I have a friend that has an old truck with an FE motor in it. Not sure exactly what it is, or how to tell for sure. I knew the man that owned it, and it was once a nice truck. He's dead and I cant ask him questions about it now. His son-in-law was a GM mechanic and he would have known all about it, but unfortunately he's gone too. After this amount of time has past I have no way of knowing if its the original motor or if it had been swapped at some time. Because I know the people that did most of the work on it, it could very well be a Heinz 57 of whatever they could find at the moment. I'm not completely ignorant of the Ford numbering system, but I also know that they often used the same casting numbers for the same part on many different platforms, across multiple years. Does anybody have a good way to tell what I'm looking at, short of tearing it down and measuring the bore and stroke? I know there is a procedure they used to call P&G where they would check cubic inches on race cars, but I never really knew how it worked, what equipment it took etc.
pull a spark plug and measure the stroke with a wooden dowel and a tape measure. The 352 and 360 are 3.5 and the 390 is 3.78. 428 is 3.98 so damn near 4. It's easy to see a quarter inch difference on stroke between motors if you can read a tape measure.
The mysteries of FEs... LOL. Casting numbers are sometimes more useful for telling you what it's not rather than what it is. The 352 was gone at the end of '67 (both cars and trucks), replaced in the trucks only with the 360, so if you find a C8 or later casting number on the block it won't be a 352. The dowl trick as above will at least tell if it's a 390. The FE wasn't available in trucks until '65, and initially only the 352. Look for a 'T' as the third letter in the intake casting if it's a truck motor. The '58-64 motors had the round-top valve covers and the oil fill in the intake, '65-up the oil fill was in the drivers valve cover (except for some of the 427s). You'll find some with both fill points, but that usually means somebody swapped an early 4-V intake onto a later motor. But if the motor has been seriously molested with parts swapping, narrowing it down further can be impossible without a teardown. The main issue with the truck motors is they had low compression ratios, a piston change for more will wake one up.
Yeah @Bigjake that's the easiest and fastest way I was told along time ago. I bought an old ford truck with a supposed locked up starter and they "thought" it was a 360 so I dropped the starter and it turned fine, the engine didn't soooo I still don't know if it's a 360 or 390. .
@Budget36 I've been told it's possible, heard a long pencil works BUT I heard a long plastic straw works best, don't have to worry about it breaking and it will flex if it tries to bind. .
I'd agree with lostone, a long plastic drinking straw for a fountain pop or the slightly heavier drinking straws that some mini marts have for their slushies or what ever you call those icy things would be a better choice. It won't break and won't damange anything except it's self. I'd just set the piston on TDC, stick the straw in and marke it with a sharpie and then turn the crank until I figured that I was at BDC and put another mark on the straw. That won't work with engines that have the plug in at too big of an angle to the cylinder but I'm thinking it will work on an FE.
Before you do too much, look for the ID tag for the engine. If it is original it will probably be on one of the coil mounting bolts.
Let us not mix up the make-up of a pencil, with the wood quality and size, of a proper wood dowel. Happens, they are often found in a household garage Say Rex,,, cool if the mill goes into the avatar. Big Daddy Ed Roth once committed a 406 in that car So glad that it's back.
FWIW, my father in law bought a new Ford pickup in 74 with a 360, sometime in the 90's?? he thought the motor need to be "refreshed", the shop that did the engine work put in a 390 crank. FIL added a aluminum intake, Holley carb and headers (rv cam??). On the outside the truck looks like the day it was bought new (well except for white wagon wheels). FIL is gone, my brother in law is buying the truck. I, too bought a new Ford Pickup in 74 with the 360, went to the salvage yard and found an old style four barrel manifold and carburetor, the mileage may have been better but not much. When gas started getting high in the mid 70's that truck went down the road. I'd added headers so it did sound pretty good
Some good information there, thanks a lot. For 50 years now I've thought the 360 was the biggest POS that Ford ever made, I've owned 3 of them. I remember as a kid, I'd hear about people that had em and they were all gas hogs. A good 390 with a 4 barrel would outrun the 360 w/ a 2 barrel and get better mileage to boot. It's only been in the last few years that I learned about deck clearance, compression height and quench and why they are such turds from the factory. I thought once about trying to fix a 360 like the factory should have, but why, when you can do a 390 for the same money?
And just to add to the ID fun, Ford reused the exterior molds for 352 for the 390 and 360 blocks. So regardless of actual displacement, it will likely have "352' cast into the block on the driver's side.
Don't forget, could be a 410" as well. That's what I want to turn the 360 in my OT parts chaser into but the damn thing just keeps running.... Devin
Not all of them. I owned a '68 F100, 360, three on the tree and a 2.9 rear axle. Yeah, it was a bit of a slug but it'd knock down 22 mpg on the highway and mid-high teens in town. But put a C6 behind one and it was instant crappy mileage. 13 was good... That '68 was a good truck. Mileage did eventually fall off as the motor got worn out but it went 250K+ before the timing gears finally disintegrated. Needed a valve job by then too. I scrapped it because my X at the time kept driving it into ditches and the body was beat all to hell. I bought a '73 F100 to replace it later, 390 4V, C6 and 3.0 rear gear. Ran great and lots of power, but single digits was the rule for fuel economy. 2nd worst gas hog I ever owned. Ford did the same thing to these, a low compression ratio. Ford used that low compression ratio on purpose. Farmer Joe in Iowa could buy cheap crappy Co-Op gas, and if there was a little water mixed in too because he didn't check his home storage tank the motor didn't care. Take one overseas, it would run on whatever the local stuff was without needing a re-tune.
AFAIK, the 360 only came in trucks, we had some in our fleet at work and they were pretty doggy, by design maybe. I had a 390 in an OT Mustang, it was pretty stout. I had one 352, an oil belching wonder that always ran well.
I had a 390 in the late 80's in a lifted Ford truck, The 390 was warmed over, damn thing was a torque monster.
The 360 can also be found in '58 and '59 Edsel's. Although it is a much stronger motor than the truck 360's used later on. Better compression, cam, and arguably heads all wrapped up with those pretty E-400 valve covers (a reference to the torque rating). Ford also offered the 360 Edsel motor as the "Police Power Pack" to law enforcement agencies, so it can be found in other Ford cars that were built and ordered specifically for police departments in '58 and '59. This was replaced by the 300 HP 352 in 1960. Just the smaller Edsel's got the 360 FE. The 410 MEL (E-475) was used in the larger models.
Not to be confused with the 361 FT.... Which is really just an FE with a better crank, governed carb, a bigger oil pan, and sodium filled exhaust valves, all of which give the FT the ability to run at WOT for longer periods of time while pulling way too heavy of a truck around at 48 mph. Got to love Ford's naming conventions.
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