272 Engine or a 302 Engine MONEY!!!!
 

I have almost decided to put my 302 rebuilt engine I have into my truck, but was wonder what all I would have to change out to make it work. I have a complete 302 with C4 tranny, V8 Radiator already with new starter and almost everything on the engine is new. I want to put it in the truck but don't know how muh work it will be. Would the wiring harness have to be change for the 302.

What I am looking at is a money thing right now. I have a 272 engine that need rebuilt. Where as I already have a rebuilt 302 with the works. I was fixing to install it in my 68 Falcon (oops) Truck more important. Would it save any money in the long run.

I will be using the truck for hauling trailer, so I want a little power and is alot easier to get parts for.

Any suggestion. I want to try to get started this weekend or next.

272 Engine or a 302 Engine MONEY!!!!
 

Blackjack

I have beaten this same question to death a few months back. My conclusion was this: The Y block is original and everything fits together just as Uncle Henry Ford intended. Parts are expensive and availability is not great. Hard to walk into Pep Boys and get those Y block parts. But it is original. The 302 has available parts galore at a reasonable price. But, if your truck is like mine, new motor mounts and transmission mounts will be required. Probably have to cut the drive shaft. If it's an auto trans, buying or fabricating the mount and getting everything lined up and hooked up (See J. Niolon's excellent piecce on fabbing a trans mount).
Then there's shifter hookup, radiator matchup, fabrication of brackets, wiring.

Point is, either way will cost you money, the 272 will fit like a glove with no mods but you have 50 year old technology. The 302 will yield good horsepower, parts availibility but you have to make it fit and work.


Which is best? I puzzle every day and ponder the question. Hope this helps !

Steve:confused:

272 Engine or a 302 Engine MONEY!!!!
 

Most of my friends around here are not to happy with their y-blocks and have converted o 302s or 351s in 55Mercs&Fords and the same for me in my 56, the 50yr old design has seen it's day.

272 Engine or a 302 Engine MONEY!!!!
 

James

Don your fire suit at this time. I gotta respect a guy that's not afraid to take a good eBeatin :)

Jack

Big Hands summary is excellent. If you enjoy fabbing and working through problems, then do an engine swap by all means. I think a 302 would probably be a little more reliable and require less work to daily drive. But you have to pay the fiddler upfront, because ANY engine family swap is full of time consuming issues to deal with in the beginning. You'll wear a path to the parts store for piddly stuff to complete the conversion. It will cost considerable money no matter how you go. This is an expensive hobby if you don't have 15 parts trucks to rob used parts from.

272 Engine or a 302 Engine MONEY!!!!
 

Another bit in defense of the Y. Agreed that there is a parts premium at the rebuild stage (maybe 30% over your mass market motors)
Plenty is readily available from suppliers linked all over these threads (especilly the Y Forum right here).

THere is plenty that can be 'modernized' on the way. A late model 4 bbl intake is not high and you can pop on a nice Holley 600. Pertronix II can get you a breakerless Ignition, and is not big bucks. See this link for the full treatment http://www.rodandcustommagazine.com/tipstricks/74739/

I just dont see alot of 'unobtanium' that would leave you on the side of the road after the rebuild! I would add too that most of us a weak in spirit and get a bad case of ' gee, I can change that while I'm this far apart" thats cool for sure (when you put on the IFS with cross drilled fancy rotors etc) but it will keep you off the road longer!

THis rebuild or replace is one of those fine debates/arguments/battles that makes FTE fun for guys who have taken both paths. :-tap

272 Engine or a 302 Engine MONEY!!!!
 

<b>Most of my friends around here are not to happy with their y-blocks and have converted o 302s or 351s in 55Mercs&Fords and the same for me in my 56, the 50yr old design has seen it's day.</b>

Then I would say your clueless friends should stay away from the Y as mentioning the current upsurge in parts and mods availability would be over their heads.:-X01
Or the 272 based Gasser that is turning in the 9's.

As has been beaten to death over the years on the forum the 302/351 are nice engines. If the truck wont be used for towing then the 302 will move it, otherwise Id opt for the 351W or something bigger.

I have a 351W in a 86 F150 and it groans when pulling a 5000 car trailer. OTOH I have a 292 Y in a 54 F350 and it is perfectly happy with about the same weight in the 9' bed.

