I have a mildly built 390 in my slightly ot 65 galaxie,and a friend has a stock 352 with 2 barrel. He's doing the swap work and giving me cash..anyway,is the mileage difference going to make enough difference to justify the trouble? I get 8 mpg now,and if I don't find a solution,the car is going away,which I don't want.any input?
I wouldn't think so, both engines are gas hogs. I've had both engines and the best mileage is achieved by driving really conservatively. The slush boxes don't help at all. Standard transmissions, easy on the gas and you can get decent (?) mileage. With that said, buy a cheap car for mileage, keep the 390 and have fun.
You probably won't get much better fuel mileage just poorer performance. A lot depends on how tight the 352 is and how well tuned. The secrete to fuel mileage is tuning, my friend. All things working together you should actually be getting better mileage than that from your 390. Look for a thread by Roothog on FE Mileage. its a ptetty fair thread. Lastly according to the media gas should be down $.55 by memorial day. These gas hikes very seldom last very long. The govt normally says they are going to do an investigation and the price goes back down. Trust me I have seen this happen more time than I can count. I even fueled my Hawg up once in the desert from a gas tanker that was getting ready to dump so we could have a gas shortage.
You might look around for a diagnostic type shop that can run an analysis on the 390. You-he-they might find something that needs fixin. Check with Chris at Bridgetown Automotive... .
My stock 352 2 barrel motor with a 4 speed averaged around 12. Added an aluminum intake holley 600 and headers and picked up 2mpg. On a good day driving at highway speed I could get 14. The FE's are not mileage enginebut do make lots of torque. By a cheap vw for mileage, (that's what I did) and enjoy the FE on the weekends.
In the '80s I came up for a visit from Mexico. A friend's kid had a 64 1/2 mustang with a six in it. He took it to a diagnostic shop one morning while I was visiting and they told him it needed a valve job. So they asked if I thought so. I told them it may need a set of points. They said what are those. So we wnet to NAPA and bought points plugs and condensor, the rotor and cap were fine. I changed them out and set everything the way it should be. He took it back to the shop that afternoon and ran another diagnostic on it. It passed with flying colors and they were amazed that we could get a valve job done so quickly. then we told them what the deal was and they refunded out money. most diagnostic shops haven't a clue on Non Computer cars.
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