1986 F-250 build/rebuild progress thread.

[FordFETruck]

I can't remember who said to make a progress thread on here, but you asked for it

Here I'll be posting pics and progress posts of when I tear the engine and transmission out of this heap in the following month or so. I'll be installing a new ATK long/short block that I'm going to do some stuff to. I'll be installing a Comp Cams 255DEH camshaft in it, a double roller timing set, reusing my Edelbrock E street 5023 cylinder heads from my old engine and rebuilding the C6 transmission myself. I've done one C6 before and it's holding up to 500HP/500TQ just fine, so this isn't a problem. For the C6 I also have some upgrades. A Torco 2000-2500 stall converter, an ALTO high energy clutch master build kit and a TCI low drag/full roller kit to install to replace the thrust washers with torrington bearings. I already have a shift kit installed. Here's some pics I took of the long block as it arrived today.  It appears they sent me the crem de la crem for an engine block. A late 1969 for 1970 351W block which should be the 9.480" deck height. I had a thought of wouldn't it be nice if they sent me one of those the other day and laughed thinking yeah right, well turns out I seem to have gotten what I wished for.

I'll be pulling the heads off in the morning but from what I saw through a sparkplug hole it's .040" overbore and the crosshatching grit pattern is really fine from what I can see from the bottom so it should have moly rings.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Probably me, and I'm glad you did!
((Progress is Gooooood! ))

That's awesome that you got the low deck block right out the gate!

I'm always recommending to 460 folks to have their block squared and zero decked.
Often I wonder if they understand how much it helps, not only with getting good compression numbers, but with quench.

I've built a few 5.0 Windsors back when I was into Mustangs.
500/500 is already a very solid number for a 351!
What are you shooting for from this build?  

[Gary Lewis]

That's a really good starting point!  You got lucky!  

[FordFETruck]

Oh, the 500HP/500TQ engine is a 445 FE stroker that C6 is behind that I did with my dad years ago. I have no idea what this one will make. 300-325 HP? it should be pretty much the same as what's in the truck now except the cam is slightly different. I had my 390 zero decked and man will that thing throw ya back at 10:1 compression. It's surprised a lot of people considering its got a stock 1964 352 cast iron intake and exhaust manifolds. Actually, that stock zero decked 390 with an XE262H cam blows the absolute doors off this current 351W with the Edelbrock heads, Weiand stealth intake, Hooker long tubes and the custom 2.5" dual to 3" single exhaust. If I can make this thing run as good as that pretty much stock 390 I'll be real happy.

[FordFETruck]

Alright I did quite a bit to this thing today. I pulled the heads off, they're D8OE heads, no surprise there. The pistons are about .018" in the hole, not terrible. Quench should be .057" with that and a .039" head gasket which is a lot better than the current engine. The crank is .020" under on rod and main and it's got king bearings in it, which is fine with me that's what I used on my last two engine builds with great success. Deck surfaces appear to be resurfaced, main and rod clearances plastigaged out to .0015". Cylinder 4 had some minor scuffing I assume from what looked like some flash rust in the cylinders. I took that piston out and cleaned the cylinder wall up with some scotchbrite real lightly and deburred the bottom edge of the piston skirts and cleaned everything. It's looking the same after about 10 rotations and can't really catch your fingernail on any of it its just kind of ugly. Engine turns over nicely. I put the Comp 255DEH in it and put the Cloyes street true roller double roller on it. I've got a set of F1DZ-6500-A OEM Ford lifters I want to use but the lifters it came with look really nicely ground also so I'll definitely be hanging onto those. The cam that came out appears to be about .410" lift or so. Probably the same powerless cam I took out of the current engine 11 years ago. Overall this thing looks pretty good and it should run just fine.

One thing I noticed, this must have been an original 1969 or 1970 351W they remanufactured because it's got C9OE rods and looks like a matching crank also.

[Gary Lewis]

You really lucked out.  

However, having done a bunch porting on a pair of D80E heads I can tell you they don't come much worse.  Not that you need to change, but I can tell you that there isn't a lot you can do to make them better w/o a ton of work.  And even then they aren't all that much better.  

[FordFETruck]

Yeah I'm not gonna use the D8OE heads on this one but these are what I took off the current engine and the thing ran pretty good with the comp xe250h cam and the D8OE heads but it runs a whole lot better with the Edelbrock heads on it now.

[Gary Lewis]

Good plan, Stan.  The Eddy heads are a big improvement.  

[FordFETruck]

Alright some progress has been made with the new engine. I bought a set of Flotek 203-505FT heads instead of reusing the Edelbrocks on this engine as I am pretty sure the engine is consuming coolant now and its getting worse every time I drive it. Not sure if using the stock Fel-Pro replacement gaskets with aluminum heads was a bad idea back in 2016 or if the deck surface wasn't optimal or what but I didn't feel like finding out last minute there's something wrong with the heads. I'll just check them out and reuse the old heads on the old engine when I go through and rebuild it for a spare engine eventually. I also noticed a partial VIN on the new engine, anyone care to try to decode what it came from? 1970 something I know that.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Oh man that's pretty!  ❤️

Which head gaskets did you use w/ the Flotech heads?
Do you think the slightly bigger port volumes will affect bottom end with that cam?

There used to be a kid here in town that had a very healthy 351(ish ) in his Mustang.
He had some kind of 4-link or alternate rear suspension because there's no way a car that light should hook as hard as it did.
Word spread fast not to even try...

[Gary Lewis]

Wow!  That looks good!

As for the partial VIN, does it match your truck?

[85lebaront2]

Gary, you will find this tidbit intersting. When I had to go in a rebuild the engine in my 66 GT350 due to a good friend losing the drain plug on I-64, I found the original Mustang Ford VIN stamped in the block upside down behind the alternator. 6R09K225398. 6-model year, R-San Jose assembly plant, 09-2DR fastback, K-HiPo 289, 225398-consecutive unit number.