272 Engine or a 302 Engine MONEY!!!!
 

I won't say that I would always replace a Y-Block, cause I did have a few good ones and I'm about to drop one in it's origanal place in a 56 2dr. we been working on,But I wouldn't go out of my way to make one fit where it didn't belong.
One of my friends still runs the same boredout 312 that he's been running for 35yrs., it's only a fair weather ride, but it's dependable, he even changes the oil everyother year, and that's all he does to it.
I like that website above and go'n to stash that info. in My Favorites

272 Engine or a 302 Engine MONEY!!!!
 

That all you Y-block boys got? I'm ashamed of all of you except Cruiser and Carl. You'd take me behind the woodshed for a comment like that. Fine, I guess it's settled then. Y-blocks are irrelevant and can not be relied for serious use as a truck engine.

'fenders :(

All in fun James :)

272 Engine or a 302 Engine MONEY!!!!
 

Waaaaiiiiit a minute there F-Man!

Did we not mention
-(per Hands) the happy grr-rurr-rurr of the pushbutton starter,
-the applause (forgot which space cadet got this thread going) of the rockers beating on the solid lifters
- the La la la la la of the exhaust at idle
- the deep torque (mash it at 500 rpm and watch it dig!)
- the sweet perfume of blow-by?
- the forearm burns on owners from Cross over pipes?( always refit with rams or headers)
- the furrowed brow of the "whats-a-Y?" post 50s youth
- the cursing when refitting the 'round-the-world-and-back' plug wires?

Cmon and enjoy 625 lbs of OH-riginal OHV fun with us!



:-X03

272 Engine or a 302 Engine MONEY!!!!
 

I have a very tired 292 YBlock, ( I am planning a rebuild as we speak). I also have access to more updated motors, but there is no question of which way to go for me, after having this tired old 292, I am excited about how nice a rebuild 292 would be. And no matter how tired it is. My YBlock still applauds me. (Yes, I am the proud space cadet that started that thread) YBlock's Rule!

272 Engine or a 302 Engine MONEY!!!!
 

Hey Larry, I'm getting there with my 272 rebuild (same thing as a 292 - smaller pistons). The shop folks are taking a special interest in the engine as well. Seems this shop doesn't see Y-blocks very often. They are always fussing over little tolerances or small improvements in the rebuild whenever I visit. Makes me a lot more confident they are doing it right. They want pictures and a report after we get it installed. If I ever get it on the road I'll be sure to stop by the shop for a visit. Nice to have folks interested in your project, isn't it? :)

272 Engine or a 302 Engine MONEY!!!!
 

George your 272 is being done in a shop? What is the cost that way, verses doing it myself? Any idea? Brutus is not being restored like Earl is, so I do have more time to focus on the engine.

Hey Backroads, George just gave a big reason to stay with the Yblock, You say 302 or 351 and its no big deal. But you say YBlock and people are intrested, there different, more rare. And isn't that one reason we like these old trucks?

272 Engine or a 302 Engine MONEY!!!!
 

I'd thought I'd throw my 2cents in on this one. Jack, I love my Y-block, It'll always start up, runs like a champ and makes good torque down low. There's alot of performance parts as stated above. Plus, there's always "ahh, ya kept the Y-block in her" from the old timers at shows:-X04 I might myself like the sound of y-block cam, and the sheer fact thats its one. If your just for low buck all out performance go for the 302. If you want decent performance and would like to join the "cool cliché" then get a y-block. Good luck, -4speed

272 Engine or a 302 Engine MONEY!!!!
 

Larry,
Sorry, another long post. Oh quit bitching, you're all used to my ramblings by now. :-X09

Unless you have a fairly well equipped machine shop at your disposal, I'm not sure how you'd do all of it yourself. Carl, 'fenders, Tim, and a whole bunch of the crew have a lot more experience rebuilding engines than I do, but here's what I've found out doing it the first time.

1. I disassembled the engine down to individual bolts and parts. We kept track of where everything came from and the orientation it was in. The engine shop needs this to look for problem areas and to put things back in the same place for some critical parts. Larry Fetters (the senior shop machinist) figured that may have saved them $150 in labor.

