outlast your truck. There is no such thing as a weak 9 inch rear end but the U-joints are questionable past 100,000 miles you should probably replace those with NEW ones. The only way to tell if you have the old U-joints is that they don't have grease zerks on them. I think in 1975 all the axles were 28 spline. Don't worry about those. Whatever truck you buy make sure to check it out thoroughly. Make sure there are no leaks anywhere on the vehicle and take it for a test drive, if it doesn't run now it will only be a money pit, from the sounds of it you aren't much of a mechanic, but that is okay because you would really have to screw one of these up.

 

ok thanks for the input i am gunna try to do all this on my own. and im not quoit the mechanic for sure lol thats why i am takin auto right now and we just started engine performance so i will get a kick out this.