[FordFETruck]

I used the Fel-Pro 1011-2 gaskets on this one. I used the 8548-PT2 on the old engine and wonder if that was a mistake using those with aluminum heads long term. And no, vin doesn't match the truck at all haha. The engine in the truck now I don't think that block even has a VIN stamp on it, can't remember seeing one at least.

The port sizes are only marginally bigger at the gasket surfaces but the ports inside the head sure look bigger, but no I don't expect any loss of low end, the slightly higher CR should help make up for it. As I calculated the CR on this engine, static should be 9.5-9.6:1 and dynamic of 8.27.


Last night on the freeway I was in the far right lane in a construction zone and some semi pulling a set of 28 footers blows past me in a big curve and almost sucks me into his back trailer then into the guard rail, gets in front of me then slows way down. I was already doing 60, he must have been doing 75-80 how fast he blew past me, then slows down to 55 once in front of me. I decided I wanted way away from that psycho, that old engine can still bury the speedometer on a 4% grade for 2 miles, I couldn't see that truck in the rear view mirror anymore

According to Comp cams camquest/desktop dyno with the specs I have and the cam I chose it says it should be making 342HP @ 4500 RPM and 444 TQ at 2500 RPM. Not sure it'll make that much but should be in the neighborhood of it I'd think.

[FordFETruck]

Alright got the old engine and trans out today and tore the old engine down. I found the source of the weird smoke and coolant loss, needed intake gaskets. I also found a bent connecting rod on cylinder 5, that explains the weird harmonic shake idling in park that I could never make go away. It was not noticeable in gear or under load or high idle. I caused that by accident in 2017 after the engine got filled full of rainwater and didn't know it but the engine never ran any different after the accident so I figured it survived without bending a rod, well it did bend a rod. To think I ran that engine to 5000-6000 RPM dozens of times like that and it never caused a problem is insane. The bearings date coded to Aug 1999 - Feb 2000 and the old water pump, and fuel pump casting dates were 2000-2001 so I bet this engine was installed 2001-2002. Engine block is in good shape and the cylinders have some wear but not bad at all. The bearings though, looked pretty nasty.

My Comp cams XE250H came out looking great and the lifter faces looked good too but the lifter internals were always loud and crappy sounding, cam is good for a regrind for future use in something else anyways. I took the trans half apart draining the fluid and it looked pretty good as well so that should be a quick easy job.

That intake gasket is the steel core Felpro 1250S3 which isn't supposed to do that. The steel core actually broke around one of the ports there.

[ArdWrknTrk]

How does that #5 bore and journal look after running a bent rod for 7 years!?!?!?

Damn, rods are tough!

Wow, that's pretty amazing the piston could move at all!  🤯

[FordFETruck]

Rod journal looks ok, bearings looked about the same as the rest of the rod bearings. Cylinder bore undamaged. The bearings in this engine were pretty worn and had a lot of debris run through them at one point or another. If this engine was installed in 2001-2002 that would have been 170-178,000 miles and truck has 253,000 now. Not really a lot of miles but I suppose it was probably ran pretty hard towing a 5th wheel and hauling who knows what, it didn't have a whole lot of power stock. The block is good for another go around at least. Crank was 10/10 and probably needs turned again a couple of journals are grooved up.

Some of the bearings looked worse but most were about like these.

[Gary Lewis]

That is amazing that the rod was bent that much and not only was there no damage to anything else but it ran - for many thousands of miles!  

[FordFETruck]

Alright today I reconditioned the oil pan and installed it, the timing cover, water pump, balancer, lifters, push rods, aligned the rocker arm guide plates (PITA)! all of the lifters are rotating, oil pressure was 60-65 PSI spinning it with the drill. I'll have the intake manifold on tomorrow and a few other misc pieces. It's coming along nicely. I got pretty lucky and the old pushrods which are 8.152" were the correct length and gave a pretty good geometry line/pattern on the valve stems.<nabble_img src="448343411_352857684492149_6605638402364149318_n.jpg" border="0" alt=

In the past I drilled the rivets out and threaded the dipstick boss for bolts but wasn't very happy with the 5/16-18 threads so I re-tapped it to M8X1.25 and now have better threads and better bolts with flanges on them and I used copper sealing washers with the bolts, made a new gasket for it and coated it with permatex super 300 and red loctite on the bolts.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Flotech seem to have paid attention to valve depth and deck to rocker boss height.  👍

Have you tried the orange gel for 'red' applications?
I've gone over to PST for almost all my sealing needs, though I still use the red anerobic gasket eliminator, and that green tube, gear oil resistant RTV on the diff's

Some places -like china walls- you just can't get away from ultra grey or The Right Stuff.

[FordFETruck]

You know its funny you mention the valve depth. They have the intake and exhaust valves set up at different installed heights. Not that far off from each other, looks like its intentional as they're all the same for intake and exhaust. The push rods are close enough, exhaust valve stem pattern is dead on in the middle, thin line. Intakes are also in the middle but the contact pattern is a little wider. I can't make it any better without having a custom set of push rods made, or using two lengths but they're plenty acceptable for this low lift cam I'd say. Haven't tried the orange loctite yet, I really don't want those bolts coming loose. I've been gravitating to the Permatex super 300 for a gasket dressing/sealant where I don't want to use silicone. It's especially made for use with high detergent fluids such as coolant and ATF, and it has worked fantastic on everything I've used it on. It also works well on the outside of shaft seals. I plan on using ultra grey for the china walls and coolant ports. Just realize I didn't upload a pic of what I was talking about.  This absolutely stupid design.