2. I probably could have cleaned the block and all the parts using sulphur molasses or Sodium Hydroxide. The cost for having the shop hot-tank everything was only about $100, and I'm not sure I could do it that cheaply or as well as they did. Grit blasting is definitely out - I could never get every bit of the grit out of the heads and block, and the grit really tears up engine parts once it migrates into the oil after you get the engine back together.

3. About the only engine parts you keep are the heads, block, crank, rods, and maybe the rocker assemblies. Provided, of course, they are all in good shape. I went into this thinking I would check out all the other engine parts and see if I could reuse them. Basically, it wasn't worth the money I'd have paid to have them all inspected. It took quite a few conversations with FTE folks and the engine shop to figure that out. Finally, Larry showed me a standard, major rebuild kit from Federal Mogul and all the parts it comes with. Then he smiled and said, "Whatever ain't in this list are things we MIGHT consider reusing." Well, just about everything was on the list except what I mentioned above. There are always some auxiliary items like the oil pump that you have to either check out, replace, or rebuild. For Earl, Larry is buying the major rebuild kit and installing things like the valve guides, hardened valve seats, cam bearings, etc. that require machining and/or press fits. He's going to leave the rest of the assembly to my brother and I. God help us. :rolleyes:

4. Every engine surface that has to be flat and/or has to match up with another part gets checked and/or machined/ground. Head bases and head-to-intake manifold mating surfaces, intake manifold-to-head mating surfaces, block decks, even the block skirt was checked to make sure I wouldn't have problems with oil leaks at the oil pan gasket. Other things need to be machined like line-reaming/boring the crankshaft and camshaft bearing journals. The cylinders will almost certainly need to be rebored and/or sleeved. I don't have the equipment to do the inspections properly or the machine work.

5. I had to have three crankshafts Magna-Fluxed before they found a good one. I've been told that is unusual for the 272/292 as they are quite sturdy. At any rate, I don't do Magna-Fluxing in my garage (there's probably a kit for it). Then the good crank had to be reground to get all the bearing surfaces cleaned up and square.

6. The main bearing caps were checked to make sure they fit into the block cutouts tightly. I learned that the cap bolts will not keep the caps from moving sideways, they will only keep the cap tight up against the cutout base. Larry had to add weld beads on 3 of the caps and then carefully grind them down until the caps fit tight in the cutouts. The line reaming of the crank main journals was, of course, done after this cap rework. Again, I don't have the equipment to do this work.

7. Larry will check the deck and piston height to make sure we don't have pistons sticking above the decks after the deck machining. If there is a problem, he can put the new pistons in a lathe and turn off a few thousandths without much trouble since they are flat-topped pistons (not domed performance units). Another task I'm not prepared to handle properly.

8. The shop promised to give us thorough instructions on how to install all the parts, what assembly lubricant to use, what sealants to use in various places, what to watch out for, and a bunch of other information to make the reassembly easier for us. I got some of this information from various web sites including John Mummert's y-block site.

The shop is taking care of a lot of other little details I didn't describe above. We are going to pay them somewhere around $1000 for all the machining and labor. I don't have the price for the major rebuild kit yet, but I expect it to be between $700 and $900. I've added about $300 to the budget to take care of things like the oil pump, sealant materials, a gasket kit, etc. We'll save, maybe $300, reassembling the engine ourselves (if we don't screw it up). Honestly, the only reason we're doing it ourselves is because I want to have some sort of substantial effort on every part of Earl's restoration. I don't want them to hand me a complete engine and just plop it in. So, the total bill will be about $1000 + $800 + $300 = $2100. Oh yeah, add $100 for the third crankshaft I had to buy so the total is about $2200. Actually, that's what I expected. We are only saving about $150 + $300 = $450 by disassembling and reassembling the engine ourselves.

You can rebuild your engine using a bunch of different combinations of the things the shop and I are doing to Earl's engine. I'd say we're probably doing just about everything for a top-end, straight restoration, with no performance parts. Start with this as a guide, but figure your own costs based on what you really feel you need to do to get the engine in reasonable shape. I bet the experts on this forum can tell you what you can get away with and what you can't. :)

272 Engine or a 302 Engine MONEY!!!!
 

I have 57 F250 Y block 272 and a 77 f150 with a 302 and the Y block will out run the 302 any day and out pull it. I have used my y block to pull my 24' travel trailer. As to it's dependability it was my only way around for years. It took me every were I wanted to go for 15. Hey it runs good sounds cool and looks good.